The never ending nice swath thread..

[Gettin by]

Crops are light enough and looking to be even lighter in the coming weeks.
Rowing up with a twin rotor rake leaves a pretty swath but even running at 300rpm on the pto most rakes will leave a narrow, high swath where grass is light rather than a shallow, wide swath which would suit a wagon or baler better.

Any simple solution that isn’t a new variable width rake or adjustable cam tracks?
Thinking the reverse of crop gathering wheels under the rake chassis axle or something similar?

 

[Andrew]

Crops are light enough and looking to be even lighter in the coming weeks.
Rowing up with a twin rotor rake leaves a pretty swath but even running at 300rpm on the pto most rakes will leave a narrow, high swath where grass is light rather than a shallow, wide swath which would suit a wagon or baler better.

Any simple solution that isn’t a new variable width rake or adjustable cam tracks?
Thinking the reverse of crop gathering wheels under the rake chassis axle or something similar?

I prefer tall narrow swaths, air gets through them dry better, and in a baler you swerve side to side to side to get the correct bale shape. Normally better bales this way than if you have a wide swath you can barely get in the pickup.

I suppose if it reallly bothers you you could take the outermost tine off all the rake arms??

 

[bovrill]

Run through the swath with a haybob. They leave it a lovely shape!

 

[betweenthelines]

Run through the swath with a haybob. They leave it a lovely shape!

Acrobat's even better

 

[dowcow]

250rpm on the pto?

 

[Greythundercloudys]

Blast from the past, a cockpheasants made an amazing big rows, l can remember when l was 6 or 7 dad doing hay with it amazing. Afew years later he did get a haybob. A field done with one of those back in the day looked very nice.

 

[Massey Ferguson 6480]

Crops are light enough and looking to be even lighter in the coming weeks.
Rowing up with a twin rotor rake leaves a pretty swath but even running at 300rpm on the pto most rakes will leave a narrow, high swath where grass is light rather than a shallow, wide swath which would suit a wagon or baler better.

Any simple solution that isn’t a new variable width rake or adjustable cam tracks?
Thinking the reverse of crop gathering wheels under the rake chassis axle or something similar?

Have you tried speeding up giving it less time to pull into the row?

 

[Gettin by]

It does help to keep the tine sets full obviously but in clover it will loose leaf and anything that’s been driven on is always stubborn to hook out of the sward.

 

[norse]

Slower rotor speed = wider swath

 

[KennyO]

When i was in NZ we liked the vee rake for the round baler. We had it set wide so it left the crop at the outsides of the swath. Brilliant round bales.

Rotor rake always left it heaped in the middle which was better for the square baler (3×3 bales)

 

[Massey Ferguson 6480]

You do really need an adjustable cam track to make a decent baler row, everyones different but most baler men seem to like a nice flat wide row.

 

[Spencer]

Try 1000 rpm.. might throw it out wider