You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!
Ric
Posted 2020-10-17 11:17 PM (#98523)


Plankowner

Posts: 9152

Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map.
Subject: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgkwBsCj_Us
Holland Club
Posted 2020-10-18 5:24 AM (#98524 - in reply to #98523)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Wow> Some tractor!
Sewer Pipe Snipe
Posted 2020-10-18 8:40 AM (#98525 - in reply to #98523)
Master and Commander

Posts: 1795

Location: Albany, GA.
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Growing up, we would go to the Kutztown PA Fair. They had a similar tractor. They would drive it into the field. Prepare a bare ground area and run a stationary thresher for wheat separation. They had the shocks of wheat stacked and tied with a wheat stem. Threw the whole thing in. It had a whistle that was so loud, these days they would have required hearing protection anywhere within 200 feet of the machine. One of it's purposes was to summon help if the field caught fire.

The Saw Mill over at the Tifton Agrirama used to be run off another stationary steam engine. Haven't been there in years so I don't know if it or the locomotive still run. I do remember either one would occasionally set the woods on fire. 
https://gma.abac.edu/
JrKrup, Skimmer
Posted 2020-10-18 1:18 PM (#98526 - in reply to #98525)


Master and Commander

Posts: 1319

Location: Oxnard, CA
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

The Tifton Ga. Museum of Agriculture is still there, still operational. They have 2 locomotives, one running fine, the other in for a rebuild. Their stationary steam engine running the saw-mill - the boiler has been condemned by the insurance company. Just this past week they took the engine off the boiler and will be spiffying it up for display, but it could be put back into operation. The boiler is a riveted boiler, and not considered safe for use. It will be sent out for sand-blasting and painting. The whole shebang will be re-assembled as a static display.

Go to the YouTube channel VINTAGE MACHINERY. Keith Rucker has a video explaining it.

BTW: Keith Rucker is an agricultural scientist. Machinist as a hobby, but he IS good at it. You should see his "garage." His website is Vintagemachinery.org and he has a vast on-line library of old machinery manuals and catalogs. If you have any kind of power tool - however old, he probably has an owners/operators manual for it - downloadable.


Edited by JrKrup, Skimmer 2020-10-19 8:42 AM
Ric
Posted 2020-10-18 4:41 PM (#98528 - in reply to #98526)


Plankowner

Posts: 9152

Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map.
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

I just watched that video this morning. Link Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoe8ib352X8
Keith Rucker is an amazing machinist.

Interesting how so many of these channels interlink with each other.
Rucker rebuilt a Threading machine for a guy here locally rebuilding a 110 year old sailboat.
The repair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5HKiKcoONc
The Customers reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAWhIZsJRmA
Holland Club
Posted 2020-10-18 7:17 PM (#98530 - in reply to #98525)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Saw your 'wheat shocks' and remembered our wheat production. Guardian uncle would 'open' the wheat field with a cradle to keep the binder which was coming from running over the first 'round' tying the bundles with more grain stems. The binder would then come and take care of the rest of the field. The bundles were just kicked out by the binder and it was up to us lids to gather them up and then shock them. One or more bundles were kinked in the middle and placed on the shock to provide a top hat rain protection until it was hauled to the barn. The thresher came sometime later and as you said the bundles which were hand tied were chucked into the thresher. Not sure if the thresher could eat the binder twine used to tie the bundles made by it. Long time ago.
fortyrod
Posted 2020-10-19 5:02 AM (#98531 - in reply to #98530)
Great Sage of the Sea

Posts: 848

Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Ron, to answer your ?, yes the tresher could “eat” the twine. .remember those claws at the front of the intake shute chomping away. They had knives on them which cut and shredded the twine. Dad was still threshing when I left the farm.
Doc Gardner
Posted 2020-10-19 7:45 AM (#98532 - in reply to #98523)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2252

Location: Foothills of the Ozarks
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

When I was working for the brewery in the’70’s we were one of the sponsors of the “Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Show” in Portland , Indiana. This city boy from Detroit sure got an agricultural education on those old steam tractors.
Holland Club
Posted 2020-10-19 9:31 AM (#98535 - in reply to #98531)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Thanks for your answer.
Don Gentry
Posted 2020-10-22 7:57 PM (#98570 - in reply to #98532)


Admin

Posts: 2294

Location: Renton, WA
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Doc - did you work at Stroh?

rover177
Posted 2020-10-23 6:31 PM (#98578 - in reply to #98523)
Master and Commander

Posts: 1576

Location: Wollongong, NSW
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

In the 50s in the UK they used traction engines for road construction and other tasks where strong pulling power was needed.
We kids would be permitted to ride in the cabs when locally travelling the 'work task' street.  Would not happen today with all of the 'rules' in place.
Some of those things were massive, far bigger than any other tractor or bulldozer of the day - I can still remember the tepoka - tepoka type noise from those piston engines.
Doc Gardner
Posted 2020-10-24 4:41 AM (#98579 - in reply to #98570)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2252

Location: Foothills of the Ozarks
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Don Gentry - 2020-10-22 9:57 PM

Doc - did you work at Stroh?



Yes. It was my first job out of the Navy. Stayed there for 12 years.
whalen
Posted 2020-10-26 9:00 PM (#99599 - in reply to #98523)


Great Sage of the Sea

Posts: 606

Location: Citrus County FL
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Years ago I volunteered at Carriage Hill Farm metropark in Dayton OH.

I took the steam engine operators class  and we overhauled and learned the operation of the  50hp Peerless locomotive and the 12hp Empire (non-locomotive).

We used them to thresh, cut wood, and steam tobacco beds.  Also used to run the crusher for  sorghum cane and steam the juice to reduce it to molasses.   We had a steam box and would make bent wood pitchforks.

Diesel engines are cool, but I liked the quiet running of a steam engine!
Holland Club
Posted 2020-10-27 7:07 AM (#99600 - in reply to #99599)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Worked at Lakeside power plant in Milwaukee where we had a duplex horizontal steam engine. It's primary use was to provide water under pressure allowing the setting of boiler drum safety valves at 1380 psi. Procedure called for a supervisor's sig to verify settings so I got to watch the operation several times. The Pabst Brewing Co in Milwaukee had a great steam engine on display. Too pretty to run as it might get dirty. Beautiful engine.
Ric
Posted 2020-10-27 8:07 AM (#99601 - in reply to #99599)


Plankowner

Posts: 9152

Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map.
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Years ago, if memory is correct, one of the local scouting groups got a hold of a lovely 60 or 70 foot steam craft. (Sorry, I can't remember the name now) The boat was tied to the fuel dock in the local marina where I lived. I went down to look it over. Lovely, lovely craft, white paint, loads of varnish and brass. Reeked of 1900 elegance. I guess they were picking up people. Anyway. lines were cast off and the whistle gave that wonderful steam shrill and water boiled at the stern, dark smoke plumed from the massive stack and it pulled away with out making a single sound. Impressive. I was in love!
whalen
Posted 2020-10-27 5:17 PM (#99604 - in reply to #99599)


Great Sage of the Sea

Posts: 606

Location: Citrus County FL
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

Like steam engines but hate to shovel coal?  Here's a big thermos bottle full of steam!
Ric
Posted 2020-10-27 6:33 PM (#99605 - in reply to #99604)


Plankowner

Posts: 9152

Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map.
Subject: RE: You like Steam Traction Engines? Try this big boy!

I actually like steam trains but the Traction Engines are cool too.
This one looks cool. I will look it up.
Though I have had several rides on the nostalgia trains. I did have a real steam train experience as a child.
My dad worked for the railroads and we got really cheap fares taking vacations. We had gone to California and San Francisco and were on our way back to Seattle. We were climbing through the mountains in northern California early one morning when I was wakened and told to look out the window. The train was winding its way up a grade and long sweeping left turn. I looked at the front of the train and had a good view of a steam locomotive belching huge columns of black smoke and white steam. Someplace in the night we had switched engines because I had only ever seen the new diesels on the trains I'd ridden up to that time. This was 1953 I thinks since my dad was still alive.