1953 Farmall Super A

[Deleted member 995608]

I see a John Deere model L (yellow color industrial version) in your line up with a sickle bar mower. It's very similar to the tractor I learned to drive; however, ours didn't have an electric starter or lights as your toy tractor. It was the standard John Deere green and yellow color, hand crank start with a magneto, and a manual hand lift on the sickle bar mower. No 6-volt battery, generator, or lights. Did you know that the center mounted sickle bar had a spring loaded breakaway that allowed the right rear wheel to run over the mower head if sickle bar struck an immovable object?

Bill

So the sickle bar would swing rearward?

 

[mwilson]

Yes, if the bar comes up against a rock or something while mowing (which happens more than you would think either in tall grass or a strange field) it trips and swings to the rear so that nothing gets bent. A hit may cost you a tooth or two but no damage to the bar. I used a rear mount instead of an under slung but the safety works the same. You just back up with the bar down if it didn't take out a tooth, it will latch again and off you go.

 

[mwilson]

Beautiful place you have there, Mike!

Thank you Bill!! It will look a lot nicer when we get some green stuff growing, everything pretty dead right now.

Once the ice is gone the process will speed up, like living in front of an open freezer door with that gob of ice out front.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Yes, if the bar comes up against a rock or something while mowing (which happens more than you would think either in tall grass or a strange field) it trips and swings to the rear so that nothing gets bent. A hit may cost you a tooth or two but no damage to the bar. I used a rear mount instead of an under slung but the safety works the same. You just back up with the bar down if it didn't take out a tooth, it will latch again and off you go.

Our later model tractors used a rear 3-point hitch mouned sickle bar mowers with the breakaway feature. With the advent of Sorghum/Sudan grass hybrids used for hay in our area, sickle bar mowers were no longer used. Tractor mower conditioners were used that cut the hay and passed it between two steel or a combination of steel and fluted rubber fluted rollers that crushed the stalks allowing them to dry quicker. Those rollers flattened skunks, armadillos, and snakes too. :-laf

Bill

 

[fest3er]

Thank you Bill!! It will look a lot nicer when we get some green stuff growing, everything pretty dead right now.

Once the ice is gone the process will speed up, like living in front of an open freezer door with that gob of ice out front.

Nice location; reminds me of my days in Wonder Lake, IL. But it's gotta be disappointing to be able to use the water only for the two weeks a year that summer's there....

 

[mwilson]

Yes, summer is a little brief for swimming but we can use the top of it in the winter...

Same view in January, grandsons and dog out playing ice hockey..

Plowed out a road system..

 

[mwilson]

Wanted to do this but didn't get to it this winter.....

https://youtu.be/jAMATekiRUs

 

[fest3er]

Hmmm. With risers, generator and sound & light system and you could host winter concerts 'in the round'. Knowing how hard it is to play instruments with freezing fingers, air bands could be an entertaining alternative.

 

[Wayne M.]

Great find! I hit a show in the fall, and there's a lot of pieces like that. Every year they feature a certain brand, and Farmall was recently. I wouldn't know where to start with those attachments, and all the funky linkages!

Mike, how do you monitor the ice thickness? First time out must be a nail biter!

 

[mwilson]

Have a long handled ice chisel that we use first, then as the winter deepens we use a gasoline powered ice auger. After a few years you kinda' learn what spots to watch. Over by the dam, a couple of springs by the shore, etc....plus there is one retired guy that is out on the lake as soon as it freezes. Sometimes we just give him a call and get the latest ice thickness over by his place.

This winter did not produce a lot of ice, there was between 10" - 12" when the above pictures were taken mid-January. Last winter we had a solid 3', the handles on the auger would be almost to the ice when you broke through.

 

[mwilson]

What will get me every time is slush.

Even though your head knows that there is a foot of ice under you another part of your body puckers and grips the seat when water starts flying off of the tires.....especially after dark....

 

[moparguy]

Our later model tractors used a rear 3-point hitch mouned sickle bar mowers with the breakaway feature. With the advent of Sorghum/Sudan grass hybrids used for hay in our area, sickle bar mowers were no longer used. Tractor mower conditioners were used that cut the hay and passed it between two steel or a combination of steel and fluted rubber fluted rollers that crushed the stalks allowing them to dry quicker. Those rollers flattened skunks, armadillos, and snakes too. :-laf

Bill

Bill, until about 10 years ago when I started pipelining pretty much full time we (brother/me/wife/and the two boys) cut/raked/square baled between 5,000 and 10,000 bales of Tifton-44 Bermuda every summer. Sold most to horse people, worst folks in the world to have as hay customers, but that's about the only way to make any money. One day after a no show from someone was suppose to pickup 500 bales, I said enough and fired em all. We did use a 9' sickle bar for several years, finely went to a 9' NH 469 Haybine, it often times saves a day drying.

 

[moparguy]

Mike, you do have a great place! Funny story on a Southern Boy's initial exposure to hockey country. My first year in Watford City ND I had a small concrete block fenced area near my RV, never any kids or activity but it was maintained. Well, when it got cold I started noticing kids doing something, it was only when I walked over and witnessed my first pickup hockey game did I understand the attraction. Best was the little guys, 5/6 yearish old, they were a hoot.

 

[jhenderson]

Bill, until about 10 years ago when I started pipelining pretty much full time we (brother/me/wife/and the two boys) cut/raked/square baled between 5,000 and 10,000 bales of Tifton-44 Bermuda every summer. Sold most to horse people, worst folks in the world to have as hay customers, but that's about the only way to make any money. One day after a no show from someone was suppose to pickup 500 bales, I said enough and fired em all. We did use a 9' sickle bar for several years, finely went to a 9' NH 469 Haybine, it often times saves a day drying.

The guy who runs the farm I cut logs for every winter sells hay. Mostly to horse people. He says, and I'll quote him directly " Dairy farmers are the salt of the earth, but they have no money." He puts up with horse people to keep the farm solvent.

 

[Deleted member 995608]

The guy who runs the farm I cut logs for every winter sells hay. Mostly to horse people. He says, and I'll quote him directly " Dairy farmers are the salt of the earth, but they have no money." He puts up with horse people to keep the farm solvent.

The dairy famers here in central Ca, own vacation homes on the beach, spend Christmas in St Bart and wipe their bums with $20 bills. Maybe that's why they have no money?

 

[mwilson]

The dairy famers here in central Ca, own vacation homes on the beach, spend Christmas in St Bart and wipe their bums with $20 bills. Maybe that's why they have no money?

The dairy farmers on this side of the country aren't like that, they will buy a decent piece of equipment, leave it outside to the weather, never service it and then Bit*h when it breaks down in the middle of haying season.
Many of the Potato farmers up North however live more like you mention....and complain that they are broke. A cycle that repeats itself every year.

 

[mwilson]

moparguy, have you found anymore out regarding the attachments for the Super A??? I've wandered around willy nilly in your thread and now feel I should help.....

 

[mwilson]

If you can figure out the model of the attachments it would appear that these guys can cover you with the appropriate manuals...Wow..

http://www.binderbooks.com/implement

 

[mwilson]

I see a couple of planters for the "A" series about halfway down in the "Planter" section...

 

[Bill Stockard]

Bill, until about 10 years ago when I started pipelining pretty much full time we (brother/me/wife/and the two boys) cut/raked/square baled between 5,000 and 10,000 bales of Tifton-44 Bermuda every summer. Sold most to horse people, worst folks in the world to have as hay customers, but that's about the only way to make any money. One day after a no show from someone was suppose to pickup 500 bales, I said enough and fired em all. We did use a 9' sickle bar for several years, finely went to a 9' NH 469 Haybine, it often times saves a day drying.

We never messed with horse people since we knew how flakey they were and we didn't bale Bermuda grass hay. Bermuda doesn't come close to producing the volume of hay as Sorghum/Sudan grass hybrid hay on the same acreage. All our hay was for feeding our own cattle in the winter. As soon a big round balers became available, we switched over from square bales since big round 1,000 to 1,500-lb. bales were much less labor intensive and were handled exclusively by tractors with front end loaders and never have to be touched by humans (hay haulers).

Bill