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 Western Oregon | I got tired of waiting for my friend with his little Hesston to bale my alfalfa so I dug one of the old Freeman 200's out of the pasture. It has been setting four a couple years.
Now I can't say it was trouble-free-but my brother is a bit of a mechanical genius when he wants to be and he got the old wisconsin fired up in a couple hours.
We baled a couple hundred bales and it hasn't missed yet. Just doing alfalfa. But, I have the urge to bale a couple truck loads of 2-tie wheat straw. I know this is miss-guided but perhaps if I don't run 800lbs on the four hydraulic tension cylinders and attempt to make 90lb 16x18 wheat straw bales as we used to do back in the day- it will hold together. It has to hold together as I think I have to get all the parts mail-order from an out of state dealer.
In the days of JA Freeman and Sons there were stocking dealers in Oregon. But I don't think I should get started on that subject. Although Allied's decision to make the Lawn and Garden store it's exclusive dealer did sell me a Hesston 4690 which has been an incredible baler...
So, any of you folks in WA still run Freeman 2-tie balers?
Has anyone ever seen a 200 or 270 14x18 baler? If so, how much slower was it?
I figure that I'll just use Hesston knotter parts and build everything else. I think we still have a huge inventory of parts. I should use them up. | |
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