The Useful Duck!

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Saturday, July 27, 2013

I am not a mechanic

This all started when I was looking at balers last winter. I was trying to make a decision on if I should get more acres to bale and buy a second three tie baler and quit renting a two-tie baler or concentrate on what I have and buy my own two-tie.
I should have been applying for janitorial jobs.
Anyway, I looked at a baler at the local dealer. It was really a really good deal. I talked to the original owner. It sounded okay but it had a lot of hours on it. But, something about it just didn't look right to me.
Plus the previous owner had robbed off the steps you have to climb to get access to the knotters and the auto-luber.
After thinking about it I decided it was pretty stupid to buy a baler with more hours than my own and that I did NOT want to rebuild a knotter before baling season.
But what happened was a friend ended up buying it. He asked me for advice on it and I told him he needed to negotiate a service call if he bought it. I didn't have any specific complaints. Everything seemed ok. Had a lot of wear on it.
He called me to help him get started baling.
He tried it himself and the plunger and the stationary knife connected after three bales.
The dealer repaired it and yesterday he was ready to try it again.
I spent four hours riding around on the back of the baler trying to get it to tie yesterday. It wasn't just one thing wrong. I would adjust one thing and something else would go wrong.
I finally told them it was kind of the luck of the draw on a used baler. Sometimes they are hard to get to tie.
However, once the knotters loosened up from setting outside all winter (or two) I could see they were really loose. It really needs a complete knotter rebuild. Worn out knotters are really touchy to get working.
I'm not good at ironing out the small details. I start getting worried about all the other stuff I have to do and I end up with anger management problems.
Plus I had to deliver four blocks of straw for the local tractor pull. You can't mess with the tractor pull.
I am still frustrated.
I've been baling for most of my life. I should have been able to get that #$%^&*( baler to tie.
On the other hand, I am so glad I did not buy that baler.
I may go help him bale today. If I would just show up with a baler and rake we could go through his 100 acres in two days. Of course I have my own 100 acres to do so we shall see.

5 comments:

  1. It would be kind of you to bale him out!

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    Replies
    1. I also could elect to not bail him out and let him sink or swim. That is as close as I can come to a clever pun this time of day.

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  2. You already dodged the bullet. I wouldn't go running in front of the firing squad. :-)

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  3. Buying used equipment is always a bit of a gamble. Sometimes it works. Other times you are buying someone else's problems. I have been there.

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  4. The next day they got a real baler mechanic to work on it and got it going in an hour. (Plus some new parts.)

    ReplyDelete

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