Tractor - 1951 Farmall 'C'
You can't live on an acreage without a
tractor
(at least that's what I told my wife!)
When I went looking for a tractor I tried to find an old Ferguson
like the one I drove on my Grandpa's
farm as a kid but had no luck. I found this little old tractor a few
miles from my place so I settled for it.
No regrets, as it has been a great little tractor for me, but someday
I'll find a Ferguson like Grandpa had.
We have 3 acres and
much of it was in dire need of leveling and reseeding with grass. I
wanted to do it myself so I went looking for a disc. I wanted to find
a 7 or 8 foot disc that my C could handle. The only discs that size
were way too expensive for my budget.
An email pal of mine, Hugh MacKay up in Nova Scotia, suggested that I
look for a mid-size disc and cut it down to 7 or 8 foot. Hugh
explained to me that the small discs were all being bought up by
acreage owners and landscapers and were hard to find and expensive. He
pointed out that most of the 12-15' foot discs are sitting in groves
now because they are too small for farm use and too big for the
landscapers.
I found a 13' Kewanee in a farmer's grove near Sioux Center and bought
it for $100.
A little cutting and welding, well okay, A LOT of cutting and welding
and I now have a perfect little 7 foot disc that matches the HP of my
C very nicely.
Below are before and after pictures - the finished and painted disc is
shown in the photo to the right
|
In 1951 tractors didn't
come with regular 3 point hitches, so I built one and
added this scraper blade that my neighbor gave me |
|
I completed this project in August of 2000...a 16' canoe, hand built using
1"x 1/4" x 18' strips of Western Red Cedar...lots of work, but worth
it,
this will be a one of a kind canoe with lots of character...
shown here
just after completing the hull. |
Here it is shown after the first coat of epoxy over fiberglass cloth,
you
can see the cloth edges along the sheer line on the bottom.
Look at that
baby shine! |
