How To Break Twine By Hand

How To Break Twine By Hand BALE HANDLING Louis Gautron doesn’t need box cutters or knives to cut baler twine or string He just breaks it by hand “There is an age-old farmer’s trick of breaking baler twine with one’s hands ” says Gautron “One can practice with string until you get the hang of it as heavy twine can cut your hands if you don’t do it right ” Gautron submitted pictures with his directions to FARM SHOW and we attempted to follow them The first step is to lay the twine across the palm of the hand with at least 3 ft above and below the thumb Then you wrap the lower length around the hand bringing it back and around the thumb 3 or 4 times before laying the twine back down across the hand This leaves the upper portion of the string underneath the wrapped lower portion creating a junction of the two Gautron says you then grab the upper portion and bring it sharply downward against the taut twine The twine will break at the junction he says Unfortunately for us it didn’t break the first time Following Gautron’s advice I practiced on a length of common white string It snapped apart easily I then returned to the baler twine but wearing leather gloves this time Success! The twine snapped apart once I got the hang of it The old farmer’s trick does work and I’m sure the more I do it the easier it will become Jim Ruen Contributing Editor

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