[SEL] Alamo powered hacksaw.......

[bill at antique-engines.com]

Boring for most I'm sure, but just got back from Waukee......... and
thanks to a tip or two from a list member, I decided the Alamo 2 was about
right speed and pulley size to run my hacksaw (the lighter, easier to move
Marvel drawcut #1 as opposed to the #2 I got from Arnie that takes 2 good
men to just move it)
I belted it up, assuming a bit that the proper pulley rotation direction
should be top of pulley toward back of saw, and let the engine idle all
weekend, popping in the clutch now and then to let people see it cutting
steel rods, and showing how when it finished, it kicked itself out of
gear.
The h&m Alamo was a tad less than even for cutting, but the engine idles
so smoothly and evenly it wasn't TOO noticable, and I'm afraid a faster
throttle-governed engine may have been a bit too fast for a good display.

The FM w/mudpump ran well all weekend, stopping twice when my brazing rod
contact broke due to metal fatigue.
Still need to find a GOOD mag person to work on the AB33 for that beast.
People loved watching  the water shoot out from a 3" pipe........ and
tried to figure how much it could move in an hour.

I only took 3 engines, as opposed to the 5 or 6 I usually take - hot, and
simply too much going on with the car restoration, etc. The third, the
Lindsay-Alamo, was on squirrelcage duty all weekend.................
The Chapman 2 took a break and stayed home this time.

The JD A machinegun tractors were a sight! They are reproductions of the
rigs JD submitted to uncle sam for military use, but they proved to be too
heavy and too difficult to maneuver, or for whatever reason, never made it
into production. I can imaging the poor driver and machine gun operators
in those steel armor cages in heat like we had. What a site! The first
submitted was a narrow front, the armor doubled the weight of the tractor
- to the point that if the front wheels dropped into a rut, it was
literally not possible to steer or move the tractor. Inmagine a JD A
tracor that weighed over 9,000 pounds (and a machine gun on each side!).
the second attempt was a wide front end which worked better, but the
drivers field of vision was pretty narrow. It, too, never made it to
production.
I've got some great photos.
The slowest engines (that I found, anyway) - a 2-stroker running about 44
RPM and a 4-stroker running at 36 rpm.
There was also an Oliver with a factory road grader attachment on it that
got a lot of attention.
The corn for the sweet corn feed was once again steamed by traction engine
- this time a Russel.

The show on Saturday was actually a bit larger than last year despite the
heat index of over 100. The ultralight rides were not offered this year,
bummer!

Bill
Runnells, IA