Joe Prochaska (center) tells about use of corn to fire
up in an interview with Rollin Scheider, extension
safety specialist at the Institute of Agriculture and Natural
Resources. The one-fourth scale Case steam engine, built by
Prochaska, burns ear corn or corn cobs. The boys are
Joe’s son, Frank, in railroad cap, and Galen Krenk.
Joe Prochaska, Nebraska farmer, was featured in a recent issue
of Farm Journal magazine as he demonstrated use of ear corn and
corn cobs to fire up his one-fourth scale Case steam traction
engine.
Joe spent four winters making parts for the engine, and the
fifth putting it together. It was modeled after a Case his dad had
owned.
‘I remember many a morning starting it up with corn,’ he
says. ‘I carried a lot of cobs.’
His grandfather, who did custom threshing, burnt nothing but
corn.
When asked by us whether he felt corn cobs and steam engines
could help meet the fuel crunch, Joe commented that he did not see
why not. Last time he priced coal, he said, he found the cost
comparable with that of ear corn.
‘Ear corn really burns hot, as well as coal,’ he
finds.
In October he took the engine to a nearby school to demonstrate.
The children had never seen steam in operation.
Joe had his picture in Farm Journal’s western edition
because he presented a demonstration last July at the Tractor Power
and Safety Day at the University of Nebraska Field Laboratory near
Mead. The event is sponsored annually by the Institute of
Agriculture and National Resources agricultural engineering
department.
Joe, who lives at Abie, Nebraska, is an IMA subscriber and a
member of the Brotherhood of Live Steamers. He shows the Case in
parades and exhibits at threshermen’s reunions in his
state.
‘We built a shop 30 x 50 and mixed the mortar with the
engine,’ Joe recalls. ‘My boy Frank .did all the firing. It
will run a cement mixer.’ The steam, however, is mainly a
hobby.
Prochaska farms 280 diversified acres–beans, wheat, oats, Milo
(sorghum or maize or whatever others call it), cattle, sheep and
hogs.
