[AT] Homemade tractors.

[Larry D Goss]

A single horse drill is one of those things that never was a "recognized" 
attachment available for the Economy/Power King/Jim Dandy line of tractors, 
Farmer.  I don't know that I've ever seen one.  Our neighbor had a Van Brunt 
(I think that's the name) when I was growing up, and I spent a number of 
hours behind that thing sowing wheat, but I didn't know there was a 
one-horse drill available.  I do remember "checking" corn while planting so 
it could be cultivated in both directions with a horse.  Oscar Fahlsing 
owned the farm to our east and he always checked his corn.  He would still 
be cultivating it when it was over his head.  I don't know why Dad had ours 
checked.  We didn't own horses!  I guess he just liked the way the field 
looked when the corn started growing.  There's a famous American artist who 
memorialized checked corn in one of his paintings.  I can't remember his 
name this morning, but he turned out a lot of pastoral scenes that were 
purchased wholesale by school boards to decorate the hallways of school 
buildings.

The early PK's were made from surplus items from WWII.  The early drive 
train consisted of the same clutch and transmission as the WWII Jeep (and 
post-WWII Crosley).  The early rear end was a Model A Ford.  I'm not sure 
who made the final drives, but I'm pretty sure they were also purchased. 
Some of the front wheels on the early tractors were surplus tail wheels for 
airplanes.

I knew a professor at Purdue who made a number of tractors from scratch. 
Every one of them was unique and different from the previous ones.  They 
were all powered by single cylinder engines, and most of them used 
automotive steering and had direct drives like a Gibson rather than having a 
gear reducing final drive.

My grandfather and uncle in Colorado had a buck rake that was originally a 
20's vintage Buick.

Got to go.

Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2007 11:28 PM
Subject: [AT] Homemade tractors.


>    Has anyone here ever owned or used a homemade tractor? I never have but
> have always been fascinated by them. I used to see a bunch of them setting
> around parked for good during the early 1950's. Most were made out of an 
> old
> car or truck chopped down. A lot were made out of Model A Fords. Many were
> built during the war (WW II 1941 to 1945) or just after when tractors were
> really hard to come by. When I was at BSU in the early 1960's they were
> still using cut down Model A Fords to pull ganged golf course reel mowers 
> to
> mow much of the campus. The only other thing I saw used for mowing there 
> was
> Farmall Cubs with rear mounted flail mowers used on rougher grounds. Did I
> just say "grounds"?   ;-)
>    A lot of homemade tractors were small and narrow made just to pull a 
> one
> horse wheat drill down rows of standing corn. I also remember a lot of 
> CUB's
> and Pony's being narrowed up for wheat drills. A lot of them ended up
> turning over...
>    Larry, I believe I once read of a lot of Economy tractors being set up
> to pull one horse wheat drills.
>    I have two one horse wheat drills that  are strictly "yard art". One of
> them has a few good sized bullet holes in the sheet metal guard panels.
> While I always fess up eventually I do enjoy giving the grand kids a line 
> of
> crap as they come along about my having been attacked by Indians while
> working in the fields...   ;-)   I bought these at sales, we never planted
> any wheat like that during my lifetime. We always had one field of early
> corn that we could get picked in time to plant wheat. We only grew about 
> 20
> to 30 acres of wheat.
>    The grandkids usually half believe the Indian stories since they think 
> I
> am old enough to have been attacked by dinosaurs.   ;-)   A couple of 
> other
> tales I like to work in on them involve how I used to play the grand piano
> in the marching band and that I was once in the Olympics. My event? Why
> javelin catching of course...   ;-)
>
>
>
> --
> "farmer"
>
> Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the
> well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are
> showing a new road.  ~Voltaire
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
>
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