[SEL] Intro

[Elden DuRand]

6 November 2006

I suppose I should finally get around to writing something about myself.

As of this date, I'm 64 going on 65.  Been married for 34 years.  Elaine just barely tolerates my rustaholism.

Education:  High school then started at Speed Scientific School at the University of Louisville.  

Three months later, I decided that I didn't need to spend 5 years learning a lot of things I would most likely never use so I quit and got a job.  It didn't take me long to get bored with that so, with 'ol Uncle Sam looking over my shoulder, I beat the draft and joined the Air Force.

Career:  In 1965, after my military service, I got an FCC "First Phone" license and worked at WAKY-AM, WAVE-AM,TV and WHAS-AM,FM,TV.   While doing broadcast engineering I started my company, Pewee Valley Industries, Inc.   PVI was a one man consultancy that concentrated on electronic circuit design and product development.

In 1976, I decided to see if PVI could be made to pay so I quit WHAS and went fulltime with my business.  PVI was moderately successful and I kept at it until a couple of years ago when I closed it and retired.

Hobby:  I've been interested in mechanical things for as long as I can remember.  I got my first engine, a 1-1/2 HP dishpan flywheel Fairbanks-Morse in 1950 when I was about nine years old.  Our neighbor couldn't get it to run and, after cranking blisters on his hand for a whole day, said that I could have it if I could make it run.  Ten minutes later, it was mine.

I kept the dishpan for about six years until a friend decided he just had to have it.  I really didn't want to part with it but he said he'd trade even a vertical Fairbanks-Morse engine he'd just taken from a loft.  I've still got it and you can see it on my webpage below.  Just within the last couple of years, I found out that the serial number of my 2 HP Jack of All Trades is 665.  This puts the date of manufacture at about 1897, making it one of the earliest Jack of All Trades engines in existence.

Fast forward to about 1996.  I got my third engine, another Fairbanks-Morse.  This one was a basket case ZC-52 which had been abandoned in a western Indiana oilfield when the pumps were electrified.  The friend who gave it to me (yes, ANOTHER freebie!) said that either I could take it or he'd scrap it.  I took it.  Being a junk collector, I also hauled home an old Sears Suburban garden tractor with a bad engine, yup - yet another freebie.  

One day, I was sitting in the garage looking at the rusty pile of parts engine and the rusty tractor and decided that I needed a way to get the engine around to shows.  I mounted the ZC-52 on the tractor and now have one of the world's only Hoyt-Clagwell 54/75 tractors.

Elaine and I still own the home and seventeen acres in Kentucky we built during our first year of marriage.  We also own a home in Florida on the north shore of Choctawhatchee Bay.  At this time, both homes are for sale and, when one of them sells, we plan to move to Mexico Beach, Florida to spend the rest of our lives watching sunsets.  

Oh, yes - I'll also be dabbling in rust.

Take care - Elden DuRand
edurand at iglou.com
http://www.oldengine.org/members/durand