Post pictures of old farm equipment

78,118 Views | 295 Replies | Last: 8 mo ago by jejdag
Dr. Doctor
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AG
Cool article about Case-IH

~egon
CATAGBQ04
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Very neat
CanyonAg77
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Greetings, all. Antique tractor show next weekend at Hale Center. My two tractors (Gibson Super D2 and 1937 JD Unstlyed L) that I got from Dad will be in the museum where the show will be held. Don't know yet if I'm going to be able to get there myself.

Linkeroonie

CanyonAg77
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AG
Thought you might enjoy a link to the Polk Auction this Labor Day. Lots of Old Iron photos at the link, including what has always been one of my favorites, the 1938 Moline UDLX Comfortractor, the first tractor with a cab.



There is at least one JD 520 LP. We sold one out of Dad's collection 2013, it brought $6100




Orchard tractors are rare. One with LP, even more so.



1938 Unstyled L. Fairly Rare, only about 1400 made.



Mine looks better

[/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/bPtJhX]IMG_2654 by CHS Girls Soccer, on Flickr
dubi
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powerbiscuit
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Who can tell me what this contraption is?

CanyonAg77
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AG
Some sort of hoist/winch is all I've got.
powerbiscuit
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That's pretty dang close. I'll post a picture of it in action when I get back home.
Ulrich
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powerbiscuit
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a device to pick up huge stones from the fields

Dill-Ag13
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awesome
CanyonAg77
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For the stationary engine buffs, a video of an oil well in Mitchell County being powered by a one cylinder engine.

Linkeroonie
CanyonAg77
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Bump for the GTKNY thread
Centerpole90
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Canyon, did your dad have a BO Lindemann crawler in his collection? A friend sent me an auction bill and there's a fairly nice one in the sale. I know it would be out of my price range but I don't want to sleep on it if it goes unnoticed. I'm curious about value.

CPJr has one more year of HS and I already sense my attention shifting from show steers and school activities back to old iron....

Complete Idiot
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For anyone else interested in what he is talking about, I had to look it up (also a couple of FJ40's in background?)

Complete Idiot
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CanyonAg77 said:

Thought you might enjoy a link to the Polk Auction this Labor Day. Lots of Old Iron photos at the link, including what has always been one of my favorites, the 1938 Moline UDLX Comfortractor, the first tractor with a cab.




BenTheGoodAg
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Old photo of my grandad on our International Crawler. He had a number of old tractors, many of which are now in the Moore County museum, but he was a much bigger collector of toy tractors. He passed away this past November.

Centerpole90
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Bumping this thread for stabs to tell us about his cotton gin restoration project. I am very interested in the story here. Cotton gins are very close to my heart.



I see the 3 stands and feeders, seed conveyor, lint flue, and is that stick/green leaf pre-cleaner off to the side?

What powered this gin? Please, please tell me there is a Fairbanks Morse model Y or comparable out of view I can help restore!

ETA, if you are in East Texas, I guess this equipment could have been built in Dallas as Continental had manufacturing capability there. When I worked for Continental I spend a good bit of time in Prattville where Daniel Pratt started the company. The manufacturing was in a more modern building adjacent to the original factory - but I would occasionally sneak over to the off-limits brick building that gins this vintage were built in. It was mostly empty, but was still very interesting to poke around. Even until I joined the company in 1990 Continental and Prattville took immense pride in the volume and precision of material they produced in this plant for the war effort.

stbabs
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The gin story starts like this:
Southern Rusk Co in the Arlam community where my Dad grew up the Langston brothers had a steam driven gin and saw mill.
The Bright Foundation in Nacogdoches was looking to restore an old gin to locate at Millard's Crossing, a historical village in Nac.
I knew about the Langston gin and volunteered to take on the task. Started pulling out the equipment last August and have worked on it prolly 4 days a week since then.
The gin had 3 Prattville built Continental stands operating when it shut down in around 1939. 70 saw stands.

They had pulled 3 older Lummus stands off line and stored them in a building out back. 60 saw

All the Continentals are restorable. Only one of the Lummus stands was restorable.

Collapsed buildings, exposure and 80 years of decay had wreaked havoc.

I'm starting to reassemble the 4 stands. The Continentals can operate again, I'm pretty confident.

Lummus will be display only.

While the steam engines could run again the cost of a new boiler and liability will likely drive us to using a gas engine for power.

Just got a 1920s vintage Hercules for that chore if I can get it running again.

Stand by for images.
stbabs
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This is what the gin looked like when we started pulling it apart. Building totally collapsed.







I'll add here that, while I'm pretty mechanical, I knew less that nothing about cotton gins. Cotton was gone from the pineywoods by the early 50s.
I still don't know the terminology but have figured out the function of various parts as I go.
Centerpole90
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Set that brand X equipment back in the pasture. Small world. I have roamed the halls where that equipment was built.

Do you have the press? I. Am. Made. Of. Questions.
Centerpole90
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AG
We posted at same time. I want to look those over on desktop in a bit. If I was closer you'd have to shoo me away everyday
stbabs
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I'll start with what powered the gin; remember that there was also a sawmill, thus the supersized boiler. It ran one engine for the gin and two for the mill.

Atop the boiler, disconnecting pipe and starting to remove fire brick



The naked boiler



One of the 3 steam engines:



A flying ball governor from one of the steam engines. Made by the Gardner Co of Illinois. There's a cool story about these governors I'll post later.


stbabs
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The press is the biggest puzzle. Because it was more exposed to weather it's a helluva a mess.
Actually I have TWO presses, or more accurately, two big piles of crap that I hope will make ONE functioning press.
I'm pulling parts of an old 3 stand Murray out of the woods in Milam TX in hopes of getting enough to make one press.
Milam is where I found the old Hercules engine.
It's a model TXO. 4 cylinder. 6 3/8 bore. 7 in stroke.
That beast weight over 3500 lbs
stbabs
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Centerpole90
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Got it.
CATAGBQ04
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This needs to be its own thread
aggie appraiser
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Seems to be one hell of a task. What are you doing with them? Just restoring them because you can? Putting them back to work? Museum?
Centerpole90
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Here's what I see, tell me if I'm wrong, but in the upper middle of the picture, those 8-10 boards running vertically in the photo - those appear to the upper platen of the press. That's what the ram pressed the bale against and there was a matching lower platen on the end of the ram, when the bale was compressed the press men fed wires/bands/whatever they were tying bales with, through the gaps between the boards to tie the bale (I'm sure you know this but detail for the benefit of others reading along, so we don't geek out). The structure around the press in the near view is in a circle.... This structure didn't rotate did it? Was there part of the elevated press deck that rotated? I know in our conversation we talked about this being a single box press.

I'm zooming the other pictures as I type, that's why there are so many edits.



I am starting to think this is a swinging box press... Didn't an assembly (now rotted away) rotate on the that single shaft in the center? The mechanical tramper is on the right and it looks like the upper press platen boards have rotted away as have the boxes. Was the press ram under what's not the left side in this picture? Was there a pile or assembly of metal 'teeth' that were in those boxes laying there? There should be an apparatus called 'dogs' that act like a rachet - the tramper pushed cotton down through them and then they closed so the tramper could cycle up to get another wad of cotton. They may have been counterweighted on one end.



Your press in the picture is very, very similar to this press. This is also an up-packing press.

I swear, if I wasn't about to start harvesting - I'd invest the time to drive up and poke around through what you have for a day or so, if the invitation was there.
stbabs
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AG
Ok, agree with the own thread" rec.
Roger and Wilco!

Ultimate goal. Operating gin in a historical village in Nacogdoches. Once a year operation, sorts like the Burton gin.

I'll have to truck in the Cotton. None left in the piney woods. Or, I just plant a few acres myself and see if I can get volunteers to hand pick.

What the hey! Messina Hoff gets volunteers to harvest their grapes por nada.

Centerpole, invitation is open. Anytime.
CanyonAg77
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So,a little bump for a personal item. I guess nearly 40 years old classifies as old farm equipment.



So this is the 1980 John Deere 7720 that I finally gave up on after this year's wheat harvest. It was dad's back when he and his partner were running two new 7720s, two auger wagons, and four trucks, cutting sorghum for a seed company contract that made about 5,000 pounds per acre, and corn making about 11K, in Hale County. The hour meter broke years ago, I have no idea how much time is on it, but I've put thousands of hours on it myself.

When I moved to Randall County in 1994, I brought it with me, and I've patched and repaired, and replaced parts for about the last 10 years, as I was down to just a small acreage, and a new combine really wasn't needed or affordable. I've made my own sheet metal parts, replaced both drive hubs, and traveled to Oklahoma to salvage parts off another machine.

I remember my dad, who passed in 2011, driving it, me driving the truck or using the auger wagon to catch on the go, because job number one was always to keep the combines moving. Brother doing the same, and four different hired hands driving the tractors with the auger wagon, or the trucks to town, whatever was needed.

Some of the hands were dunderheads that you worried might forget to breathe. Others were smart, hard-working, trustworthy gentlemen it was a privilege to know. We literally trusted them with our lives and livelihood.

Later years, when the wheat was good, my wife would take off work to drive the combine, while our elementary age daughter sat on the floor with her back against the glass, reading books out loud to keep them both entertained. Our son, too young to legally drive, would drive the tractor with the auger wagon and keep the trucks full, while I relayed them to town. I hope they cherish the memory. Later, our son-in-law, who is crazy about machinery, insisted on learning to drive the combine, and helping with harvest on leave from the Air Force.

My grandad always said, never get attached to a piece of equipment. I get that. But, boy, do the memories flood back when you let them go. Makes me feel old to realize I may never drive a combine again, going to have it custom done from now on.

It's in the Five Star Auctioneers Annual Harvest Equipment Sale, tomorrow in Plainview, Texas. If it sells, I expect it to end up in a salvage yard, or headed south to Old Mexico.

Goodbye to a faithful partner that's carried my family through four decades of harvest.
CanyonAg77
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AG
Sold for a whopping $3000

Would have liked more, but it has hit the point where it costs too much to fix and is only good for parts
EskimoJoe
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CanyonAg77 said:

traveled to Oklahoma to salvage parts off another machine.



sturgeon's corner by chance?

my brother in law and father in law sent a pair of 6620s to Mexico this spring. The father in law's had a very low time motor that would have been great to put in a tractor. I doubt they got above scrap price for them.

that 7700 was quite a machine in its day. we still see a few of those ol' girls out running in this part of the country, usually on a smaller dryland wheat operation. The majority of the calls i took this wheat harvest were guys out trying to keep their International combines of a similar vintage running. Many of these customers have upgraded their tractors several times, and /or don't even run red tractors any more but still have the old IH combine.
CanyonAg77
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Not Sturgeon. Just some guy near Wichita Falls. I was trying to get a part loose and he offered to get his "fire axe". I had no idea what he meant, finally figured out he meant a cutting torch
CanyonAg77
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AG
Another interesting Polk auction, some rare stuff, and a crap ton of stationary engines.

https://www.proxibid.com/Polk-Auction-Company/WES-STRATMAN-COLLECTOR-AUCTION/event-catalog/189749

Updating this thread, rather than starting a new one.
 
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