Archived Baler Question

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Ok so I think i know how to make a bale for the most part. I just have a couple questions. First to get the bale ready for the bar/ rod ties or whatever they're called, do I just press the red button when it is about to come back up (when it is fully compacted down)? Then what I'm not sure about. What do I do with the hook things on the back? I can't remember when I'm supposed to attach them to the rungs. Then lastly after the bale is made do I push it down one more time as a test run or what? Thanks
 
Yeah, if you were certified you wouldn't need to ask those questions. Speak to your TL asap! And if you were certified and forgot don't be afraid to approach your TL to make sure you can do without even thinking of what to do next.

The baler and compactor was my home...I'm gonna miss it. :(
 
GET CERTIFIED BEFORE USING THE BALER
It should be as far down as it will go. When on the downstroke, the arrow on the arm goes no farther down than the arrow on the front, it's time to make a bale. It a should be "emergency" stopped at the lowest point it will go.

GET CERTIFIED BEFORE USING THE BALER
If you use the baler without having the proper training, you are taking the health and safety (and employment status) of yourself and fellow team members in your own hands.

Btw, did I mention you need to GET CERTIFIED BEFORE USING THE BALER
 
Not to mention, unless you're trying to move up, the goal is to be trained on as little as possible so you don't have to do it.
 
A little light reading about baler accidents, if anyone has a morbid curiosity:

https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/AccidentSearch.search?acc_keyword="Baler"&keyword_list=on

Those are pretty horrible.
I've seen people who were trained forget to hook the chains and have them snap but nobody got hurt.

The worst that ever happened to me was someone from FA brought back the soda syrup boxes and bags weren't empty.
They just tossed them in without taking the bags out.
When I went to compact my signs the bags blew up splattering me with syrup from head to toe.
 
Know your surroundings, take 10 seconds before you do anything. If it doesn't feel right, go ask your trainer, or Lod. The chains, bale, wires & doors are the most dangerously things on that machine.
 
This reminded me that the other day I was pulling for transcend and I dropped a bottle of nail polish. I had been waiting to use the "I haven't had ST030 yet" or whatever, but instead I just cleaned it up. I guess because I actually caused the spill. If it's ever a spill I didn't cause though...
 
Baler trick. Instead of pushing the red button to manually stop the baler arm from compressing, you can hold down the black button (that turns on the baler arm to compress) and the baler arm will stop automatically when it can no longer compress. This way you get the best compression possible!
 
Some of the better bailer screw-ups I've have to deal with:
1. Jackoff ejected the bail onto a regular pallet - and had no pallet jack underneath it. It destroyed the pallet and nobody could budge the bale. The idiot asked what "we" needed to do. "I" cut the wires to release the bail, then "He" got the joy of moving all the cardboard out of the way. Another TM came back, who I KNEW was certified on making bales, and closed up and reset the baler to normal mode. Then he supervised IDIOT to load all the cardboard back into the bailer, then made the bail and ejected it properly onto the right pallet.

2. Idiot who WAS certified on the baler fed the wires through the slots where the chains were located. Yes, you may have guessed it - when he went to eject the bail, the wires got tangled up in the chains. One snapped loose from the tension the chain put on it. The second I again had to cut. The rest of the solution was the same as above.

Needless to say, I didn't allow either of those two idiots to make a bail on any of my ETL shifts ever again.
 
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I've made dozens of bales, but I'm not sure if I've ever been certified.
We've got plenty in the BR who are certifiable.
I've done bales (& am certified)
We had the braintrust who tied the bale, opened the gate & raised the deck up WITHOUT hooking the chains. It was too high for him to hook them on & - since the gate was open - he couldn't get it to come back DOWN so we employed bikebryan's method.
 
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