IH #8 Plow in it's Sunday-go-to-meetin clothes

This plow is no “trailer queen”. It is used at our annual plow day doing what it was designed to do.

It then gets scrubbed up for tractor/machinery shows during the summer.

I have touched up the paint after several years of use; however, much of the blue will wear off when plowing.

I followed the IH archive paint pattern as closely as I could determine.

The blue is IH #1150B and is darker than the pictures show.

IH #935 White is on the wheels, it is a cream color and is darker than the pictures show.
The original IH paint ID for wheels has been lost thru history.

The red is IH #2150.

Pulling this plow with my H Farmall at plow days is a real joy to this old man;
the feeling is exactly that I remember as a boy.

Lookin good!

Looks great. Dad had a Case plow with the tapered wheel in back. Can you still buy them.

Yes miller tire in ohio

I have a 2-10 LG that I just adore. I even have the jointers for it. For sod plowing I don't think you can beat it behind my Cockshutt 30. In the right ground it can make you look like the best plowman in he world and it's so easy to adjust. I'd love to get mine looking like that, but I'd be afraid to use it!

Brett,
I have jointers for this plow and I forgot to put them on for the pictures. They work well in sod but are a royal pain in cornstalks.
LA in WI

Nice looking plow you got there, and the nice shiny Plow Chief bottoms prove its still a worker. I have one with plow chief bottoms and a couple others with the Genius bottoms, I think the plow chief pulls a little easier. Makes a tractor a lot more enjoyable to own when you can hook to one of those and turn some dirt.

LA in WI,

Beautiful plow.

Ours has one spring - yours has two. Do you know why the difference?

This is the only #8 that I have ever seen with two springs on the hitch. My operator manual shows a picture of an IH crawler pulling a plow and that picture shows that plow to have 2 springs...maybe that hitch is for crawlers, I don"t know. I hit a rock a few years ago and this plow hitch let go with a bang just like dad"s old #8 with 1 spring back in the 1950s.

The operator manual shows how to adjust the rear wheel to keep the tail of the rear landside about 1/4 inch off the furrow wall and also slightly lift the rear moldboard to decrease friction on the bottom...with that adjustment the plow now pulls very easy...no problem with my H Farmall.

LA in WI

Very nice plow!
What is the black vertical lever on the hitch for? (Last photo)
Thanks, Hendrik

Thanks, LA in WI.
I'll tell my husband - he had wondered about the reason for two springs.

Hendrik,
This plow unhooks when you hit a rock... you can use that handle to lift the hitch and re-hook it right from your tractor seat. As far as I am aware, that is its only purpose.

Hendrik,
Sweetfeet is correct about the vertical lever, however when you re-hook after hitting a rock you still have to get off the tractor to reach low for the rope and re-attach it to the tractor and you can then hook up the plow, so the lever was a good idea but not very practical; it is mostly just for show now. At my age I can"t reach down to grab the lever and pull it up for the re-hook.

At the end of the rope you will see a "figure 8" wire clip...that is for attaching the clip to a small flat piece of metal (about 1" wide and 3" long) that was on most H and M Farmalls and stuck out from the seat support. It has been discussed many times on this forum, but you NEVER want to tie the rope securely to the tractor, especially to the seat...if you do and hit many rocks you will soon run out of rope or cause damage to your body as the rope jerks the seat out from under you before you can get the tractor stopped. The rope clip will slip out to avoid any bad results.

I truly believe that the good Lord intended for all plows to operate with a rope trip lift...all other modern ideas are the work of the devil! (Permission to chuckle at this is granted.)

LA in WI

Lowell, thanks for your explanation and wisdom based on real experience.
The trip rope and the hitch must be reattached, but what about that big rock still sitting in front of the plow share? Do you lift the plow by the two big levers?
I've never plowed with a trailer plow but seen it a number of times. In our reclaimed land (polders) there were no rocks and very likely those trailer plows did not even have trip hitches. So I have absolutely no clue on tripped plow hitches.
Thanks, Hendrik, from The Netherlands.

Hendrik,
Years ago my father bought 80 acres of farm land and as we started plowing we discovered we also bought thousands of rocks. He tied a bundle of lathe to the hood of the tractor and told me to mark the spot of each rock. When I got done plowing that field it looked like a cemetery with all those little stakes everywhere.

He then hired a man with a bulldozer and that guy dug out those rocks and pushed them to the fence...that rock fence is still there.

How times have changed with rocks; a friend operates several roadside stands where they sell vegetables and fruits to people who drive by. Most of those people are city people.

He discovered city people like rocks for yard art so now he digs up and hauls rocks by the thousands to those roadside stands and says he makes more profit selling rocks than veggies and fruits!

One of these years I need to go to the Netherlands to see where my ancestors came from...near the North Sea and close to the German border, and visit with you and Gerrit.
LA in WI