He Built His Own Round Bale Wrapper

He Built His Own Round Bale Wrapper BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 29-5-11 "I built it because I couldn't justify the cost of a new machine and I didn't have a bale wrapper," says Chris Ross, Pawlet, Vt., who used parts from several old machines to build his own pull-type round bale wrapper. The 2-wheeled, hydraulic-operated machine was built entirely from scratch. A front-end loader is used to load a bale onto a pair of rubber rollers. The bale spins in a circle and also rotates on the rolls as it's spinning. After the bale is wrapped, the operator dumps it off the back of the machine. The controls mount on the machine's tongue. Ross used parts from a mixer wagon, a New Holland haybine, a lawn tractor, and a truck. The wrapper's frame, sprockets, shafts, bearings, and hydraulic motor - which operates a conveyor feed chain that rotates the bale - all came off the mixer wagon. The rolls that the bale sits on are off the haybine, and the tires that guide the bale as it rotates are off the lawn tractor. The conveyor is driven by the rear end off a truck. Each rubber roll consists of a length of steel pipe with a washer and rod welded to each end. Ross turned a length of fire hose inside out and pulled it down over each pipe to provide a rubber gripping surface on the outside, which the wrapping material rides on. "I built it in my garage last winter and used it this summer to wrap more than 200 bales. It worked great," says Ross. "Everyone told me it wouldn't work. I had never seen a bale wrapper work before I built this. But I build stuff all the time, and I decided that it couldn't be that hard to do. It took quite a bit of altering to get it to work right but it cost almost nothing to build. I found the haybine rolls in a dump years ago, and I got the mixer wagon free for parts. "Most commercial round bale wrappers are 3-pt. mounted, but I wanted a pull-type model because it's easier to hook onto. There's no fighting with any 3-pt. hitch arms." A pair of hydraulic cylinders allow the rolls to be raised or lowered in order to adjust to different bale sizes. "Both rolls are driven, but one roll is put into freespool mode when the bale is dumped off in order to avoid ripping the plastic," says Ross. "I use it to wrap grass silage bales, which my beef cows eat like you wouldn't believe," notes Ross. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Chris Ross, 780 Vermont Route 133, Pawlet, Vt.

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