HE. Prescott Street, Westford, Massachusetts 01886
Quite often in my issues of Gas Engine Magazine I see photos of
real cleverly-built homemade tractors.
The photo shows you that I am one of those ‘homemade’
men. My small but mobile ‘beast’ consists of a 1928 air
cooled Novo engine, model BA-23. Horsepower unknown by me. The
engine was originally used on an orchard sprayer here in New
England. Other than this grand old arm-strong starting (crank)
engine, I used a 1929 Model A Ford transmission, chain drive gear
reducer, foreign Ford rear wheels, wheelbarrow for front wheels,
unistrut steel members and a bushel of odds and ends. The whole
unit is not a thing of beauty-but it will pull a ton and with an
oak plow, push snow galore!
The photo below is of a model of a 1922 Fordson that I made from
126 pieces of white oak. Piece by piece I put each through the 1
3/16‘ diameter hole in the bottle neck
and assembled it. This unit is #15 of my collection. I try to do
two per year. The bottle provides the glass case and being square,
requires no cradle. The oak cap covers up the ragged glass end, cut
from a formerly 4’ neck.
