Why a Discbine Won't Help

July 2
The only way to cut faster is too go wider... but I have a video to make about the fields with narrow gates. I wonder if there is a mount disc mower with a conditioner that isn't a triple mower.

[@farminstoltzfus]

There are some days I miss our 14' center pivot CIH 8370. Cheap mower to maintain and isn't power hungry like our 13’ CIH DCX132. The old sicklebar mower conditioner would bounce over rocks without bending guards or breaking knives where it would on the discbine. No gearboxes, turtles, shock hubs, etc etc that's on a discbine. Less ash/dirt in the hay. We could at 6mph n knock down 40-90acres a day. We finally made the jump to a discbine because we started growing more of the one thing the 8370 couldn't handle, lush grass. Alfalfa, oats n peas, cereal rye, sorghum sudangrass... it could handle all that. Moment you got into thick Italian or perennial ryegrass, it was done.

[@johnrankin9944]

Love this series you are doing on haying. Some of the best you have done.

[@HumbleHaymakers]

We went from a 7ft sickle mower conditioner (Hesston) to a 9ft Krone disc mower conditioner with impellers (2801cv) and have some rough lumpy fields too. I don’t see any issues running the Krone over what you’re doing with the haybine. I slow down, but know there will be zero plugs and frequently mow early or very late when there is dew or after a rain (with clear haying weather ahead). The dew/wet grass stops the sickle machine, but not the Krone. One thing is you need more hp than a haybine. Our Krone has quick change blades, swivel gear head for really tight turns and the dry-down off our impellers is impressive. We’ve got some videos on our channel mowing with the Krone. Nothing wrong with a haybine though....

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah it looks like a haybine works pretty well for what he's doing, in his area and conditions and crops, and his size fields and amount he's doing. That's not a bad thing, because haybines ARE cheaper to buy even if more trouble to maintain (though less expensive probably than internal repairs on a diskbine long-term) and take less horsepower, so he's getting by mowing with that 2910 which is just over half the horsepower of my 5610S I use on my 7-2 drum mower or a 9 foot Kuhn 3 point disk mower I was running for a friend years ago... Difference is I'm running 6 mph all day long in ANYTHING with those mowers, he's stuck at 3-4 mph with the sickle machine. BUT if you don't have that much ground to cover, well, it works. I know if we were still stuck with sickles I'd have probably quit growing hay by now... we didn't realize how much we struggled until we bought a drum mower back in '88, it was literally a godsend!!! Fire ant mounds in our clay soil are just H3LL to try to cut hay through! Drum and disk mowers just zip them off like they're not there! OL J R :)

[@fordfarming7700]

I see where you’re coming from and we said for 10 years we don’t need a discbine we bought one 2 years ago now and we don’t regret it at all I run in 6th high in a ford 8700 on my own ground because I run a Tilloll before I plant and they’re smooth. On my shares, happy hay, and lease hay ground I run in fith low because like you said it’s just too rough.

[@PAYNEKILLER..]

Imagine driving by watching him chase that mower around, I'd be pretty confused.

[@boehmfarm4276]

Haha

[@bryanginder5903]

Looks nice an thick! Don't matter how rough it is a discbine will cut it just fine if your going your 3-4 mph they will cut at any speed, been on way worse fields with discbines, don't get me wrong their is a place for a sickle machine, we run three jd moco's but still have a sickle machine for oats an peas, barley an peas, an other crops like that that need a jentle touch!!

[@pinesedgefarm1155]

I'll agree with you.

[@anderleof]

Spell much?

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@anderleof Bad spelling doesn't p!ss me off half as much as people who are just too d@mn LAZY to use any form of punctuation whatsoever in their replies. It's just unreadable crap! OL J R :)

[@donmacdonald7758]

That s some of the nicest hay I ve seen this year.

[@nathankaiser5592]

Lol

[@DarLav8]

Sarcasm much lol

[@timpingel9607]

Lol

[@jimf-150]

That’s pretty much what all our hay fields look like and our cows and my sisters horse love it, you don’t need “nice hay”

[@donmacdonald7758]

@@jimf-150 5 people disagree

[@isaacfulton7731]

We got a disc mower for second and third cutting hay. When it's more grass blades and less grass stems.

[@walterlaubscherjr2011]

Another great video

[@scottk8245R]

Being someone who’s ran a 2015 new holland speed rower discbine..6.5mph is plenty fast enough. Any faster, you’re basically knocking it over versus cutting..that and there’s a chance for rabbits to get outta dodge

[@lukestrawwalker]

LOL:) I've cut overgrown dallisgrass/native pastures down here in Texas, and the drum mower sure sends the norway rats in the field packing... I saw one one time that didn't get down the hole *quite* fast enough-- front half was down the hole, back half was zipped off clean and tossed out behind the mower to the side of the windrow LOL:) Hate rats... OL J R :)

[@billwhitman1529]

Speed is not the only reason to consider the upgrade to a disc mower or discbine. You mentioned not knowing the duration of your agreement, you will cut much closer with a disc mower/discbine. One thing you can consider for your hay ground getting a roller.

[@petepeeff5807]

Both machines have their advantages . I have both. One thing for sure a haybine has a much lower initial cost.(used market). Haybines also are much cheaper to operate in the long run. When the cutter bar fails on a disc machine and it will if you have the machine long enough (especially if you dive it like a maniac) big $$$ to repair . Haybine a few guards and sections every year and the occasional bearing and chain. YES! A disc machine will run faster, not plug,and cut stuff that shouldn't be called hay.ButI it will cost more to buy and own.

[@boehmfarm4276]

My thoughts exactly.

[@chevyon37s]

Having run a Deere 835 moco the past 6-7 years covering thousands of acres the cost of ownership is nil. Only thing it’s ever cost is grease, knives, and cutter bar oil. The deere cutter bars are extremely well built from what I’ve seen. Rocks, eating dirt, old net wrap, chain link fence, and even watched a fire extinguisher go through it... changed out a few knives and kept on going. And we cut in very rough terrain. So the cost of getting more acres per hour done ends up in the long run being cheaper with a good disc mower, especially if an operation is paying a person to sit in a seat and cut hay (like what I get paid for) farmers of smaller operations often don’t value their time like they should and consider it free, and it’s not.

[@petepeeff5807]

@@chevyon37sCongratulations on the size of your opperation. I would add that to the advantages of a disc machine, ability to cover alot of ground quickly with hired help. In my part of the country the fields are small and hilly 20-50 acres. I think the economy of scale plays out in favor of a disc machine in that case . If you do run into mechanical issues you will just trade it to avoid downtime.

[@400brian]

At the moment I have a 488 NH haybine and a 1411 NH discbine. Discbine is great in heavy or slimey conditions, doesn't plug. Haybine cuts cleaner in short fine crops. If you have rocks, the haybine will cost less to keep running. The discbine has cost us a lot of money to keep running. Disc gear boxes are most of $1000. We also had the main box fail, and that was $3000 for a re-man. So lately, I have been running the haybine more. The discbine requires more hp for sure.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@chevyon37s Yep less hours on the machine, less hours of burning fuel to do the same job. That adds up! I've had a drum mower we bought new in 1988. In all that time, I've only had to replace the driveshaft yokes twice, tubes once, skid shoes under the mower drums once, belts twice, transport/safety release bar once, a new pair of counterbalance springs, and the input "cluster gear" (bevel gearset, what they call it in the Dutch translated owner's manual). Other than blades and grease. OL J R :) All told that's about maybe $1,000 in repairs in 33 years of hard use. That's not bad. Bought an old sicklebar mower from the BIL for trimming around the ponds and rebuilt the cutterbar on it, and had several hundred bucks in the knife sections and guards by the time I was done... so they're not exactly cheap either. Later! OL J R:)

[@00Silverado]

These are my favorite videos on the channel🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@FarmallFanatic]

What kind of 4 Wheeler were you riding to keep up with that mower?

[@cameronnalley3197]

It was a 2 wheeler lol

[@FarmallFanatic]

@@cameronnalley3197 lol

[@mtozzy11]

Mowed rougher than that with a disc mower, broke the haybine on the rough stuff never bothered to fix it. Don't knock them till you've tried them.

[@bryanginder5903]

Your right a discbine will float across anything that a sickle machine will go over, just because you can cut at 12 mph dosent mean you have to!

[@mtozzy11]

@@bryanginder5903 and in the heavy wet stuff the mower doesn't struggle. Also blades are slot easier to change and sharpen. Have USA and euro mowers here in Australia n prefer the euro gear. N don't get me started on on rakes lol.

[@williamwimer2007]

When you get down to a strip of hay that narrow. You don’t do corners. You just go straight with your sides and you won’t miss on ends with trying to turn.

[@n2slugs]

A disc mower could go the speed you are running now and you would love it. The biggest thing that would annoy you is that if you have flail conditioners it takes a lot of horsepower. In a pinch I can run my 12 footer on my 886 if the hay is thin, but it usually spends its time on the 4440. You would have to use the 1086. Sure, I can run just as fast as I want, but I usually don’t because lots of my stuff is old pasture and just as rough as yours.

[@ghenry85]

What brand is your mower?

[@n2slugs]

It’s getting old now - I think it is a 935 John Deere (might be 925). I’d have to go look. It’s a 12 foot cut (7 turtles) with flail conditioners. It has been a great machine. Bought it new about 20 years ago.

[@ghenry85]

@@n2slugs See alot if Jd 935s around me. John Deere machines are ussually very good(Oh no I said that on Jacob's comment feed😂)

[@DarLav8]

Here in Ireland we have some of the toughest ground around and all silage/hay is cut with a discbine as ye call them, this gets the job done but very slow in comparison to a discbine.

[@rogercarrico4975]

What PH does the soil in your area typically run? We are pretty acidic here in north Mississippi. 5.5-6.0 or below. Most fields benefiting from application of ton of lime every 3-5 years. . I learned a lot wihen you spoke at the end about your ideal hay to plant. Some good looking hay you were in, for sure! Enjoyed the video.! Very informative!👍

[@boehmfarm4276]

We're around 6. It's about impossible to put on enough lime with our clay.

[@ghenry85]

As long as your not plugging and can do the speed you want with a haybine, you dont really need a discbine. We had a haybine years ago and dad likes to cut low so we were constantly plugging. You seem to cut taller so your ok. We have a 8ft discbine built by Kverneland, it has design flaws but it does the job. The one thing it does ruthlessly well is handle bumpy gound. The cutter head suspension is awesome with an easy 2ft of vertical travel. Look forward to seeing you bale Bandid's straw.

[@ghenry85]

Oh and we just clean up corners after wards. Takes 5 mins.

[@oilfarmer706]

what do you have on that haybine? stub guards or the old style rock guards. ive been on the fence about switching my new holland 489 over to stub guards.

[@boehmfarm4276]

It has stub guards. I like them. I don't remember a time without them. I do know they are more expensive.

[@oilfarmer706]

I kind of figured. You are flying compared to how fast I run with my 489. That and I'm always having plugging issues if you so much as touch any hay that has already been mowed, it plugs.

[@boehmfarm4276]

I go through mowed hay all the time. Only issue may be the far corner when the cut windrow is thick.

[@darrellnichols6179]

You don’t have to run a discbine fast. Just not having to deal with a sickle bar is justifiable. And cleaner cut.

[@cals6391]

The discbine will even it out

[@Northern_Farmer]

not always a cleaner cut

[@cals6391]

@@Northern_Farmer in alfalfa it gets uneven sometime with a 926

[@jwhitley101whitleyfarms9]

@@Northern_Farmer fluffy hay does take a sickle to get it all but your using the real deal windrowers cut good with either head

[@AJmx2702001]

I dont miss the whole 3 acre here and 10 over yonder lol we gave it all up since it was more work and wear mowing empty industrial park lots for a rich lawyer whos too cheap to pay me to take care of it .... I just picked up 120 acres of brand new seeding so with my 40 acres i have its all in 2 places and it will be fun to mow it just not sure my 535 moco will survive it lol

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah I hear ya... "Only thing worse than NO DEAL is a BAD DEAL" is what I say, from bitter experience. I've learned to walk away from "bad deals" no regrets... Like Dad used to say, "I'd rather the other guy be p!ssed then ME being p!ssed!" True true! I had a guy one time hire me to cut this place, it was all hog wallows and just weeds and garbage. What the deal was, he didn't want to have to pay someone to bush-hog it and have NOTHING to show for it, so he convinced himself that hiring it cut for hay, well, at least he'd have sh!tty rolls of weeds and old dry standing grass when he finished and paid up. I can understand the logic, but it really wasn't worth baling, and I'm no snob when it comes to hay (cut many a field that looked a LOT worse than the stuff Jacob was cutting in the video!). D@mn guy even tried jewing me down on price, when I told him that I charged $18 a roll to cut/rake/bale. "H3ll I can get fertilized Jiggs hay delivered for $25/bale!" I looked him square in the eye and told him, "Well that sounds like a h3ll of deal! Why you wasting your time standing here talking to me?? You should do that. I know what it costs me and it's $18/roll take it or leave it, you know how to get ahold of me when you make up your mind!" He called me a few days later to do the job. Problem was the ground was SO rolling and hummocky with all the d@mn hog wallows in it that I ended up busting a safety/transport link on the mower which allowed it to swing too far back and bust a driveshaft yoke, which put my cutting to a stop waiting for parts. I came and raked and baled what I'd cut over the next few days, and then quit the job-- just too hard on my equipment... whole d@mn farm should have been ripped up and disked honestly-- old riverbottom that had NEVER been turned and that's why it was full of hog wallows and hummocks... Later! OL J R: )

[@7thgenfarmer976]

Great video, I’m from Illinois and make farmin vids too🤘🏼

[@Fullern90]

We did some pretty rough fields this year it’s worse on a steep hillside when the mower starts sliding around

[@bryanginder5903]

Same here have cut way worse, they can be terrible rough an still float across

[@MedicineYandere]

I've heard of a conditioner attachment for my mounted disc mower (NH 615) but they're apparently not very good

[@taderdigger4115]

Crestview Farms I have a pull type conditioner I would sell you. I also have a 615 they are great mowers just take a while to cover very much ground.

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah I think Krone and Kverneland make a 3 point disk mower with a conditioner. Problem with those units are they are HEAVY. Some have rollers some have flail conditioners. Flails are fine for grass hay, rollers do better with legumes. Pull types aren't bad so long as you can get through the gates. With ANY disk mower it really doesn't matter WHAT the "top speed" is-- most of that is salesman talk anyway. It's just telling you what it's CAPABLE of cutting at. Sickle mowers limit your ground speed because at a certain point, you're travelling further forward in a given amount of time than the sickle can move back and forth to snip stuff off. That's when you start "outrunning the sickle" and it will start cutting really raggedy and start pulling up stubble and eventually clog and plug, break the drive, break the knife, etc. Remember at 6 mph you're covering 8.8 feet per second, so 4 mph ground speed is 2/3 that or 5.86 feet/second! If your mower is a good fairly modern one with say 1,100 strokes/minute, that's 18.33 strokes a second. At 4 mph cutting speed, 5.86 feet/second (times 12) is 70.32 inches/second, divided by 18.33 strokes/second of the knife equals 3.84 inches travelled forward per stroke of the knife! Now you see why you can easily outrun the knife on a sickle. With a disk mower with 2 blades per disk spinning at 2,300 rpm, the knives would pass in front of the cutterbar 4,600 times per minute, (divide by 60) or 76.6 times per second! That's over 4 times as many "cutting strokes" per second as a sickle! That's why you can't "overrun" a disk mower! On said disk mower cutting at 6 mph, or 8.8 feet/second (times 12= 105.6 inches per second cutting speed), the mower would only move forward 1.38 inches between each pass of the disk mower blade. (105.6 inches travelled divided by 76.6 blade passes per second). Sure if you have a perfectly flat field and a high horsepower tractor, razor sharp blades, etc you can run 10 mph with a disk mower. In theory (and for sales videos and advertising). In reality, most of the time you won't be going that fast, nor would you need to. Like any machine, it will last longer NOT running at the absolute top end of what it's capable of doing... and not being bounced to pieces. BUT even stepping up from a sickle running at 3 mph or even 4 mph to a disk mower running at 6 mph is a 50% to 33% reduction in time to cover the same number of acres, and that's assuming the same machine width (7 foot in your case). Going up to a 9 foot disk from a 7 foot sickle is over a 28% increase in ground covered with each pass, just in width! Even running at a modest 5 mph with a disk mower of the same width, you'd still be covering the same ground in 60% the time versus going 3 mph with a sickle, or 80% of the time going up from 4 mph with the sickle. Plus disks will handle MUCH rougher conditions than ANY sickle... that "bouncing" is what disks shine at, what they were made for! They'll cut through fire ant mounds or crawdad chimneys like they're not even there, and do it all day long at 5-6 mph no problem--I know because I've been doing it for 33 years already with my drum mower we bought new in 1988! They have counterbalance springs on either type, 3 point mounted or pull type, and the pull types are even better because the springs are usually pulling straight up and down on the cutterbar suspension links, rather than pulling sideways like on the mounted ones! If disk and drum mowers were in ANY way inferior to the sickle machines they would NOT have virtually taken over the entire market! Sickles struggle in down, tangled, or wet forages, and in muddy conditions, or with obstacles like muddy crawdad chimneys or overgrown wet clay fire ant mounds... disks and drum mowers cut straight through it without problems. If you ever run a disk or drum mower, you'd never go back to a sickle. There's a reason for that! OL J R :)

[@chrisrexroat3240]

What do you guys typically charge for custom square baling in your area? I"ve started do a little here and there for some friends and they are mostly letting us keep it all just to get their fields cleared, or we do a 70/30 share, but I have had a few people contact me about custom cutting and baling for them to keep it all. Not very many farmers around my area that deal with small squares anymore or that want to deal with less than 10 acres.

[@boehmfarm4276]

I charge $2 to drop the bales in the field.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@boehmfarm4276 That just for baling?? Or is that cutting, raking, and baling and dropping them on the field? I used to charge $15/roll to cut/rake/bale rounds nearly 15 years ago, dunno what it runs now. And old WW2 vet up the road told me "never undervalue your own labor" and paid me $18, so I started charging $18... and took his lesson to heart. He was a h3ll of a guy! Sadly he was 87 back then and no longer with us for awhile now. I miss chatting with him from time to time. Later! OL J R :)

[@MichaelYuhas]

I'm from NE Ohio, what was the hay see mixes you mentioned? It was had to hear. Thanks

[@boehmfarm4276]

Red top bent grass and birds foot trefoil.

[@eileener27]

Got a disc bine this year will never go back to a haybind. I don’t drive 6 miles an hour

[@dakotabeuerlein6031]

Hay bines have there place lol I still use my old hay bine a few times a year

[@dakotabeuerlein6031]

I should say I have a disc bine to

[@cameronlumsden6566]

The ford is doing a mighty job

[@lanedeal5159]

Hey Boehm a disc mower can take that and It would do the same job faster and It levels just like your haybine and you would at least 2 more feet of mowing width and I can see why you wouldn't go fast on that rough field and I like your videos

[@ghenry85]

I think he could run a 9 footer haybine with the same tractor he is using in this vid. A nine foot disc mower woyld take atleast his 6610 to run. With that 6610 he could run a 12 ft center swing haybine. He is managing a good ground speed with his haybine and not plugging, so a diskbine wouldn't be that much more value to him. That all being said, I wouldn't run a haybine personally, but I see Jacob's argument on why diskbines arent a huge advantage for him.

[@JMo268]

I've got a NH472 and a Ford 3000 so very similar setup. Do you run in 4th Low or 1st High or some other gear? Thanks!

[@boehmfarm4276]

Three low. The rice tires make it a little faster. Once mowed a nice field of Timothy for a neighbor in fourth.

[@JMo268]

@@boehmfarm4276 That's interesting the camera plays tricks. It looks like you're going faster. Good luck on editing all the footage from this year's hay season!

[@austinhancock5072]

All I know is we went from a haybine exactly like yours a 474 and we couldn’t mow at night because the rollers wouldn’t pull it through but we have a new Holland 1410 disc bine and it is a flail mower and when we are mowing we put our mower on float and we can run our mower with our 6060 Allis chalmers and it does fine but when it is thick we have a 6400 or a 7200 John Deere that dose just fine with it

[@njjjkllll1950]

How many cows do you have

[@mcleanfarmsryan3897]

Jacob ever thought about a hay Tedder to get your hay to dry even faster instead of Relying on widening the swath with the haybine

[@joeymintkenbaugh5914]

What part of ohio are you in because im near fayetteville

[@boehmfarm4276]

Ten years ago, do you remember a kid on a hay wagon selling sweet corn in the center of town? That was me.

[@jankotze1959]

Nice

[@kalebchaffin9747]

Ever looked into a 3 point wing type disk bine?

[@boehmfarm4276]

Like a krone ECR 320 with CV conditioner?? I killed some time last night watching videos.

[@laurier3348]

When you lower the tire pressure it may roll smoother.

[@redbovine]

We got some of the smoothest fields around. 10-11 mph is normal for mowing with a discbine.

[@tr165eaglebsa4]

Firstfield I will agree that a discbine won't shine, but in your second field looks like it will 😋 and what part of the USA is home?

[@boehmfarm4276]

I'm near ish Cincinnati, Ohio.

[@bryanginder5903]

On your mounted mower!? I don't think anyone makes a mounted discbine with rolls but I do think they may make them with the flail conditioner on them, if your just cutting grass the flail is the best for fast drying but knocks off leaves on alfalfa!

[@ghenry85]

I believe Krone makes a mounted disk mower with roller conditioner.

[@kyleczubek168]

You should make a mud flap to go over your draw bar so u dont get so much hay dragging off the mower just saying.

[@lukestrawwalker]

Cut a foot or so of old round baler belt and bolt it to the underside of the drawbar with a couple bolts through the hammerstrap holes of the drawbar and fender washers... works great. OL J R :)

[@howardsmith1111]

Hang an old mudflap (cut a 3" hole in it) on draw bar infront of hitch pin, then the pin won't drag a load of the winrow. And "Across" does not have a "T" at the end!

[@macfarms]

Shes pretty rough going there Jacob lol

[@Northern_Farmer]

if the fields that rough.. rip it up and re seed it!!

[@seabee2317]

Lely used to make one

[@richardjohnson5883]

Cutterbar goes out on a haybine you change the sickle or guards. Cutterbar on a discbine means $$$$$. It’s all about what fits your needs.

[@lukestrawwalker]

Depends on what mower you have... sickle sections, knives, and guards ain't cheap either. Some mowers are cheaper and easier to repair than others, and better protected from damage. The old ones were the worst, but they've come a long way to improving things over the last 30 years... OL J R :)

[@jaycool7805]

👍

[@calvinsmith6756]

A discbine is also tough and way more reliable

[@ozz5350]

👍👏👏👏

[@sethhall1625]

if your worried about rutted up feilds then till it up and replant it and stay out when its wet

[@lukestrawwalker]

On "free hay" ground or rental ground... not only his decision to make. Landowner has the ultimate say-so, and they'll bush-hog whenever they feel like it, so ruts are NOT out of the question even if you DO get it all nice and level... OL J R :)

[@cameronnalley3197]

Wish my hay looked like that :/

[@jbaron5908]

You should slow down in rough fields. And your missing hay driving around corners like that. Lift up and back up and square it off

[@boehmfarm4276]

Or just mow a strip out the corner at the end. The next gear down is painfully slow.

[@farmshoffman8475]

Great awesome video Jacob , check out krone they have different sizes in mount disc mowers

[@boehmfarm4276]

I was glued to videos of krone r series CV disc conditioners last night. Now to find a used one in the states.

[@lukestrawwalker]

​@@boehmfarm4276 Krone makes some nice mowers. Been looking at them myself. I've done some homework because our old PZ Zweegers drum mower is only a 7-2 cut (212 cm) and it's 33 years old, so getting a little worn LOL:) (ie curtains are in rags, top shields are about rusted out/cracked, etc). The reason we went with the drum mower back then was simplicity and robustness. I'm a big believer in "the more complicated you make something, the easier it fouls up". IOW, the KISS principle. Back then Boehm Tractor in Shiner had 2 options they were selling-- NH disk mowers which at that time were built by Kuhn and rebranded as NH, and the Zweegers drum mowers. Back then the old Kuhn series 1 mowers were "non-top service" gearbed cutterbars. the stamped steel cutterbar gearbox served as the "spine" of the cutterbar, with the skid shoe cutterbar guards bolted onto the front/bottom of the cutterbar gearbox. 23 spur gears meshed daisy-chain style down the length of the cutterbar, plus a gearbox with pair of bevel gearsets to turn the power 90 degrees from the belt forward to a vertical shaft and then again to the horizontal input gear of the cutterbar. That looked like a nightmare to me-- too many places to fail, and one broken tooth circulating up and down the cutterbar gears would wreak havoc, as many guys found out on those early models. When a bearing went out in a disk (turtle) shaft, you had to break open the entire cutterbar to fix it. The stamped steel cutterbar gearboxes bolted together like 2 oil pans back to back, so a LONG gasket mating surface, and more than a few rusted out and started leaking oil or letting water and filth in. Running partially exposed (along the back and top) made things worse. The drum mower, by contrast, used only 3 pairs of bevel gears-- one for each drum, and one to turn the power 90 degrees from the belt pulley to the cross-shaft turning the drums. MUCH simpler driveline. The gearbox was ABOVE the cutting drums, so well up out of the dirt and abrasion and filth and water and sap, etc. Much less prone to corrosion/damage. Basically a steel box beam with a lid and gasket on top, so structurally stronger. So we bought the drum mower. It's still going most of those old early NH/Kuhn's are junked long ago. Oh, you can still buy them as an "economy" model-- the Frontier (Deere's el-cheapo brand) is a Kuhn series 1 mower. I like the drum mowers, but they're heavy for their size/width of cut. My 5610S is VERY light on the front end without weights with the drum mower folded straight back (they had a vertical lift option but we didn't have it, plus it would be VERY hard on the headstock and RH 3 point lower link, since it would basically be carrying the ENTIRE weight of the mower in transport position! Folded straight back they're shared equally between the two lower links, though the top link is basically pulling nearly the entire front end weight of the tractor off the front end... but it works!) Unfortunately drum mowers have kinda faded away, there's still some manufacturers making them, but usually "off brands" from Turkey or Italy or something like that. PZ Zweegers was a Dutch company bought out to become PZ Greenland which got bought out by Kverneland Group, which now owns a bunch of different brands of hay and manure and tillage equipment. Pretty much ALL the major manufacturers have settled on the disk mower design and that's all they build... TO be continued... OL J R :)

[@lukestrawwalker]

Continued... Basically there's 3 types of cutterbars used in disk mowers... "gearbed" type which uses a string of idler gears and disk shaft gears to spin the disks on top, usually with an input shaft or gearbox on the LH end driven by the gearbox and pulley or driveshaft and gearbox of the mower from the tractor, either through belts or directly from the shaft. Belts are often used as a "shock absorber" and is a benefit to have. "Modular" cutterbars, which use a series of RH and LH turning bevel gearboxes and spacers assembled much like a gang on a disk, with alternating blades and spacers as needed. The modular cutterbars come in two types-- those that bolt the cutterbar disk modules (gearboxes) to the spacers on each side, which bolts to the next module down, to make up the cutterbar (modern New Holland, Rhino, etc) and "stacked" modular bars, which use a single long arbor bolt, similar to a disk blade gang, to hold everything together (Lely/Vermeer and probably some others). The NH type cutterbar uses short "quill shafts" between each module to transfer power from one module to the next, running inside the cast spacers bolted on either side of each module (except the ends of course). Because of this, NH cutterbars can be split ANYWHERE along their length for replacing a module, since the bolts between them and their adjoining spacer are easily removed. Lely/Vermeer type modular "stacked" bars, OTOH, are much like a disk in that an "inside end" blade breaks, you have to take the whole thing apart to get to the damaged box. There's a single large "arbor bolt" that like a disk gang is tightened up to lock all the boxes and spacers together into a rigid cutterbar. The modules are driven by a single long (or in modern cutterbars, two or more shorter shafts) hexagonal shafts that slide through a hex bore in the cross-shaft and gear in each module... problem is these can twist over time and make disassembly a challenge or require cutting and replacement. Then there's "hybrid" type bars, as I call them, which the only one I know of is the Deere pull-type Mo-co's. Deere 3 point disk mowers are merely rebranded Kuhn series 2 mowers, painted green. Deere builds their own pull-type models though with a completely different cutterbar and parts. The "hybrid" cutterbar is a gearbed type, but in MODULES that bolt up to each other, so the bar can be split at any point as needed for repairs, like a NH modular bar, quite unlike any other gearbed cutterbar made. Unlike other gearbed types that use a stamped steel or welded steel plate box to make the cutterbar, the Deere bar uses a cast steel which is much stouter. The benefits and drawbacks of the different cutterbars are also interesting. I already mentioned the "brittleness" of the design (complexity) of the gearbed types, BUT they're cheaper to manufacture. The early model stamped steel boxes have pretty much been replaced by more robust cut steel plate jig welded "box steel" type cutterbars which are stronger and more resistant to flexing and damage/corrosion than the older stamped steel boxes bolted together were. All gearbed cutterbars use a COMMON SUMP with gear oil circulating the entire length of the cutterbar, pulled around by the rotating gears. This means any shavings or failed parts (like bearing cage material, broken bits of steel gear teeth, etc) that breaks loose is carried by the oil up and down the cutterbar length and can damage other parts. The common sump means that if the cutterbar is operated on an incline long enough, with one end of the bar higher than the other, the oil all runs to the low end and the high end is starved for oil. Of course that also simplifies oil changes and refill, as it's done with the bar upright and the plug is on the low end of the bar, with a fill and level plug somewhere usually in the first 1/3 of the bar length (for 3 point models, pull types are different and use a dipstick of some sort). Modular bars, OTOH, have lube in each of the separate modules, so operating on inclines is no problem, as each module has it's own self contained amount of lube. Of course this means each module has to be changed or checked individually. If a module starts having a parts failure, like say a broken gear tooth, it is contained to that single module, and can ony cause further damage within it alone. That is a HUGE benefit when it comes to repair costs. The gearbed cutterbars tend to be much more "low profile" and thus can cut lower with less disturbance. Modular cutterbars, relying on small bevel gearsets to turn the power from the horizontal cutterbar drive to the vertical disk hub, is somewhat thicker/taller and usually had a more "domed" or taller "turtle" blade disk, which creates more airflow (wind) and disturbance while cutting, particularly in light/thin crops or with conditioners contributing to the airflow. To be continued... OL J R :)

[@lukestrawwalker]

Continued... Early disk mowers had NO cutterbar protection other than the "give" of the drive belts. Of course going from a 540 RPM (typical on 3 point models) driveshaft speed to about 2200-2300 or so RPM of the cutting disks requires about a 4:1 gear-up, so the belts have to slip some when the PTO is engaged, providing a little "slip" or cushion to the driveline. Early models with no protection for the disks could 'tear each other up" from momentum when something was hit, which could cause catastrophic damage. For that reason the "modular" and "hybrid" cutterbars were designed and later on, cutterbar protection devices installed on the cutting disks. There's quite a few different systems, and some are FAR better than others, which I'll outline now. Kuhn developed a "series 2" cutterbar with 'top service hubs" as the first major improvement to their design. They went to a beefier welded steel box bar, with large holes and threaded holes on the top of the bar so the disk turtle gear hub assemblies can bolt in FROM THE TOP, with the gear fitting through the large hole, held centered by a pilot and seal on the bottom of the bearing hub assembly. The assembly consists of the gear, which meshes with the idler gears inside the bar on either side to receive and transmit power down the bar and keep all the disks in time, a vertical shaft running up through the gear and double-row ball bearings inside the bearing hub which bolts to the top of the bar, a shaft seal at the top to retain oil/seal out dust/crud, and a top disk hub on the end of the shaft to which the cutter disk bolts to with four bolts. To protect the cutterbar gears from shearing teeth if a solid obstruction is hit, Kuhn decided to mill a SLOT in the shaft, which is about an inch or so in diameter, just above the seal and just below the disk hub splines where it bolts on the top of the shaft. This slot reduces the shaft diameter down to about that of a dime, which creates a "weak spot" so that if the cutting disk hits something immovable, the shaft simply TWISTS OFF at that point in the slot rather than destroying the gears in the cutterbar drive. The cutting disk and the top of the hub shaft bolted to it are simply "tossed out the back" of the mower. To repair, one must replace the entire $250 assembly as a unit, because Kuhn DOES NOT sell the shaft separately. To replace it one takes out four bolts, pops out the old bearing hub off the top of the bar, takes the 4 bolts holding the disk onto the now sheared shaft hub off, puts the new module into the top of the bar, making sure the disks on either side are timed 90 degrees of rotation apart with respect to the new hub, and replacing the four bolts holding it to the top of the cutterbar, and then bolts the disk back on top of the new shaft hub at the top with its four bolts. BUT it's a $250 (last time I checked which has been a long while) fix. Bad thing is, if a bearing starts getting 'slop" in it because it's worn, or a seal gets cut from twine winding around it or anything else and starts leaking, you have to replace the ENTIRE MODULE ASSEMBLY-- no parts are sold for it. I had a friend on the HayTalk forum who had sourced parts from a manufacturer in Europe to rebuild his hubs, because he had quite a collection of them built up from twisted shafts, cut seals, and worn bearings, and could combine parts from several different modules to make a good replacement for just a few dollars, versus the $250 Kuhn was getting. Kuhn's excuse for not providing parts is that it's "too difficult' for farmers to set the preload on the double-row ball bearings correctly-- despite the fact farmers do this ALL THE TIME with roller bearings on all types of farm equipment and have for decades... There's a nut under the gear on the bottom end of the shaft to set the preload and hold the gear on on the shaft. So much for Kuhn's "Protecta-Drive"... it protects everything but your wallet! There's videos of how it works here on YT... To be continued... OL J R :)

[@lukestrawwalker]

Continued... New Holland also didn't have protection early on, neither did Lely/Vermeer (Vermeer bars were manufactured by Lely and are now copies of the original Lely design). Being modular, if an obstruction was hit, it would only shear off the gear or quill shafts between a single module, so the damage was easier to repair, and any gear damage confined to one module, which is easier to repair. New Holland has since introduced their "Mow-Max" cutterbars, which use a shear hub on top of the module to protect its gears from damage or twisting off quill shafts between modules in the spacers. The Mow-max hub is about $50 bucks and only takes about 15 minutes or so to repair. If the module hits something, the teeth shear off in the hub, but the disk is retained by a large Belleville spring washer and bolt into the top of the shaft- the drive shaft can then spin "freely" within the blade disk "turtle" until the mower is stopped for repairs. Bad thing is, spinning 'freely' (which is DOES have the spring washer trying to turn the disk along with the shaft, but it's easily overcome by resistance) puts the disks OUT OF TIME and so they CAN hit one another, which is the entire point of having the cutterbar 'in time' between disks... there's video of all this on YT showing a slowed disk being HIT by the adjoining disk and "knocked back in time" until the mower is stopped. That can't be good for any of the parts! Vermeer now uses a similar system IIRC... I saw all that parts for a Vermeer module one time talking to a salesman a few years ago but I don't recall all the particulars. Deere too uses a shear hub on their pull type "hybrid cutterbar" type modular gearbed design. There are only like 4 teeth milled into the Deere hubs, the rest of the metal is cut away, so if the disk hits something immovable, the hub teeth shear off protecting the shaft. Again it's retained by a spring washer and bolt into the top of the shaft, and about $50 to replace, quite similar in function and design to Mow-Max, who probably just copied it. If a gear SHOULD be damaged, the bar can be split on either side of it and it can be repaired much easier-- Kuhn "top service" bars put all their idler gears in from ONE END of the cutterbar, bolted into place in welded in "cups" along the length of the bar that hold the center of the single row ball bearings in the idler gears. Krone has hands-down THE best protection system out there. Krone's bars are a gearbed type, but different from the other typical gearbed type cutterbars built by Kuhn and others. Krone uses larger idler gears, which all mesh together TO EACH OTHER along the back part of the cutterbar. The individual disk hub gears drop through holes in the front part of the cutterbar, to mesh with an idler gear to one side or the other, NOT BOTH like Kuhn, etc. This provides the LH and RH rotation as needed depending on which idler gear it's designed to mesh to. This moves the disks forward with respect to the center of the cutterbar compared to other brands, giving a wider "arc of cut" for each disk (more overlap) and allowing the disk to cut lower by tilting the bar more forward if necessary. To protect the cutterbar, Krone uses a SHEAR PIN design in a unique hub/shaft assembly. The Krone gear shaft coming out of the top of the bearing hub and seal has an 'acme thread" milled into it, which the blade disk hub then screws down onto. At the top, there's a roll pin (shear pin) hole drilled through the shaft and hub, into which a roll pin is driven to lock the hub to the shaft and drive the spinning blade disk. There's a milled down area for clearance and then a large washer and nut installed into the end of the shaft. When the disk hits something immovable, the roll pin shears off, allowing the shaft to continue spinning and protecting the drive gears. Unlike the NH/Deere/other "twist off splines" designs, however, the Krone hub is then spun UP by the spinning shaft as the thread unscrews within the hub, pushing it upwards OUT OF THE PATH OF THE ADJOINING DISKS, so there is NO COLLISION BETWEEN OUT OF TIME DISKS... unlike the Kuhn which tosses the broken disk and hub out the back to prevent collision between disks, the Krone retains the disk on the shaft, but its up safely out of the way. To prevent "jamming" the hub into the retaining nut, an area is milled away below the nut to allow the acme thread in the hub to simply freewheel once it's "jacked up" out of the way of the adjoining disks, so the hub can freewheel or remain stopped against the obstruction while the shaft spins down safely to a stop. To repair it, you take off the dust cover, simply spin the disk the opposite way down the shaft and acme thread until the shear pin hole lines up, drive out the remains of the old shear pin, and drive in a new $2 shear pin into the hole, and bolt the dust cap back on... sure beats the $250 repair on the Kuhns, or even the $50 repairs on other brands! Some things to keep in mind for those considering a disk mower purchase... I know I certainly found it interesting as I started doing the research on them!!! Later! OL J R :)

[@j.b.caldwell7420]

How much does that landlord pay you to mow rgat junk ?

[@pocketchange1951]

👍👌🇨🇦❤

[@RemembranceFarmsLLC]

But if you go fast enough, you just glide over the bumps!! 😆😆😆 I totally agree though; I don’t know how some guys are able to go the speed they do. You’re getting quite the workout in!

[@mrbill4187]

Discbines are nice but wear out alot quicker and cost alot more, plus you need a bigger tractor that'll burn more fuel.

[@lukestrawwalker]

Yeah but you're getting done SO much faster so even though it's burning more fuel per hour, less hours to do the job so it evens out in the end. OL J R :)

[@jwhitley101whitleyfarms9]

Disc mower is ten times tougher than the haybine there is no comparison i like your videos but i do this for a living in Tennessee on steep rough rocky terraced up fields that your mower cannot stand to be pulled across just show us what you got i like watching you run the old iron

[@joshcrd7925]

Maybe so,, but like he said, the operator also needs to be able to stay in the tractor seat

[@jwhitley101whitleyfarms9]

@@joshcrd7925 don't think your grasping the comment probably because you dont understand any of the operations but here is an idea pick any dealership call them ask them for a 10.5 haymower and ask what kind of bar is under it I'm here all week hahahahhah

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@joshcrd7925 Again, just because the mower CAN potentially run up to 10-12 mph doesn't mean you HAVE TO GO THAT FAST. I cut mostly at 6 mph... we pretty much did ALL our farm work at 6 mph, because the Fords we ran were geared so 5th gear was 5 mph and 6th gear was 6 mph... 7th gear is like a low road gear and too fast for working in the field and bogs the engine down, and 8th is road gear. I know the claims and most of it is "salesman talk" but if a guy is doing say millet or sorghum sudan that is disked up and replanted every year so the field can be laser flat and smooth, if it's big enough and they got a high enough horse tractor then yeah they CAN run 10-12 mph all day long, which is something NO sickle machine can EVER do because you "outrun the sickle" (forward speed is faster than the sickle can cut, which doesn't happen on disk mowers because the disks spin SO MUCH FASTER than a reciprocating sickle can run). I've cut some fields at 5 mph because it was rough before, and handled it just fine. Probably 95% of the time I ran at 6 mph though, and again on even moderately rough ground it was just fine. Just because you CAN cut faster don't mean you HAVE to... it's not like a straight disk or vertical tillage coulter machine where you HAVE to run about 8-10 mph to do a good job... any slower they work like sh!t... you can cut just fine with a disk mower at 3 mph if you wanted to, though I can't imagine WHY anybody would ever WANT to cut that slow... Later! OL J R :)

[@kennyz6533]

You wouldn't even run a 10' discbine with the 2910 and go 6 mph. At least not with a new holland. You'd have to hook the 1086 up.

[@FarmingDreams]

thicc....hahaha!

[@storminnormanz]

you'd be going the same speed with a disc bine except the 2910 wouldnt pull it and youd be buying 6 or 800 bucks worth of parts when you hit bad bumps and rocks

[@ghenry85]

Depends on the diskmower.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@ghenry85 Yeah I posted the differences in the thread... OL J R :)

[@farmcentralohio]

Sorry Jacob but you should try a discbine before you think you've got it all figured out. I'm not saying your mower doesn't do the job but you can't say the discbine won't work if you don't know. Who's the genius you've got on the tractor? Might want to fire him before he destroys something.

[@boehmfarm4276]

Hahaha, dad's sentiments about Nick. He just shows up unannounced.

[@robertmonroe4562]

Man someone needs to teach Yo how to cut hay You don't keep going around and around and around a field You cut your outside when rose maybe about 7 times The rest your cut in should be straight across the field

[@boehmfarm4276]

You sound like some little kid without experience. I mow with a side pull, not a center pivot. You don't stripe with a side pull.

[@lukestrawwalker]

@@boehmfarm4276 Waste too much time turning with a center pivot IMHO, particularly in weird shaped fields. Center pivots are great on big ol' square or rectangular alfalfa fields, but for weird little grass hay fields with a side-pull or mounted mower, roundy-round is fastest. Mounted sickle is slower because you have to pick up and make a jug handle to turn, but the side pull haybine you cut just like I do with the drum mower-- drop it and go, get to the corner turn sharp and keep going... clean up the corners afterwards. Later! OL J R :)

[@joshk.6246]

Thicc hay, 🤣🤣🤣.

[@mtl-ss1538]

= Kiwi farmers world record with wheat crop.!!! New Zealand - World Record for the highest wheat yield with a crop producing 17.398 tonnes per hectare,==== New wheat world record at - [ 258.8 B/Acre ]-= (6.93t per acre-).;www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/122074530/kiwi-farmer-breaks-own-world-record-with-monster-wheat-crop .. = Kerrin wheat & Whakanui Wheat is to be milled for flour, or goes into feed for pork, chicks & cattle.. - 2020 HARVEST - Canterbury Kiwi-,Volgs - New Zealand ..kzbin.info/www/bejne/rHnGmGqkiammrqc ..!+!!

[@railroadman57]

Jacob please explain why its nessesary for the tractor to mow at such a fast pace of speed in a field that rough ? slow it down unless you really enjoy making a lot of repairs .

[@boehmfarm4276]

The next gear down is painfully slow. These little fords have a big jump in ratio between second and third gear, big like a double in speed.

[@blacksheep9734]

Lot of guys in jersey run disk bines and are feilds are just as bad

[@paytonmoennig1573]

Sorry but that’s a haybine not a disc bine

[@lukestrawwalker]

Did you WATCH the video that was the whole point he was making... erroneously IMHO, but anyway... Later! OL J R :)

[@bryanginder5903]

Your OCD is getting me tho!!! It's you going around an around in the field instead of back an forth!!!! o that's hard on them PTO's, remember you have a pull type haybine not a OLD SICKLE mower no need to go around and around!!

[@Masseydriver]

That’s what I think also!

[@MrAnnadrew]

videos are to short

[@ashleyflint3501]

There is no way I would mow rough country like this, why cant you level it out some way, have you heard of what we call harrows here in Australia, and level it out with them. All you are doing here is wrecking a dam good haybine. Those haybines are not cheap here in Australia.