One of the tasks required for building with straw bales is re-tying the bales to shorter lengths. A tool to facilitate this job is a bale needle. I could buy a set of plans for making one from strawbale.com, but I decided to make my own based upon the photos I found of a bale needle online.
I bought a three foot long 7/16” diameter smooth metal rod from the local hardware store. Using a cutting blade on a bench grinder, two different files, and a bench top belt sander, I cut notches near the end of the rod and ground the end to a point. I then welded a piece of round stock on the opposite end for a handle.
The notches in the rod hold the baling twine as it is pushed or pulled through the bale. There are two notches available for pushing two strings through and one notch for pulling string through.
We tried it out last evening on a bale, and it worked fine. Here’s a video by Andrew Morrison about how to re-tie straw bales to shorter lengths:
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