Forklift Stacks Bales 21 Ft High

Forklift Stacks Bales 21 Ft High HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 12-2-11 "It helps get all my bales under cover," says Arlie F. Rettke, Washington, Mo., who mounted the mast from a junked forklift in place of the bucket on his front-end tractor loader. He had been able to stack bales just 11 ft. high with the tractor loader alone. With the addition of the forklift, he gets bales up onto stacks as high as 21 ft. Rettke got the forklift mast for $200 from a salvage yard and mounted it on the loader by fashioning a mounting bracket at the base of the mast. The loader is not modified in any way. The tilt cylinder for the bucket is used to tilt the forklift in and out while stacking bales. A 30-gal. water tank that's filled with concrete mounts on the rear 3-pt. to counter-balance the weight of the bales. The forklift can be removed by pulling just 4 pins. Rettke had to add an extra hydraulic valve to control the forklift. "You have to use common sense in handling the bales. I only raise up to the top position when the tractor is stationary," he notes. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Arlie F. Rettke, Rt. 2, Box 386, Washington, Mo. 63090 (ph 314 239-3925).

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