2010 - Volume #34, Issue #6, Page #13
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Revolving Wagon Picks Up Small Bales
After building a toy model, Sunderman built two for testing with an implement manufacturer. The company later backed out.
Tollakson was impressed with the wagon because it made it so easy to pick up bales. He convinced Sunderman to sell him one of the wagons for $4,500. (The other unit is in Minnesota.)
The Sunderman bale wagon is like a big revolving door or combine reel with 9 compartments. Each compartment holds seven 60-lb., 36 by 24-inch bales.
The wagon is operated by hydraulics using three levers. Push one lever when approaching a bale to pick it up. Another lever turns the reel. The third lowers the pick-up for loading bales and raises the pick-up for transporting. With extra bales in the pick-up Tollakson hauls 66 bales at a time.
To unload, he reverses the process and unloads them onto an elevator to store in a barn loft. The bales can also be unloaded out the back in a row on the ground. Because it's so easy to operate, when Tollakson's children were young, they unloaded the wagon while he stacked bales.
"I haven't put $200 into it since I bought it," Tollakson says. Last year he welded a piece of steel to replace a guide for the pick-up, but that's about it.
"It's an oddity to see small round bales in the field," Tollakson says. At 70, he knows that if it weren't for the Sunderman wagon, he wouldn't be putting up round bales either.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Eugene Tollakson, 3024 Mink Farm Rd., South Wayne, Wis. 53587 (ph 608 439-5949).
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