Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

Wandering through the internet I stumbled across the site - "Vintage Projects" https://www.vintageprojects.com/
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it's an interesting look into the past with copies of old DIY projects from magazines like Popular Mechanics etc...
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The "Farm" https://www.vintageprojects.com/farm

"Tractors" https://www.vintageprojects.com/tractors
sections were an interesting read - lots of rainy day hide in the garage type projects.

My Dad's dad built one of those GTs back in the 40s out of oak rails and old car drive-lines with a single cylinder engine . Had 2 transmissions inline. I remember see it in the back of the shed when I was a teen.

That old common sense engineering stuff just fascinates me. At one time I had a lot of old magazines called stabilizer from the Lincoln Electric Company in Cleveland Ohio. There was a section called how I fixed it. Amazing stories mostly from farmers and old time welders. I passed them to a young apprentice back in the 80’s who was interested in reading them. I just love those old stories from men who figured things out. I’ll definitely be reading them. Thanks Gerry. Harry

I love it Gerry! Reminds me of my dad. He built a fence post puller from plans he found in Popular Mechanics!
I already see a couple of things I’d like to make!

I remember well the days of going to the mailbox and waiting intently for the Popular Mechanics issue to arrive. We dreamed of making a pontoon boat like in the PM magazine. It was powered by an R Moline tractor. The tractors rear wheels were reworked as paddle wheels and the tricycle front end became a rudder.

Thanks for the comments, My Dad didn't buy a lot of books or magazines, but he always seemed to have a few old Popular Mechanics magazines on his workbench that I could borrow and daydream. Always fascinated with the idea of making stuff - seems like back in the old days you could make just about anything with a couple sheets of plywood and some 2x4s

JSinMO wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 9:36 pm I love it Gerry! Reminds me of my dad. He built a fence post puller from plans he found in Popular Mechanics!
I already see a couple of things I’d like to make!

Aye, a fence post puller, I could of used one of those yesterday when I took down my snow fence. I couple of those posts were tough getting out for Grandpa. I thought I was going to crap my pants pulling hard to get them out of the ground. Harry

Harry wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 8:29 am

I thought I was going to crap my pants pulling hard to get them out of the ground. Harry

Harry I about fell over laughing when I read you post! I know that feeling! I gave up pulling the tough one by hand, now it’s the bucket on the tractor and a chain. Thanks for the smile, and I hope you backside is ok!

I love that site too, and I have a treasured gift from my late father, a complete set of Handyman Encyclopedias. Which is essentially a hundred or more of these kinds of DIY plans.

One of my first projects as a teen was making a small sailboat out of pine and masonite. I got the main structure created ok, but I never got around to the crucial step of covering it with fiberglass, so it never saw water.

One of the biggest frustrations of trying to "go back" and do some of these now is the major changes in what's available, both in surplus/cheap components, and in hardware/supplies.

For surplus, at the time many of these were created (post WWII) , there was a lot of decent surplus equipment apparently going pretty cheap, and many of these projects actually specify what kind of surplus you should start with. And that's no longer the case. So you can still get ahold of the necessary components, but they're often more expensive than just buying the finished tool or object in question.

For supplies, these projects often specify items at the hardware store that are no longer sold. The only example that comes to mind is "Sal Ammoniac" but there are frequently things specified that the instructions assume are common and cheap, and they no longer are. And sometimes the project just uses some vernacular, some euphemism or trade name for an item that's no longer clear what the autor means.

But if you think of it more as general guidance of how to proceed, rather than step by step instructions, these things are still really handy to have around.

And if nothing else, they're just a lot of fun.

Another similar site is https://www.countryplans.com/vintage_farm/index.html

There's some overlap, but I think there are some on countryplans that aren't on vintageprojects.

Bob

Great site and great stories you guys!