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Who loves old tractors?


tom'sB2B

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Did a 2.5 hour tour of the tractor meuseum at the JUMP building in Boise. It was fantastic. 

http://jumpboise.org/vintage-tractors-and-steam-engines.

I am blown away by the engineering that went into these tractors and steam engines and they're over a century old. Really neat place.

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The John Deere tractors were known for, what was termed, LARGE horse power. The gained that by not using any beveled gears. The top view of the engineering shows how they were designed. I grew up on a Model D.

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I'll raise my hand to that!  Spent summers on a farm in southern Illinois when we were kids, one of our cousins would talk about tractors the way other kids talked about hot rods.  I loved the putting-purr of a Johnny Popper in the distance, working a field on one of those days that were so still you could hear the corn grow.  We pretty much grew up around farming, although not directly involved in it.  This being a farming region, tractors are a big deal (duh), and there are a few farmers with awesome tractor collections around here

Edited by Dan Hiebert
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12 hours ago, Los_Control said:

I love the old hit and miss engines 

 

I didn’t know you had a Chevrolet.

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Yep. I like them as well. I had hoped I'd need to buy one for snow removal when I moved into my current house about 1.5 years ago. It seems a 1/2 acre is not quite big enough to justify a tractor for 6 snow plow sessions per year. I had my eyes set on a Ford 8N or a Jubilee with a back blade...Maybe some day.

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I like that - "taming" your acreage/property!  I have need of that term to convince the missus we need a tractor to even stay ahead of our "untamed" piece of The County.

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Many people enjoy going to exhibitions of old farm equipment but it's not an interest I share. I grew up on a farm. We got away from that life because of my father's bad health and early demise. My recollection is that farming was hard work rewarded by poverty.

 

I also learned to hate chicken and haven't eaten any in 50 years. Oddly enough I still like beans and biscuits. Go figger.. ?

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2 hours ago, MackTheFinger said:

Many people enjoy going to exhibitions of old farm equipment but it's not an interest I share. I grew up on a farm. We got away from that life because of my father's bad health and early demise. My recollection is that farming was hard work rewarded by poverty.

 

I also learned to hate chicken and haven't eaten any in 50 years. Oddly enough I still like beans and biscuits. Go figger.. ?

 

you were just jealous of that rooster's strut......I know your type...?

 

I have done my share of farm work...some is rewarding other is just as you said, tiring...

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6 hours ago, MackTheFinger said:

I also learned to hate chicken and haven't eaten any in 50 years. 

 

My dad (now deceased) was born during the depression. We rarely had chicken when I was growing up, my dad said he ate enough chicken when he was a kid to last a lifetime. 

 

He also claimed when he was farming with a 2 cylinder John Deere if it bogged down enough the pistons would stand still and the tractor would move back and forth.

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10 hours ago, tom'sB2B said:

I just need to figure out an excuse to my wife to buy one of these Rumelys..and win the lottery ?

Rumelys were not steam tractors, they ran on kerosene.

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1 hour ago, Mike36 said:

Rumelys were not steam tractors, they ran on kerosene.

You are correct. Kerosene was a cheaper alternative to gasoline. Not my video. Just found it on the tube.

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about 1969 it was, gallon of gasoline was 28-32 cents depending on grade....kerosene at the higher price hardware store.....17 cents a gallon...today....over 5.00 a gallon for K1  the portable kerosene heater pushed that commodity to a new high in popularity with price increase in overdrive.....

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That thing doesn't even skip a beat when they drop all 8 moldboards into the ground. It does bog down a bit later, maybe some stiffer soil there, but a gear change seemed to do the trick.

 

I've always liked this video of a big Case steam tractor at a tractor pull. He's really pouring the coals to it... I now better understand the need for a canopy over the operator's station.

 

Edited by Merle Coggins
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On 5/2/2019 at 4:53 PM, Plymouthy Adams said:

 

you were just jealous of that rooster's strut......I know your type...?

 

 

That's probably part of it.. ? 

 

Our outhouse was located in the chickenyard. I remember one White Rock rooster that would circle the outhouse when my older brother was in there and then flog the dickens out of him when he came out. Apparently he just didn't like my brother because nobody else had any trouble. It was really funny. Eventually we killed that rooster and Mom made dumplings with him. Mom would always wring chicken's necks but with that particular bird my brother insisted that he have the honor of cutting his head off with a hatchet. I held that tough old rooster while my brother gleefully separated his head from his body. That's what you call a bonding experience. 

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7 hours ago, Merle Coggins said:

That thing doesn't even skip a beat when they drop all 8 moldboards into the ground. It does bog down a bit later, maybe some stiffer soil there, but a gear change seemed to do the trick.

 

I've always liked this video of a big Case steam tractor at a tractor pull. He's really pouring the coals to it... I now better understand the need for a canopy over the operator's station.

 

I have a good friend in Pinckneyville. He's always trying to talk me into going to the Thresherman's shindig.. He really enjoys it.

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When we lived in Michigan a number of years ago, we would often take the ol' D24 out to Goodells County Park where the St. Clair County Farm Museum is located.  About 10 miles west of Port Huron.  It's a rather nice museum, and at the time they had two Port Huron Threshing Machine Co. steam tractors, one was kept in working condition, and I believe they were restoring the other.  They have an annual farm machinery show where they have pulls to demonstrate just how powerful steam tractors are, and demonstrate how to work various farm implements with it, such as threshers (duh) and saw mills.  It's an impressive show for how small the site is, (though I've since forgotten just when they have it) and it's a rather nice little park, too.  I found it especially interesting since the old Port Huron Threshing Machine Co. facility still existed (when we lived there it had become a lumber yard, tool and die shop, and industrial machine shop) and was only two blocks from our house.  Our neighborhood had been created to support that tractor company.

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This is our old homeplace as it is today. When I was a kid there were more trees and fewer metal buildings and grain bins. We left there in 1965. 

 

“Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them - but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.” 
 Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

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