anybody else here into tractors

[Ronald Zeeman]

Before I had my stroke I was planning to repaint my garden tractor my wife bought me a small sand blaster, need to purchase a compressor. never got a chance stroke happened.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I occasionally watch those car repair shows, us real pros laugh our heads at the mistakes they make. Before I retired one of my favorite sites was Finishing.com a site the Pros go to when they have issues I was a significant contributor. when you have an Aspie as a expert on something they are the experts expert.

 

[Nitro]

I occasionally watch those car repair shows, us real pros laugh our heads at the mistakes they make. Before I retired one of my favorite sites was Finishing.com a site the Pros go to when they have issues I was a significant contributor.

I spent a lot of years directly involved in manufacturing, specifically machinework.
We saw products come and go, and mistakes made every step of the way.
We used a slogan, good, fast and cheap.
The unfortunate part is that the end user only gets to pick two off the list.
Often, price directly effects quality, where production automotive refinishing is dictated by price, either measured in time or what the traffic will bear.
Yes, I agree that many of the products used are substandard to other stuff that is out there, but environmental concerns have contributed to the use of unsavory products vs. the awesome stuff that isn't used mainstream.
They no longer wet sand finishes as we did in the past, color or clear coat sanding is done dry with recovery systems for the dust.
Lots of the finishes are now water based to reduce their VOC impact on the environment, so that is not the end users fault either.
Thankfully crappy acrylic lacquers are basically a thing of the past now as well as the lacquer based primers.
Lacquer spot putty gave way to polyester two part systems that cure within minutes and reduce the chances of underfinish cracking, so that was a plus too.
Self-etching primers is the new trend now with epoxy based ones gaining new ground daily.
The changeover to HVLP spray equipment lets us apply nearly 95% of the finish to the work instead of sacrificing about half of it to the spraybooth floor, so that was a bonus, but at the same time the regulation compliant finishing material costs have gone thru the roof that put us in a darker spot yet.
In the early stages of HVLP spray equipment, I forked over $1,000 for a state of the art DeVilbiss gravity fed gun because they were considered the best, but have also gained very good results with a $29 Chinesium knockoff, so most of it is due to technique, not equipment.

Color matching during repairs has now become an artform because now the primers must be color matched in thickness and spray techniques, then the base coats are effected by both of the same with often a metallic mix added to the troubles.
Gun nozzle pressures, spray techniques and atmospheric conditions play a big role in color matches now.The manufacturers are not all that fussy about exact colors because they are only in the business to sell cars at a profit, not worry about paint matches during repairs.I've heard horror stories about 30+ variants in the colors, so there ya go
Yes, I used to be one of those alpha male body shop hacks who did resto work for himself and others, but would never dismiss good product just because it wasn't sold by my automotive outlets.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I occasionally watch those car repair shows, us real pros laugh our heads at the mistakes they make. Before I retired one of my favorite sites was Finishing.com a site the Pros go to when they have issues I was a significant contributor.

I spent a lot of years directly involved in manufacturing, specifically machinework.
We saw products come and go, and mistakes made every step of the way.
We used a slogan, good, fast and cheap.
The unfortunate part is that the end user only gets to pick two off the list.
Often, price directly effects quality, where production automotive refinishing is dictated by price, either measured in time or what the traffic will bear.
Yes, I agree that many of the products used are substandard to other stuff that is out there, but environmental concerns have contributed to the use of unsavory products vs. the awesome stuff that isn't used mainstream.
They no longer wet sand finishes as we did in the past, color or clear coat sanding is done dry with recovery systems for the dust.
Lots of the finishes are now water based to reduce their VOC impact on the environment, so that is not the end users fault either.
Thankfully crappy acrylic lacquers are basically a thing of the past now as well as the lacquer based primers.
Lacquer spot putty gave way to polyester two part systems that cure within minutes and reduce the chances of underfinish cracking, so that was a plus too.
Self-etching primers is the new trend now with epoxy based ones gaining new ground daily.
The changeover to HVLP spray equipment lets us apply nearly 95% of the finish to the work instead of sacrificing about half of it to the spraybooth floor, so that was a bonus, but at the same time the regulation compliant finishing material costs have gone thru the roof that put us in a darker spot yet.
In the early stages of HVLP spray equipment, I forked over $1,000 for a state of the art DeVilbiss gravity fed gun because they were considered the best, but have also gained very good results with a $29 Chinesium knockoff, so most of it is due to technique, not equipment.

Color matching during repairs has now become an artform because now the primers must be color matched in thickness and spray techniques, then the base coats are effected by both of the same with often a metallic mix added to the troubles.
Gun nozzle pressures, spray techniques and atmospheric conditions play a big role in color matches now.The manufacturers are not all that fussy about exact colors because they are only in the business to sell cars at a profit, not worry about paint matches during repairs.I've heard horror stories about 30+ variants in the colors, so there ya go
Yes, I used to be one of those alpha male body shop hacks who did resto work for himself and others, but would never dismiss good product just because it wasn't sold by my automotive outlets.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

That's why I be came a quality engineer, spent the last twenty years working on a coil line. Coating can be cured in 30 seconds rather than 45 minutes on a spray system My favorite tool at home for spray painting is my Wagner does the job.

I'm one of the few guys out there that is familiar both with coil and spray. we have burger chain up here whose moto is we do it your way
on a coil line you get to pick your treatment, substrate topcoa tprime colour, if you change your mind you can change any of these any time thats what the appliance industry did years ago.

 

[Nitro]

My favorite tool at home for spray painting is my Wagner does the job.

I wasn't loving either of my homeowner grade Wagner buzz-bombs the day they both failed to deliver. They wasted both precious time and paint that day.
After I chucked them into the trash, I ended up finishing the paint work on my shed with a roller

 

[Tom]

My Dad has an old Ford tractor that still uses.

I have one of these that I found and pulled out of our back yard:

Only mine looks more like this condition:

I think it would be fun to restore it and get it working sometime. I could use it around my garden.

The pictures I posted are examples of a two wheeled "walk behind" tractor made by the David Bradley Company in the USA. They were common until the 1960s and were sold by Sears & Roebuck. You could order them from the Sears catalogs.

Yes, that's a mower blade on the front of the one in poor condition, but it's not permanently fixed. It's an attachment. Like four wheeled tractors, the David Bradley two wheel tractors had a lot of attachments that were available for it from things like the sickle mower attachment to cultivators, discs, a timber saw, tillers, etc.

No safety guards on this attachment.

Or this one.

Clearly those attachments were designed and sold in an era where people took personal responsibility and accepted risk.

Those are awesome! I'll take one of each for the zombie apocalypse.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

It sounds crazy, but soak rusty parts in a bucket of cheap white vinegar for a week. I did it with old, rusty, siezed up tire chains, and the rust literally melted off, revealing shiny tire chains that looked as if they were covered in chrome.

 

[Sherlock77]

A video a friend of mine made of Pioneer Acres here in Alberta, video is from 2006, but not much has changed, plenty of vintage tractors here...

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Oh this thread is making my heart sing! I grew up out in the boonies, and these things were all around me. I wasn't able to learn about them or use them, or really even touch them, because I was a girl, but I always have had a fascination with farm equipment, and I feel like if I was allowed to as a kid, I would have dove into learning all about them, and it would have been my "autism superpower".

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Oh this thread is making my heart sing! I grew up out in the boonies, and these things were all around me. I wasn't able to learn about them or use them, or really even touch them, because I was a girl, but I always have had a fascination with farm equipment, and I feel like if I was allowed to as a kid, I would have dove into learning all about them, and it would have been my "autism superpower".

It's never to late to start. MY sister never let being a woman hold her back, having five brothers

 

[clg114]

My Dad has an old Ford tractor that still uses.

I have one of these that I found and pulled out of our back yard:

Only mine looks more like this condition:

I think it would be fun to restore it and get it working sometime. I could use it around my garden.

If I had that, I would restore it and I have no use for it. You are right, it would be a lot of fun.

 

[Sherlock77]

One rather interesting tractor from that same Pioneer Acres show, a 1918 GMC Samson Sieve-Grip tractor, very few were ever made...

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Great pics and videos. looking forward to when covid is over and checking out some museums.

 

[Nitro]

An Art Arfons build turbine puller:
20180915_174706

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

we owned a 730 case when I was on the farm

 

[Nitro]

Being both a performance and aviation enthusiast, I found this unit pretty cool:

It features 2 WWII 1710 cubic inch displacement Allison V-12 aircraft engines driving this 7500 pound class pulling tractor.

The engines were normally aspirated and tuned to about 1600 horsepower, well above their standard 1000 horse ratings.

The original magnetos were proving to be too difficult to keep in order as the parts supply dried up, so it was converted with distributors from Jaguar V-12s and automotive performance ignitions.
After the war, these engines were available as Army surplus new in crates for about $400, so they found their way into many civilian hands as a result.

These are two examples of that these engines were originally fitted to:

This is a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fitted with two contra-rotating propellers.The props spun in opposite directions to negate torque steer associated with reciprocating engines driving propellers. They were given forced induction systems in order to make them suitable for high altitude performance. That put the power level to a War Emergency Power setting of 1600 horses with a standard rating of just above 1300.
WEP was a power setting that could only be used for one minute generally used to evade a bandit on your tail.
My great uncle flew these during the war. His missions were to climb to near service ceiling altitude in England, then to dive into Switzerland thru hostile territory to pick up loads of ball bearings. He then repeated the climb outs to service ceiling in neutral Switzerland in order to dive the aircraft back into friendly territory to deliver his cargo.
They were used as tank busters, fighters and light dive bombers.
The Germans called them the forked tailed devils for good reasons.

This aircraft is a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk:

This paint scheme was used by the American Volunteer Group for what was called the Flying Tigers squadron.
The Flying Tigers squadron eventually got folded into the Army Air Corps after we finally declared war on Japan.
This is no doubt the most recognized paint scheme of all the WWII aircraft.
Before the USA entered WWII, the squadron was assembled from USA military pilots under the government's permission to help keep the Japanese at bay when they invaded Burma.
They were soldiers of fortune.
The stars on the paintjob are actually Chinese markings because they were used as a part of their defense.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

No tractor pulls for us until covid is over.

 

[Skittlebisquit]

Hopefully july and certainly by labor day i believe we should be getting back to normal. That all the gods we dont live in India, its running rampant there

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

It's running rampant in Brampton also lots of South Asians 80% to 90% of population.