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Fred R Clark & Son Machineworks

I had to take a quick look, it says 1,7K. Is that 1700 views in 7 days? That is a little amazing.
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2,115 as of this morning
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Some of you know I love to see statistics and this run delivered.

Not too shabby for a two week run.

My previous record was 3166 views over a ten year span.
 
Back in the saddle again, prepping for our upcoming show.

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The H parked with the John Deere mower.
The mower got a serious workout knocking back the grass that was getting fairly high.

Got the brass tags removed from my concrete mixer to remove their "patina" that was obscuring what they said on them.
Steel wool only fixed the high spots but wouldn't touch the rough stuff, so it was on to plan B
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Used plain old vinegar in a plastic container floating in my ultrasonic cleaner
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As you can see, that was the hot ticket
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Two down, one to go....

The tag on the left is how to determine how much Portland cement that is required to make standard mixes in the machine.
Important stuff if you need to make your concrete last.
( I know very little about that and only own the machine)
 
Put another three days in at the showgrounds getting stuff ready for the upcoming show.
Lots of tidy up in the shop area and some needed repairs got done.
The first project was adapting a ball hitch to the Jaeger mixer.
Easy enough, bore an additional hole in the removable hitch for the tinyhouse and bind her down tight thru the original hitch hole.
Ready to drop onto the hitch ball on the Farmall to drag it to the show area then yank it off prior to the show.
Will wash and wax her first, then load the mixer up with stove pellets just so the people can see how it operates.
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I won't get to run it myself, but another member will run it while he runs his.

I stashed away a bunch of coffee cans of hardware that were donated to my cause, but that was part of what I built the locker for last summer.

Opened up the Racine power hacksaw and did a preliminary inspection of it's naughty bits.
She failed and will need some attention, but with little effort should be good in due time.
Next on the list was a few minutes spent on a binding belt shifter shaft on a lineshaft. A dirty but done deal.
Next on that project will be a new lever pivot bolt and washers then the install of it's support bracket
That is the part I moved last year for the Rhoads shaper project.
She won't be ready for this show because the clock is counting down, but hopefully she will shine during the summer show.
So close yet so far away...

The biggest accomplishment today was to move that huge old dinosaur wood lathe over to our museum.
That will pave the way for another lineshaft to power up our 1850 build date planer table, the huge drill press donation and the Racine power hacksaw.

With more luck and labor, I hope to see all of that up and running over the next year, but as they say, Rome wasn't burned in a day 😁

Got started on the magnetic steel signage.
Mods were required because I wasn't able to get all of the needed letters, so it was cut and weld time to git 'er dun
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Two letter Ds being modified to become letter Os

One must be precise when doing the mods so they were finished on our horizontal mill prior to welding them.
Sign preview:
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Will have to remove then adjust a few magnets to get the 100% right, but is should be fine in the end.
Not bad for Walmart 90% discount Christmas stuff :p

The starter on the Farmall took a dump last Sunday, so it got dragged home for repairs.
Yep, snapped a bendix spring:
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Internally, the motor looked fine, in fact had signs of a recent rebuild.
The spring was only $20, but a brand new drive was only 50, so you guessed it, it got a new one.
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That puppy will be reassembled in the morning and headed back up for install possibly tomorrow evening.
 
While the Farmall was down over a bad starter, I decided to finish sorting out the wiring on it.
I will be utilizing the original light switch to operate the improved LED headlamps on the front and one more LED light on the rear.
Harness on the ground:
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Alternator with the proper sized crimp connector for the charging lead:
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I relocated the ballast resister for the ignition coil and will run that wiring with the charge lead.
I decided to 86 the crappy pull switch for the ignition and replace it with a marine grade toggle switch I will be adding to the light switch box.
The new switch will have a red LED on the lever tip so it won't be ignored when left on.
pix will be provided when it is done.

The intake piping got treated to new rubber hose.
I reused the two upper hose clamps because they were painted and can't be seen under the hood.
New ones will be added to the lower hose soon, I promise :p
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Yep, the temp gauge and the oil pressure tube will need more attention, but while it is opened up, it will be easy.
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Will be wiring all of the electrical functions thru the ignition switch which will include the gauge illuminations too.

I got done trying to make my tractor original and decided that function was better than form.

I have to have it back in service again for a tractor parade on next Saturday.
Yep, we will get to cruise the National Road (US 40) on antique farm tractors :cool:
 
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Showtime coming up!

On the morning of the 18th, we will be putting on our annual spring show.

Lots of busy stuff getting done as we removed the ravages of winter and prepped our grounds.
I personally have spent dozens of hours simply mowing many of out areas.
In between outdoor work, there was a little time to devote to my Farmall.

Basically the starter got remounted then the wiring project began.
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Orange denotes the shower head braided stainless steel that was utilized as conduit.
It was zip tied to the radiator shutter actuating rod because for one, the shutter no longer exists and I don't plan on operating the old gal in freezing weather.
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The headlight wiring got the same treatment and was fastened with Grote rubberized clamps (red)
Super slinky and it will protect the wiring at the same time.
Plus it jazzes up the old girl a little with some sparkly bits.
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A volt meter was substituted for the factory ammeter (red) because it gives a better picture of the battery and charging system integrity.
The crappy externally mounted pull style ignition switch was swapped out for a standard toggle switch that was mounted in the headlamp to get it out of the weather.

All of the stainless conduit was terminated inside of the switch box and the factory light switch was utilized to illuminate the new LED lamps with a factory original 1950 feel.
Pretty cool, and got a lot of compliments on how it all came together.
The biggest part of the rush to get it done was to get it ready for a tractor parade on the National Road, but low oil pressure issues when warmed up over ruled that decision until I can get what the root cause of it is.
I'm hoping that it is just a substandard gauge, but it could also be a hung up relief valve.
Worst case scenario is that she needs a set of new connecting rod and main crankshaft bearings, but that has yet to be determined.
No biggie if it is, but I decided to err on the side of caution instead of blowing her up on an extended joy ride.
 
Well once again we got to put yet another spring show in the books.
T'was a very busy weekend that started on Friday for me.
First on the list was placing the '29 Jaeger concrete mixer in it's display area.
That lead up to the newly reworked starter motor on the Farmall letting me down.
Yep, the machine started probably 50 times prior to it then decided to screw up when it was needed most.
It was an oversight on the brush wiring locations that was caused by the prior builder that lead to a short circuit.
That caused a failure in the starter switch, but was remedied by using a screwdriver across the switch terminals to get it running.
A replacement has been ordered :p
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The Jaeger scrubbed up pretty nice and was very presentable.
Another member operated her for me because my shop kept me too busy to do it.
She performed flawlessly.

The sign was finished and I feel is very appropriate.

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Fred Clark Jr. was at the show on Sunday and I could tell he was very impressed by first the operations in the shop and next seeing their names in bronze on the building.
Plans are in the works to get that damned door painted green for the summer show.
Yeah, I know, same picture with a better story.
As I say, Rome wasn't burned in a day, or something to that effect .
We, as in me and that little mouse in my shirt pocket have a lot of details to nail down by August.
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The '39 Ford drilling rig got a bath as promised and let me tell you, her picture does her no justice.
In fact, she looks pretty sweet now.
I propped open the hood to show off her flathead V-8 this show and left the driver's door open too.
Uber cool stuff :cool:

A fun part of the show for me was passing out about 200 leftover 2019 Jeep feature year buttons to the little ones.
The only requirement to get one was to say "Beep beep, I love my Jeep"
 
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Tractor images
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Barry on the last tractor his dad bought for their farm
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Barry is one of the last two founding member that is still with us.
This show was started on their family farm.

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The Garvin horizontal in all of her glory.
She ran flawlessly as she did the helical cuts she was designed to do.
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A very dramatic example of a machine that was designed with a sliderule a pencil and paper over a century ago.
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The Diamond 22 with a 'fake" setup to simulate a repair on a Ford model A connecting rod.
Yep, simply an illusion of work being done.
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So this morning was the wrap-up as all of my display pieces were relegated to the inside of the building and the H got parked to the rear of the tinyhouse.
The cartoon minibike project was parked outside the house for the show and the Wheel Horse riding mower was placed there too.
Part of this morning was spent remeasuring the new to us drill press to make sure it will clear the door opening and apparently we will have about an inch of clearance as she sits.
I pulled two of the guards away hoping to find at least another inch if needed, but that has yet to be determined.
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Headed home at noon and got cleaned to go pick up two gasoline fired antique lead smelting units and some wooden handled screwdrivers at "Used to be Yours" second hand shop that benefits disabled American war veterans.

Those will be proudly displayed in future shows.
The next few weeks will be dedicated to finishing the interior work on the tinyhouse, moving four pieces of equipment to their new places in the shop and possibly getting the Rhodes shaper up and running

Yep, tired, in fact exhausted from all of the work leading up to a highly successful show!

August will be here sooner that we think, and it will all start over again.
 
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That '39 Ford drilling rig looks very nice. It's a shame it's so far away, I would have loved to see all the tractors and other stuff you guys have there. The place looks exceptionally good.
 
Spent a few days back on the grounds, mostly occupied by a bunch of mowing but did get to replace the starter switch on the Farmall.
Took that puppy out on an hour long cruise with the throttle closed to an idle and the tractor in first gear. You get to see so much more when moving at a crawl.
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I took a look behind the star on my door and although I was disappointed that the red had faded on it, it also revealed that the water treated wood is starting to take on more color.
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I see that as a win and will try to stain it even darker in the near future. Got exactly nothing done on the interior, but that can wait a while longer.

Big plans for the bedding/storage area under it and I have several of the details worked out on the counter areas.
Oh, and the 50 class TV will take up too much real estate so I have a 43 headed my way.
In all we had a 42 degree night and roughly 70 degree days which is cool for this time of the year, but I was never uncomfortable at all.

Next Sunday is our meeting day and there was talk of doing a private demo of some of our stuff for the Scouts.
Not sure exactly when, but I will do my part to educate and demonstrate, because that is what we are all about.

Night run on the H:
 

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