[AT] OT: Flashback - Early Farmers Building County Roads

[Dudley Rupert]

Larry,

I have one of the 3-pt scoops that I believe you are talking about.  The
information on its' tag says "Model 19-84 Ford Reversible Scoop."  It's
nearly always attached, in the reverse position, to one of my tractors and I
probably use it more than any other implement I have.  It is not as wide as
the bucket on many of the older FILs but it is deeper ... I can put one hay
bale in it easily and two if I put them on edge and squeeze them a bit.  I
use it most often as I would a wheelbarrow except that I don't have to push
it but can have the tractor do the pulling.

This summer I had several piles of dirt - maybe 40 to 50 yards in all - that
I wanted to move a couple of hundred feet to a low spot in my pasture.  My
daughter and SIL had my FIL over at their place so I thought I'd try and see
what the scoop would do before I went to get the loader.  It turned out that
for this job I thought the scoop worked just as well as a FIL would.  I
would back into the pile and when the scoop was about half full raise the
3-pt and the scoop would wind up with a heaping load.  One advantage of the
scoop, as contrasted with a FIL, is that the more material you get in it the
more weight/traction you have on the rear tractor wheels.

I have not used this scoop in the "forward position" to dig dirt with so I
have no experience there.  However, in thinking back we built a new house
(in Southern Illinois in 1953) and, like others have commented in this
thread, we used a two-handled scoop to dig the basement.  We pulled the
scoop behind a Farmall H.  I recall it was pretty hard going at the start.
We either couldn't get the scoop to cut into the hard August ground or, if
we (actually the we here was my dad) did, the scoop would bite in too deep
and my dad (who I thought had more the strength of ox than man) couldn't
hold the scoop from flipping over.  Dad then decided that we'd first have to
plow the ground so we brought the walking plow (I think it was a 10" or 12"
plow at most) out of retirement and hooked it up behind the H to churn up
the ground and then the scooping went pretty well ... we would plow, scoop,
plow, scoop, and so on.  So, I would imagine a 3-pt scoop behind a tractor
might be much the same in hard ground.

Dudley
Snohomish, Washington

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of Larry D. Goss
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 9:55 PM
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
Subject: RE: [AT] OT: Flashback - Early Farmers Building County Roads

The first image at the site Walt mentions shows an item similar to what
I thought was originally asked about on this thread.  That's only the
second one I remember seeing that had a double tree on it though.  What
I remember seeing in use back in the 40's was narrower, had two handles
(for one man operation) and was set up for a single horse or mule.  My
grandfather used one of the non-patented slip scoops to excavate the
basement under the farmhouse in Colorado in 1905 with a mule.  They were
dangerous because you really needed three hands to operate one.  You
adjusted the tilt with both hands on the handles.  That meant that you
had to buckle the reins together and sling them over one shoulder or
around your neck.  That was OK as long as the harness didn't break.  We
borrowed George Gilleff's slip scoop and one of his Belgians to do some
leveling prior to adding to the barn.  Dad made my brothers and me work
as a team with one on the handles and another on the reins because if
something happened to the hitch or the harness you could end up dead
real quick.

I drive by TSC and see that they have recent incarnations of that tool
for sale that are set up for three-point operation.

The rotary type that Sears used to sell was always a tractor-drawn piece
of equipment and I think its actual name was Tumble Bug.

JM2CW

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
DAVIESW739 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 6:49 PM
To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
Subject: Re: [AT] OT: Flashback - Early Farmers Building County Roads

In a message dated 1/26/2006 2:11:16 P.M.  Pacific Standard Time,
gwill at toast.net writes:
Ken,

In our area they  were known as "slip scrapers".  A "Fresno" was a
concrete
finishing  tool... a trowel with a long handle so the work could be done
standing.   I sold mine at auction in 1999 and don't miss it at all!  In
fact, I  don't miss any of my concrete tools.

George  Willer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
---------


George  try this site it might help refresh your  memory.

http://valleyhistory.org/FindingAids/FresnoScraper/FresnoScraper.html

Walt  Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460

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