Adjustable, resilent twine guide finger for twine wrap mechanism of

Abstract

A large round baler includes a twine wrap mechanism having twine arms which sweep horizontally between opposite side walls of the baling chamber at a location above the pickup and below the bale starter roll. Mounted to one of the baling chamber side walls is a twine guide finger for guiding the twine to the circumference of the bale such that wraps of twine are spaced from the adjacent end of the bale by a distance sufficient to keep the twine from being fed between the wall and the bale end or from slipping off the end of the bale during handling of the bale once discharged from the chamber. The guide finger, in one embodiment, comprises a spring wire member having a guide end portion that is joined to coils that are mounted about a support rod extending through the side wall of the baling chamber. In an alternate embodiment, the rod has a straight portion extending through the chamber side wall and joined to an inner end shaped to perform twine guidance, the outer end of the straight portion being connected to a coil spring that permits the rod to pivot about its straight portion so that the twine guidance portion of the rod will deflect rearwardly in response to crop being fed to the baling chamber. In both embodiments, the rod is adjustably fixed to the outside of the side wall by a manual adjustment permitting the support rod to be moved in and out among an infinite number of positions within a range of adjustment so as to change the spacing of the twine guide fingers relative to the side wall so as to accommodate bales having surfaces of varying slickness due to different crops and/or crop conditions.