Simple Inverter Turns Wet Windrows

Simple Inverter Turns Wet Windrows HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Rakes (44) 26-2-8 Several years ago, Charles Gannon, Petersburg, Tennessee, was caught with a field of millet he intended to bale that was windrowed but too wet and wouldn't dry. He tried fluffing it up with a neighbor's tedder, but that left it tangled in clumps and knots that still refused to dry out. Gannon decided there had to be a way to turn hay over completely without making a mess. After working on the problem awhile in his shop, he came up with a sort of tray that's 3 ft. wide and fits on the front of his New Holland 256 basket rake, about 6 in. off the ground. "When the rake teeth pick up the windrow to roll it, the tray catches it and it slides off the back onto drier ground," he explains. "It doesn't change the width of the windrow. It just flips it over so the dry top of the windrow is on the ground and the wet bottom is up where it can dry. It saves a lot more of the leaves than if you roll the windrow over with a rake alone." Gannon made the tray out of a 4 by 12 sheet of galvanized sheet metal. He mounted it in a frame he made of 1 1/2 in. square steel tubing. It takes four bolts and about 15 minutes to attach the frame solidly to angle iron brackets mounted on the rake frame. "I've made four or five of these over the years, changing the style a little as I did it. This style works the best," he says. "It works best if the hay is dry on top, so it slides on the sheet metal. If the hay is wet on top, it doesn't slide off as easily. It doesn't take any longer to use it than to turn the windrows with a rake." Gannon says the hay inverter cost less than $500 to make. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Charles Gannon, 57 Eddins Road, Petersburg, Tenn. 37144 (ph 931 659-9916).

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