Jim (everybody),
well I looked at the NH1005 bale wagon yesterday and decided to buy it. It's not home as I didn't feel like unloading the trailer to put it on and then try to fit that load on too. I'll have to go back (4 hours or so each way) to get it as soon as there's an opportunity. Attached is a small (dial-up sized) pic.
It's a 2 wide unit that holds 56 bales (or 55 if you do the "tie tier" in the middle to stabilize the stack). It will only do single bale unloading onto an elevator ... it won't dump the stack as a block. It does look like converting it to stack could be possible, so that will be an option for the longer run. They had a manual for a 1000/1010 model which seems very close. The 1000 does stack unload, and the 1010 does both stack and single bale.
They didn't remember they had the manual until we'd spent a good while trying to reverse engineer how it all works! LOL. Everything seems OK, a hydraulic leak to fix and a few teeth are needed on one of the conveyer chains. I got what I think is a good "end of year" price, less than half what they were asking for another one closer to here.
I'm looking forward to trying it out.
On the bale baskets, I looked into those too, and they were one the list of possibilities. They seem to have a lot to commend them. The one guy I talked with who had quite a pile of them seemed happy. I'm hoping to automate the unloading part too, as my wife and main helper (as the boys have moved out /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif) has recently come down with Rheumetoid Arthritis so is unable to heft bales about. However she should be able to run the stack wagon onto the elevator ... we'll see. We recently got a second tractor (IH674) that has power steering, which she is able to drive. So this does mean that we can bale onto a wagon with me stacking too as an option.
I'm looking forward to trying this thing out /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif. If anyone has a two wide model (like the 1000 or 1010) that stacks then I'd appreciate some pictures of the dumping part at some (later) time. There are some pictures in the manual that give a pretty good indication of most of the "engineering" required. It would be a fun project.
cheers, Andrew