Home-Built Inverter "Works Like A Haybine"

Home-Built Inverter Works Like A Haybine HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Miscellaneous I couldn t find what I wanted on the market so I built my own It fluffs the windrow and turns it over a half turn and is designed to reach deep down into ditches says Aaron Melby Beltrami Minn who built his own low-cost windrow inverter using scavenged parts
    The one-of-a-kind rig was built from a New Holland 9-ft haybine a Deere small square baler and the canvas draper header off a Versatile 400 swather The hydraulics came off a New Holland 358 hammer/mixer mill
    The baler s pickup gently lifts the windrow and then the swather canvas moves it to the side where it falls out and back onto the ground
     I came up with the idea because I cut hay along water storage ditches that are too steep to be baled safely with a round baler says Melby Conventional hay inverters can t reach out far enough The haybine hitch on my inverter can be adjusted by changing the position of a pin which allows me to move the entire machine up to 5 ft to the side With the inverter moved as far out as possible it can reach down into ditches and kick hay back to the top where I can safely bale it
     It also works great for normal field use I can either drive between the windrows or straddle them I can set the inverter to set one row on top of another without having to drive on top of the crop Or I can move the hitch all the way over and simply flip the hay
     I chose the New Holland haybine because its hitch design allowed me to mount different components on the frame Deere and IH haybines won t work because their hitch setup is different
    He started with a 1970 s New Holland 479 9-ft haybine stripping it down to the hitch wheels and frame and fixing it so the pivot point is stationary He lengthened the Versatile swather s canvas and draper frame by 3 ft then welded it to the haybine frame The rig s hay pickup is off a Deere 24T small square baler and has a flow control valve on it so it can be sped up or slowed down depending on hay conditions
    The hydraulics are off a new Holland 358 hammer/mixer mill The hammermill s pump is chain-driven off the tractor pto and delivers oil back to a hydraulic motor that chain-drives the baler pickup and the drive motor for the canvas
     It does a great job of fluffing hay up for drying purposes and didn t cost much to build says Melby I already had the tub grinder baler pickup and swather My total cost was about $350
     I might make another model and add some improvements For example I would extend the pickup out farther so it can reach even farther down into ditches And I d use a longer canvas that could be hydraulically moved in or out
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Aaron Melby 21809 450th St S W Beltrami Minn 56517 ph 218 926-5233; ryanzdad@hotmail com

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