May 23, 2003 - Carlinville, IL - 10

I could smell the coke in the blacksmith shop as soon as we got to the museum grounds.  Again, made me feel good....and bad.  Am I getting so old that everything reminds me of something in my past?  When I was a kid we had horses, and the ferrier (guy who puts shoes on horses) would come out to do his thing, and I had to turn the crank on the blower to keep the fire hot.  My grandfather had been a blacksmith and my dad had lots of his tools, so it was a trip down memory lane for me.

This 'ole boy had to turn his own crank, by golly, and it didn't hurt my feelings one little bit.  And then something that made me wish my good friend John ( www.gypsyjohn.net ) was here too.  A steam engine.  Well, I guess, more accurately, a steam toy tractor.

Did I like it much?  Did it fascinate me much?  Was it fun to watch?  Naw, I just couldn't find anything else to take pictures of.  It carries its own wood there in those side bins, and the "driver" has to reach down and turn the steering wheel to control where it goes.  He could also, of course, control its speed.  He told me that no, he'd not built it, but that it was about 85 years old.  Fit right in with this crowd, I'll tell you.

Seems this isn't the only time of the year that the tractors come out to play!  These were all pedal tractors, and represented most the brands in use today.  If I'd have remembered my notebook, I'd have been able to tell you more than the fact that the blue one is a Ford, and the green and yellow one is a Deere.  Rats!

But the real thing is much more fun to play with, according to this young fellow.  The guy walking behind him had to holler at him once in a while to remind him to watch where he was going.  In a subsequent conversation with the tractor owner, I learned that yes, it was a "real" garden tractor and in addition to the plough, it had a disc and some other tool that came with it.

Gee, imagine that.  Another picture of the steam tractor.  I was truly fascinated with it.  And then what's this?  A 3 wheeled garden tractor?  Yup.  Partially homemade, but all there in running condition.

A trailer full of Hit & Miss engines.  Oh, how their music is sweet, too.  And the green thing is a generator.

Kohler is still making generators, and some are in RV's.  This one was built in 1939 and after only a few repairs by its current owner, is in top condition today.  And then the road grader with a very flat tire.  Might could use a little paint here and there, too, come to think about it.

This old guy sure could use a little tender lovin' care, don'tcha think?  But does it look a little like that fancy steam toy tractor?  Sure does, by golly.  Not exact, but close.  Even the same kind of governor and chain drive steering.

Now Ernie, here, didn't do anything except the unusual.  He'd take a brake master cylinder from some old car or something, and make a steam engine out of it.  He used lots of wood, too.  Like the connecting rod on the little engine with the red flywheel.  "Invented" parts all over the place.  He had this ancient coal-fired boiler providing the steam through a maze of tubes and pipes to all these little engines he'd built.  The pressure would build up on the boiler, the relief valve would pop off, Ernie would pull the chain to the whistle and relieve a little of the pressure, or fiddle with one of the several (maybe a dozen?) valves, and things would get to running right again.  A couple of the engines he'd built in such a way that they'd run either clockwise or counterclockwise.  Amazing guys around this place.

Here's Ernie's "Original Homemade Magic Marble Machine" (ignore that nifty little green & yellow wagon in the back).  The gearbox is run via a belt from "My Own Model #2 Used Old Master Cyl Built 1990" steam engine, and it turned a spring that would carry marbles (59 of them for those of you who are interested in such things -- unless he's lost some of his marbles, he said...and I didn't comment) to the top of the spring where it would dump them in the trough that would carry them eventually back to the lower end of the turning spring.  When he was done, he'd take that trough laying there on the green bench, insert it in a strategic location, and the marbles would run down the trough into the Band-Aid can for storage.  One time he forgot to put the can in place first, so he's not sure he really has 59 marbles any more.  He had marbles all over the place, he told me.  Again, I just smiled and nodded.

Ernie fussing with the boiler (it was older than he was, and he was older than I am, and I'll leave it at that), and then a paddle-wheeled tractor.  Must not have too much trouble with flat tires on this one!

All I can figure out is that the Hart Family "The Girls Tractor" team must have got a real bargain on purple paint!  Sure was shiny though.  And then a guy who had a trailer full of hit & miss engines as well at that 3 wheeled garden tractor and a bunch of others just shooting the breeze with whoever would stop to chat.  Seemed to me that all these guys were about the same.  Mostly well fed, mostly gray hair, mostly missing fingers or pieces of fingers, and all willing and ready to swap stories with anybody and everybody.  We (Wayne and I -- the women were off doing the craft show thing) had been chatting with one of the guys when he was distracted by an old friend who came up.  He started talking to the friend and Wayne and I moved on.  Later in the day we were sitting at a table letting our bodies recover from several hours of standing around, and the guy came by.  He stopped and apologized about not finishing the conversation with us, invited us back to his spot and told us some more about an engine he'd been talking to us about when he'd been interrupted.  What neat people we have in the "real" America, folks.

The simplicity of these engines is marvelous.  And then a guy who built working models from scratch.  Including the wood boxes they stand on.  What incredible talent!  And he didn't start to build these models until after he retired.  His wife was an active participant in the display, and when she couldn't answer a question (Wayne is a tool nut and asked the wife what tools the guy had in his shop), she'd fish out a picture and show it.  Wayne was impressed.  This little green engine was running at the time I took the picture, and if you look carefully, you can see the governor on the flywheel beginning to close, so the engine will fire again.  It's running a wonderfully detailed pump, by the way.

A fellow is looking at the drawings done in 1936 for this 9-cylinder radial aircraft engine model.  The builder even makes his own spark plugs when he can, because the purchased ones cost $20 each!  He had a sign hanging on the bench that said he'd have a demonstration at 1:30, and there was no way you were going to get Wayne and I to leave before we saw these run. They are gasoline powered.  One has 9 cylinders and the other only 5.

I didn't get a shot of him starting the engine, because he just stood in front and gave the prop a quick flip.  Then he walked behind it to mess with the carburetor while it ran.  The exposed rocker arms were going so fast you couldn't see them move.  Not very noisy, and the lower cylinders had a bit of oil in them which clogged the sparkplugs, but they cleared up pretty quickly and it ran real smooth.

It ran for 3 or 4 minutes before he shut it down to a round of applause from the on-lookers.

And then it was on to the 5-cylinder model.  He said he couldn't start it by flipping the prop, it had to be started with an electric drill.  He started the portable generator (purchased, not built) to supply power to the electric drill motor and.....

after one last check of the wiring, nodded to his wife who stuck the drill on the hub of the prop for an instant, and the engine was running.  I again missed most the starting sequence.  That's the wife ducking out of the way to the left, and you can see part of the drill motor.

Now, not one part of these engines is a kit.  He built every single part except for some of the spark plugs, and the casing on one of the other little gasoline engines he had.  Can you imagine the patience it took to machine all that?  The heads on these aircraft engines screw onto the cylinders, and while cutting outside threads is a chore enough, can you think what it took to cut the inside threads?  And do it so precisely that there were no compression leaks?  As we were about to leave, we heard the sound of wood being sawed, and there's this 1938 John Deere "H" tractor using its pulley to run a sawmill.

Only this isn't your ordinary saw mill.  It's a shingle mill, cutting cedar shingles.

This contraption holds the cut-to-length log, and shifts the angle of the cut to get the wedge shape of the shingle.  I found it noteworthy that the young guy was sitting on the tractor, and these old duffers were the ones running the mill.

So, who's going to carry on the traditions?  Are we going to loose the knowledge these guys have like we've lost the ability to carve stone?  The pickers and grinners were having a great time helping us have a great time as well.  Is this a great lifestyle or what?!