[AT] Case VAH color

[Francis Robinson]

-----Original Message-----
 
Hi Paul.  Gene of course is correct.  My recently-reacquired VAH is green because, well, that's the color that occurred to my dad one summer 20-some years ago when he decided the old girl needed a paint job.  I dearly wish he'd left it original, and he now does also, but it is what it is.  I hope to someday restore it.




	I think it is important to put paint in perspective... Paint is a "TEMPORARY" coating. It will not last the life of a tractor. It went on at the factory with them full well knowing that some day that tractor will some day be covered with a new paint job (or rust). I was at a show  (Indiana State Fair) one time back when Case just bought IHC and there was a Case SC sitting there with an IHC paint job. I had to chuckle at the number of guys I heard fuming and saying that he "ruined" the tractor and that it was now "junk". I was thinking, "get real guys", it's "paint"... The owner had not chopped into the sheet metal; he had not torched pieces off of it like some pullers do. It's paint... The tractor was now clean and with a little preparation it would paint right back.
	I now generally prefer to go back with original color but I do enjoy doing some little thing different with the paint just to annoy the correct police.   ;-)   Back around 1970 we completely rebuilt the TO-20 Ferguson and painted it. It was not done for show and was never shown. There were not very many shows here then. I decided that we should paint it the new Massey Ferguson red and metallic gray. It made a really nice looking tractor. All plain gray is really pretty bland... BTW, I see the wrong colors at shows on those red and gray Massey Ferguson tractors (usually the gray) more often than about any other tractor. I saw a TO-35 (normally a muted dark green/gray chassis with gray sheet metal) a couple of years ago that the gray sheet metal looked OK but the green/gray may have been John Deere green. It was his choice but not a pretty tractor.   ;-)    Our TO-20 was painted just for our own pleasure and was completely a working tractor and wore an open sided Myers loader full time. A few years later we bought a super M with a New Idea loader and my mother had a cow  (my mother had a lot of cows in her life) and insisted that my father sell the TO-20. I don't know if it is still the same color or is even still running. My father bought it new in 1948 and it was well cared for mechanically and seldom abused. If I had been thinking ahead I would have bought it from him and moved it to my place for a while. I actually could have afforded it back then but I was married to a zillion hours a week executive data processing position and had to fight for time to farm let alone play with tractors at home. One more hash mark in the "regret" column... That TO-20 was rebuilt to the TO-30 engine back about 1952. That handful of extra horses really made big difference in it.

	Maybe I will buy a VA case and paint it the red and cream of the one cockshutt's... Just kidding Gene...   ;-)   Would one of you guys run some smelling salts over to Gene Dotson's house.   ;-)   ;-)   ;-) 

	Side note: My sister was here from Pensacola FL Friday and she brought me a small embroidered pillow which said; "I smile because you are my brother - I laugh because there is nothing that you can do about it".   ;-)



--
"farmer"

The brave may not live forever but the easily frightened may never live at all.

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net



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