What is the oddest machine you have worked on or operated

[JethroB]

As a teen in the 70’s I worked briefly for a neighbor who contracted painting the traffic lines on highways and airport runways. He was a bit of an inventor and fabricator so some interesting equipment. Who knew that fine glass beads were dropped onto the wet paint to make it reflective at night?.

 

[jjeff]

Not a wenkel rotary combustion two stroke engine I mentioned earlier but I currently have a few older rotary valve two strokes. They are pretty interesting and kind of odd at a small scale level. Especially if compared to reed valves imo.

 

[kmesr9]

As a teenager working on a milk farm I had to drive and get corn silage from another farm. They had a scale and a tractor with fel in a large flat barn where I’d drive up, weigh the empty truck, drive into the barn, load and weigh out. The honor system at its best. One morning I set out with the big flatbed truck, weighed in and drove into the barn. The tractor was no where to be seen instead there was this giant articulated loader. I was like, whelp cows gotta eat so I jumped in it, read through the stickers and started it. When I turned the wheel I got a big surprise as the center swing to turn was whoa Nelly! Loaded the truck in 3 scoops when it usually took six and headed back. I’ll never forget the feeling of driving that monster!

 

[MossRoad]

Speaking of gas fueled tractors, can anyone tell me why the 20's till about in the 1960's, gas tractors were so common?

How Diesel Changed Farming - Farm Collector

Check out how the invention of the diesel internal combustion engine irrevocably changed how we farm today.

www.farmcollector.com

 

[bearthebruce]

I had a business designing and building custom magnetic controls and transformers. One morning I got a call from a company in middle PA whose main product was brass rod. After the rod is extruded, it has to be pickeled. To fit a reasonable amount in a pickeling tank, the rod has be coiled. Once pickeled, the rod is straightened and polished.

They had a German designed custom machine for their 3" Octagonal rod that un-coiled, straightened, polished and then cut the rod to length. It was built in the early '30s and had seen nearly 60 years of continuous use 24/7/365 - at least that is what they were trying to do.

The call was about a clutch/brake controller they had seen I had designed for another customer. This cut off saw used a vacuum tube controller to operate a large clutch and brake to get a "flying cut off saw" up to speed and moving at the same rate as the rod. Once to speed, the rod continued to push the saw table as a clamp locked the table to the rod. The saw dropped, the piece was pulled away and then the table clamp released to send the saw back to its home position where the brake had to stop it.

The issue they had is that they could no longer get parts to keep the controller running and they needed a new design/new supply of parts.

It was one of the more interesting challenges I took on. Big power.. Large mechanical forces.. there is far more to the story but I will spare the details.

Probably the oldest machine I ever working on.

 

[Whenu]

Hi all, been lurking for a while, used to operate and maintain these machines.
Barrier machine was used to move a concrete barrier on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Bridge inspection truck was built to look at, and work on structures, would go down 12 mtrs, or up to 19 mtrs, would get across to the other side of a two lane bridge. Good lurk, got to go around the country for a few years.

 

[dkmc]

So does 'worked on' mean I can rant about the ****tty design of the Howard Price TURF BLAZER I owned for awhile years ago? What a pile of crap. A few of it's 'better' points....To change the main drive belt from engine to PTO, you had to pull the engine. To take out the PTO shaft to replace the brake, there were bolts installed on brackets, that had parts of the frame welded around them during assembly. I had to torch holes in the frame to access the bolt heads. Usually when you see one of these machines listed for sale they are low hours. That's because they were a very poorly performing mower.

 

[grsthegreat]

Hi all, been lurking for a while, used to operate and maintain these machines.
Barrier machine was used to move a concrete barrier on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Bridge inspection truck was built to look at, and work on structures, would go down 12 mtrs, or up to 19 mtrs, would get across to the other side of a two lane bridge. Good lurk, got to go around the country for a few years.View attachment 851951

Your not getting me into that bucket.but ive seen the idaho dept of transportation use similar truck on bridge inspections here also.

 

[ArlyA]

Your not getting me into that bucket.but ive seen the idaho dept of transportation use similar truck on bridge inspections here also.

Every state that does bridge inspections has them.

 

[ArlyA]

I worked for terex and on demo day, the employees could operate machines. I had a 4ft augar to run like seen here and gee whiz, could I make dirt fly with it!

 

[Little Red Tractor]

My dad repaired farm equipment from his own shop in the rural upper Hudson Valley farm country. There was a lot of old farm equipement he either had on his shop or repaired in the field. Old Cletrac crawlers, early Farmalls with steel wheels, all dating back to the early 30s maybe into the late 20s were not uncommon. Oh, I wish we had pictures.

 

[nysumrwind]

Used to take road trips to fix steam machines. They were used to press cloths on a pulley system. Machine quit and upon inspection, found a bad switch which I didn’t have with me. His downtime would have been costly. I asked him for a ballpoint pen and used the spring to fix the switch. He was amazed. So much knowledge in the above post, I only hope it’s passed along. Sometimes I doubt it when I see a young man on the side of the road with a flat tire. I pull over and ask what he needs. He has no clue how to change the tire and has to be led by the hand. God bless us

 

[MoKelly]

Here is a unique response. I operated this machine for several years as a new accountant with Price Waterhouse.

When I first started, I had to sit in an office and a partner gave me a page from the phone book.

I had to add all the phone numbers on the page. Using this calculator. No adding machine tape. I only had an hour.

When I thought I had the answer, I had to go to the partner with the answer.

I needed 4 times to get the right answer —- or at least that is what the partner told me. Who really knows?

 

[paulsharvey]

Does a 1893 'C' stamped hex receiver M1891 Mosin count? I believe this was the last year of manufacture in France, as the factory was getting rolling in Tula/Ishevsk. As a note, for anyone who hates 'garbage rods' the US was still using single shot trap door 45-70 Springfields at that time.

 

[Frxdy]

I owned a 1946 Allis-Chalmer tractor. It might have been a 1944. Even though I had the serial number, the factory couldn't tell me. They said they didn't keep that close a record....they were the same so who cared? It was a crank start, and took a trick to start it quickly. No one wanted to crank it 7 or 8 times, so you learned exactly what kept it happy. I hayed 12 acres with it for 4 or 5 years and it never failed me.

 

[paulsharvey]

I Swear I read the thread title as "the Oldest" and now, I see it says "Oddest"....

 

[Williy]

I learned how to use a comptometer similar to this
one but you could put 999,999,999.99 in this one
don't have all the keys and yes you don't look at the
keys when adding

willy

 

[MossRoad]

Never got to operate one, but there were plenty of remnants of these machines, fonts, and lead pigs around the newspaper when I was hired back in 1987.

It really could be the 8th wonder of the world. I hope you find it interesting.

 

[MossRoad]

Never got to operate one, but there were plenty of remnants of these machines, fonts, and lead pigs around the newspaper when I was hired back in 1987.

It really could be the 8th wonder of the world. I hope you find it interesting.

I helped convert the last of 18 press units at our newspaper from lead plates to flexi plates (thin aluminum plates with plastic type) the first month I worked there.

 

[old and tired]

This is a research plot planter... As it drives, we were able to spray or apply different granular in-furrow insecticides and/or plant different varieties of seeds. The unit is GPS equipped, so it will start planting 40 foot plots then stops planting to leave us a 7 foot alley. During that alley, the unit clears itself by vacuum out seeds from the lines and planters so a different variety of seeds and/or different insecticides could be applied to the next plot.