help with van brunt drill id

mikedeere57

New User
Hi, I'm restoring this old drill, it has 10 seven inch, single
disc openers and 6 inch spacing. It didn't have the grass or
fertilizer boxes when I found it. It has the big VB on the cast
iron box ends, alot of the parts have Deere part numbers. The J
and D together on many parts. I used to be a Deere mechanic lol. I
have alot of pics and I'm working on getting them uploaded to help
in id. I was thinking it was a model F but after seeing similar
posts I don't know now. I'm keeping the drill. I plan to plant
food plots for wildlife on our place. Not gonna work it hard. I
appreciate any help. Mike
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The countershafts were twisted off and the seed cups were hanging. I built new shafts now it turns with your fingers
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I'm a horse guy, I'm not sure if this was originally horse drawn, but I want all the hitch equipment on it even tho I'll only be using it on the tractor. If anyone has any pointers I'm very interested
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The seed drop tubes are in usable but poor shape, I plan to keep the funnel portion and fabricate new tubes. If it's successful I'll post pics on how I did it
 
It would have been horse drawn And to keep the horse hitch on but pull with tractor how are you going to raise front of pole to height used for the horses and not be as low as the tractor drawbar. Remember the box has to set level.
 
(quoted from post at 22:34:49 03/04/17) It would have been horse drawn And to keep the horse hitch on but pull with tractor how are you going to raise front of pole to height used for the horses and not be as low as the tractor drawbar. Remember the box has to set level.
planned to set it level to the tractor, I just wanted the hitch parts for looks. I was thinking the pole needed to be thinned for horses too to reduce weight but not a good idea on the tractor. I'm sure it's gonna get banged around some
 
Did this thing have a seat? I figured it had the footboard and someone removed it. I'm going to build that back. Anyone know how the seat mounted? A pic would be super helpful
 
No they did not have seats, you either walked behind them or if they had the foot board you stood on that. The 6" drills were more a grass seed drill as the way they were advertised.
 
With an 11' pole sticking out front it definatly will get banged arount and you will be planting way off from where you are wanting to be. Even the ones that only use horses do not use that pole, they put a tractor hitch on and pull behind a forecart. Had a FB model and did not like it. Lost count of how many Oliver Wood & steel wheel models I have handled over the last few years. Never a Deere high wheel and only one McCormick steel wheel model altho that is in low rubber model I farmed with.
 
I read once tha the end of the horse pole was to be from 32 to 36in high. On my 1924 IHC drill I built a drop hitch that was around 16in/18in below the tongue
 
No seat, well that simplifies things. Pole length, I figured the length was going to be a problem. The food plots I planned on were just straight line so I thought I might pull it off Turning corners wold get cutoff lol. My experience using drills is limited to setups and repairs and fairly new. I've done hay tho. Any idea rough guess of the age of this? I appreciate yalls help
 
You are saying 10 openers of 7" diameter, is that correct? 7" is so small that I do not see how that could ever work. If it was 7 disks of 10" then it could make some sence but 7" diameter does not compute for me. Most grain drill disks would be more like 12" in diameter.
 
Age could be from the 20's to into 50's with the steel wheels. Now that looks to be a wood box so that would to me date it into the 20's to early 30's as later Deere drills in the 30's were steel boxes. In all my collection of manuals I don't think there is any wood box drills pictured and I do have some sales lit from the late 30's.
 
All horse hitch poles were tapered but on some the neck yoke had a ring that slid over the gen of the pole while others had fasteners that held the yoke on.
 
That would have been made in the transision time from after Deere bought out the Van Brunt line but before they changed the dame from Van Brunt to Deere with the Van Brunt as an after thought. The same as with Deere and Dain with Deere taking over the main name spot but with keeping the orignal name to keep the older owners wanting to buy a brand they were familuar with and they were not familuar with the Deere name yet.
 
When I was a kid that was what we use. Wood box for the fertilizer and it also had a grass seeder. I found the sale bill when dad purchased it new for a price of $150.00. I may have a few tubes yet. The date on the sale bill was 1937.
 
(quoted from post at 07:45:25 03/06/17) You are saying 10 openers of 7" diameter, is that correct? 7" is so small that I do not see how that could ever work. If it was 7 disks of 10" then it could make some sence but 7" diameter does not compute for me. Most grain drill disks would be more like 12" in diameter.
I was wrong on opener size.... they are 12 inch and there are 10 of them at 6 inch spacing. I saw 7 inch on the opener arms and it stuck in my head I guess, I was trying to get my ducks in a row on description but still jacked it up up lol
 
I'd like the hitch to be fairly accurate, but I guess it really isn't that critical. I have 2 big drafts a clydesdale and gypsy drum horse both about 2500 lbs each but I don't want to be all day to plant 2 acres either lol. I found remnants of paint in spots and saw the drill in the deere museum is where I got the paint scheme. Mainly just trying to slow the decay, i put it on thick. The box is wood, they added a upper section on I doubt was factory due to it was kinda jury rigged. So I left it off. I wanted to keep the old hardware but it was in bad shape and all mixed sizes. My little towns hardware store only had about 6 square head bolts and it's an hour to the big town so I used he head and I replaced all due to I don't want to loose parts I can't buy. I really appreciate yalls help!
 
You do not want to drive any faster with a tractor on it than those horses would walk. Have a lot of friends that do not own tractors, just horses for all their farming and I try to find machinery for them that they can use for their horses and no electricity either.
 
(quoted from post at 08:56:55 03/07/17) You do not want to drive any faster with a tractor on it than those horses would walk. Have a lot of friends that do not own tractors, just horses for all their farming and I try to find machinery for them that they can use for their horses and no electricity either.
I admire folks doing things the old way. I bet that's a chore finding horse drawn equipment. I have a McCormick Deering no.7 and an old disc tiller I plan to fix back up this summer ( in my spare time ) there isn't alot of that lol
 

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