by Lee Potts
This is my first article for TTT, and it is exciting to be part of it and to help the hobby grow. I collect and customize 1/16 farm toys, and have just recently begun to dive into scratch building with brass being the material of choice. Part of this article features some of the first projects with a "custom/scratch build combo."
Spring continues here in southeast Nebraska, with the landscape greening up and
crops just recently have begun to go in the ground. It won't be long until
haying season starts in our alfalfa fields. Grass haying will be a ways off in
this part of the country. Putting up alfalfa was my favorite thing to do on the
farm, so I am excited to share my most recent project with you. In my area, we
have/had several people with small square balers equipped accumulators that
grouped bales into pads of 8 or 10. Along with these, they then use a bale
grapple to pick up those pads of bales. It made it so a person could load and
unload hundreds, even thousands of bales at a time without getting off the
tractor.
This is an open station John Deere 4240 equipped with a 265 loader and older
Farmhand bale grapple.
The tractor itself required minimal customizing, but is somewhat based on a real
tractor similar to what an outfit from my hometown has that does the same task
as this tractor. First, I pulled all of the original wheels off, modified a pair
of the rear wheels by adding 2 wheel weights to each one and cutting 4 oblong
holes in the cast part of the rim. On the tractor, the 3-point is scratch built
from brass, and a more realistic drawbar and PTO were added, as well as 2
hydraulic outlets. Levers were made from paperclips and added to the console.
Front and rear fender lights were cut and shaped from 1/4-inch rod. The front
fender lights were notched out to create the look of having the
"half-moon" shrouds over the lights that are meant to prevent glare.
This casting had rivets that were counter sunk, so they were easy to hide with
JB Weld, as was the middle seam of the casting. Firestone front tires on custom
rims were added to the front, and all else was pretty well original to the
tractor. Some of the engine details like filters, starter, and alternator were
painted to increase detail. Also, the silver band and JD logo were carefully
added to the center of the steering wheel. The grab handle on the hood is also
made from a paper clip. Loader controls are all made of brass, and consist of 3
levers on a makeshift console, and a triple valve mounted by the right hand
battery box.
The loader is the newer style found on the 1/16 6410, but is close enough in
scale to be considered a 265, so decals were changed to reflect that. Hydraulic
hoses were added using small electrical wire, and hydraulic lines were added and
made from paperclips as well.
The grapple fork is soldered brass and has about 50 individual pieces.
Measurements were found on the Internet and scaled down. The main frames were
made from 1/8 inch square brass tubing and the 24 teeth were cut from 1/2-inch
brass strip and shaped. My Dremel cutter wheels were a bit large to cut the
teeth out, so I traced the pattern out with pencil, then started poking holes
along the line with a 1/16 inch drill bit, then I came back and shaped each
tooth with a grinding wheel. The back plate is 3/4 inch brass strip, which is
close to the height of small bales in terms of scale. A few screws were used to
secure this piece for added strength, and the back part of the frame is 3/16
inch square tubing. This is one feature that is not necessarily found on the
real thing, but is necessary in this case for added stability, and is the
"back bone" of the whole thing. The teeth are attached to 1/16 inch
sqare tubing, and they all rotate in unison via the assembly down the middle of
the attachment. I drilled a hole in each tooth, then slid each one into place.
The teeth were soldered in place first, then each row of teeth were positioned
the same and soldered to the center assembly so they all moved exactly the same.
A hydraulic cylinder was fashioned from rod and tubing. Mounting brackets were
made from 1/2 inch strip and cut and angled in a way that they could be secured
to the back plate with a screw and solder for maximum strength. Holes to mount
to the loader were drilled excactly as on the original bucket to ensure that the
attachment moved freely. The
"side rail" was made from 1/8 inch rod. The function of this rail on
the right hand side is to push mis-aligned pads of bales tightly together
without having to dismount the tractor. If the bales are not tight together, a
quick turn of the steering wheel to the left while moving forward easily pushes
the bales back into a tightly grouped pad of 8 or 10, depending on the
accumulator used. This rail also ensures structurally sound stacking when
unloading bales into a shed or on a pile. It was then painted red like some of
the older Farmhand equipment, with Farmhand decals added. The decals were made
on the computer using a Farmhand logo found on the Internet. These attachments
work alongside accumulators behind small square balers that group bales into
pads of 8 or 10, depending on the type. Later model accumulators tilted the
bales on edge so that pads contained 10 bales instead of 8. This equipment makes
handling bales very easy for small operations and large custom baling operations
alike. I have been told by unreliable sources that these bale forks are no
longer made by Farmhand, although I cannot confirm that. Other companies such as
Hoelscher do make them similarly for large and small square bales.
This was a fun and unique project, and I plan on various other loader projects
in the future that are all slightly different from one another. I am currently
in the process of making another bale grapple similar to this one, only it will
resemble a later model that is painted black.
My next article will involve a step-by-step process with pictures of modifying an old Ertl 4850 casting to become a 4840 wide hood custom all set up for row crop production.
TTT
May 2003 Page 9
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