At the Florida Flywheelers swap meet, I came across an unusual tractor called the Chev-All, the creation of David Radius, Kissimmee, Fla.

Actually, it was a homemade tractor using an F-12 Farmall rear end and a 6-cylinder Chevrolet in-line overhead valve engine.

Clockwise from top: David Radius’ homemade tractor, the Chev-All “6 Minus 3”; the Chev-All’s instrument panel and operating controls; the Chevrolet in-line 6-cylinder engine in which cylinders 1, 2 and 3 have spark plugs but do not have spark plug wires, and cylinders 4, 5 and 6 are the firing plugs; the Chev-All’s unique 3-point hitch arrangement; note the wide front end of the homemade tractor; and a right-side view of the Chev-All. (Click any of the smaller images for a larger version.)

The frame of the Farmall had been cut off just ahead of the bell housing and a wider channel-iron frame had been installed to hold the engine. The tractor had an altogether different front end and steering mechanism than did the original F-12. It was no longer a cultivating tractor. Instead, a wide front end had been installed along with all the necessary steering gears, linkages, tie rods, etc.

To modernize the tractor, an unusual 3-point hitch was installed, sufficiently different from others so as not to cause patent infringement. And most of the controls had been changed, although I noticed that the F-12 hand throttle and foot clutch had been retained. Both hand brake levers had been elongated, making them easier to reach for the operator. Since the engine had an electric starter, an ammeter was added to monitor generating amperage.

Along each side of the hood was “6 Minus 3.” When you looked over the tractor’s engine carefully, you could see that the sparkplug wires had been removed from cylinders 1, 2 and 3. It boggled my mind to try to figure out how this engine could even run with 3 cylinders disconnected. But it did run and it ran well. Sounded quite decent, too.

David is quite a tinkerer and it got me to thinking about some of our great tinkerers in the history of agriculture. There were many:

• John Froelich – The very first successful gas tractor was built by John Froelich in 1892. This tractor was assembled from parts and pieces of other machines with a few parts made by Froelich in his shop. He used a Van Duzen vertical stroke gas engine to power his contraption. Even though ignition and carburetion had not been perfected, the tractor was a success.
• Huber – Huber bought the Van Duzen Co. of Cincinnati so he could use the engine in his first gas tractor. Huber built 30 machines to be sold commercially. The ignition and carburetion caused sufficient problems that Huber discontinued gas tractor production until 1911.
• Harley-Davidson – Harley-Davidson worked on the carburetion problem. When the company built its first motorcycle in 1903, it used a tomato can as a carburetor. Wonder how that worked?
• Henry Ford’s repairman – But one of the most important tinkerers spoken of in the automotive industry worked at least one day for Henry Ford. Ford used Thomas Edison’s DC electric power in his factory. Edison’s dynamo used a gas engine to power a generator to charge a large bank of batteries from which power was distributed to the shop. The story has it that one day the dynamo stopped working. Ford called in a repairman to solve the problem. The man came in and spent an hour or so working on the engine to get it to run properly. When he left, he handed Ford a bill for $50. Henry about had a fit. He reportedly said to the repairman, “Your bill is outrageously high. Why, I pay my men a dollar a day for a full day’s work. You were here only about an hour tinkering around with that machine. I think you should adjust your bill.” The repairman supposedly revised the bill thusly: $1 for 1 hour of tinkering; $49 for knowing where to tinker. This man’s name is not part of the lore, but his story is.

Tinkerers are still out there working on and adapting machines to fit their individual needs. Simply attend any antique tractor show and you’ll spot an “improvement” to some piece of equipment or another. There were many more at the Florida Flywheelers swap meet, but this is the one that intrigued me the most. You, too, can spot a tinkerer’s creation as you walk down the many rows of equipment. Just keep an eye peeled.

It’s easy to think you’ve seen it all before … easy, that is, until you pick up the December 2009 issue of Farm Collector.

As I survey the contents, my first reaction is like that of the elderly friend I remember from childhood. On hearing something that surprised or shocked, she exclaimed, “Well, I never,” signaling both wonderment and a sudden shortage of words.

As an editor, of course, I have at my immediate disposal mass quantities of words. The bounds of my profession, however, require sparing use of them. Accordingly, things in this issue that make me say wow, a contemporary translation of “well, I never”:

A 1958 John Deere combine, purposefully rolling through a field of wheat, flanked by a pair of brand new models looking for all the world like bodyguards protecting a rock star. A guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do, but who had more fun that day, the guy in the vintage combine or the guys with climate control, heated mirrors and GPS?

The Delaware County (Ohio) Antique Farm Machinery Assn., which staged a complete demonstration of putting up hay from field to haymow. That kind of over-the-top effort tells the story of vintage equipment in a uniquely effective and integrated way. As show demonstrations go, this one is unusually demanding and requires a small army of truly dedicated volunteers, but the payoff is immense.

Then there are the people who think big but go small, the kind of guy who has the patience to shingle a barn roof one row at a time, and count that a good day’s work, or the guy who decides to build a 1/4-scale model of a tractor with the entire project’s engineering schematics housed only in his brain.

And there’s more: a tractor restorer who put other senses to work when vision was no longer available to him … the fact that a place like Gelli Newydd still exists … the bull blinder (hard to imagine how such a device was actually installed on an animal cantankerous enough to need it: Now there’s a YouTube video!) … and an avalanche of responses to the October What-Is-It mystery tools.

All of which brings to mind another of my elderly friend’s go-to expressions: “Have you ever seen the like?” Only in Farm Collector! Happy reading—

Jokes about farmers who squeeze every bit of usefulness out of everything on the farm have been around as long, well, as there have been farmers.

While some regard such behavior as the ideal, others mock it. True enough, thrift can be carried ridiculously far, but rooted as it is in a time when each man made his own way without benefit of government handouts, it speaks to admirable traits such as resourcefulness, discipline and creativity.

Today of course we live in a material world with (at least until recently) easy credit. We trade up and super-size it. Lately, though, an ailing economy has made many reconsider the farmer’s approach. These days a two-edged sword of economy and environmentalism is cutting swaths through consumerism. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Cobblers are busy, service shops are swamped and canning jars are in short supply. Suddenly it’s chic to be thrifty. Poor Richard is become a media darling.

Thriftiness generates its own rewards, to be sure. But what really appeals to me about the farmer’s philosophy is the way it engenders resourcefulness and creativity. The Depression-era kids who knew there was no budget for toys wasted no time in building their own — and suffered no permanent scarring as a result.

As they matured, those kids knew how things worked, knew how to fix things. And a good many knew how to make things (read about Harold Fleisch, who built three working steam engines from scratch). That kind of ingenuity is at the heart of the antique farm equipment hobby.

In the July 2009 issue of Farm Collector, resourcefulness is part of nearly every article. Toy makers experimented with new materials … experimental gas engines turned up in a junkyard … a cotton farmer invented implements to make the job easier … a unique tractor launched a new transmission … even the issue’s “What-Is-It” department continues that theme, featuring a handmade tool. The purpose of the crude but sturdy piece may never be known, but clearly it was useful to its maker or it would never have survived this long.

There’s not much glamour associated with baling wire and duct tape. Often it’s little more than a quick fix. But it is a gentle reminder of wisdom. As Benjamin Franklin urged, “For age and want save while you may, no morning sun lasts a whole day.”