Push-Off Bale Spike

Push-Off Bale Spike HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 18-4-3 A British ag student says he's solved one of the main problems facing farmers who handle big bales - pushing them off the spikes. Mike Clarke, who came up with his push-off bale spike as an engineering project at Rycotewood College in Oxfordshire, mounted a pair of hinging curved plates on a front-end bale handler fitted with three 2-ft. spikes. Each of the push-off plates is fitted with a double-acting cylinder mounted on the bottom crossbar of the bale spike frame. Clarke made the bale spike from scratch using 3-in. sq. tubing but says his idea would work on many loader and 3-pt. mounted bale handlers. He notes that the curve in the push-off plates is critical to success of the idea since that means there's a flat surface always in contact with the bale as the plates rise up. If he were building it again, Clarke says he would make the spikes longer than 2 ft., since the bales have a tendency to tip for-ward as they come off, and he'd use smaller hydraulic cylinders, since little force is actually needed to push the bales off. Contact FARM SHOW Followup, Mike Clarke, c/o Rycotewood College, Priest Lane, Thame, Oxfordshire, England (ph 084,421 2501). (Reprinted from Practical Farm Ideas, P.O. Box 1, Whitland, Dyfed, SA34 0HZ U.K.)

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