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Mechancal things you wish you had growing up

3

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
A couple things that would have helped a lot would have been a air compressor. It took a lot of strokes to air up a low farmall tire. A bench grinder would have been nice also. When I first started doing things the only drill was one that was turned by a crank, and had a little ratchet on the top that advanced the drill bit into what ever you were drilling. Dad did get a hand drill that had a mount that could be used in a fixture, or used by hand. Stan
 
1. A riding lawn mower.
2. Air conditioning
3. Wish I had the sense to pick up on the butchering and canning my parents did.
 
Until I was about 13 or so, I don't remember any power tools around the place.
For me would have been an Oliver 70! The neighbors had 2 and I always thought they looked like race cars...had to wait
til I was 40 before I got one of my own!!!
 
Gutter clener in the barn,hands down going away. From the sixth grade on I came home from school and pitched it out by hand. Didn't get one til I'd been milking on my own for 15 years or so.
 
I don't remember ever wanting any tools very long. Dad did not like mechanical work and if I showed a desire for something he was more than willing to help me along. He and I bought a small Sears air compressor and paint gun on halvies when I was in my early teens. Dad could use the compressor to pump up a tire but I'm sure he never touched the paint gun. Once I learned to weld in Vo-Ag he bought a welder. He never did learn to use it either.
 
Welder
Torch set up
Big Round Baler
Stock Trailer
Impact Tools
etc etc etc
We used to farm with not alot to work with guess thats why I have bought about every tool imaginable in triplicate.
 
Cordless drill, Skid steer, Fiberglass ladders ( remember how HEAVY thoses wooden ones were ) Tractors with a cab, big round balers rather than small squares, tape measures longer than 16' power saws rather than hand saws, FM or CDs rather than AM radios. Gerald
 
skid loader would have saved a lot of fork work.
Round baler would have saved a lot of hay stackin
Post pounder would have saved a lot of diggin

However, without these physical chores, I probably would have been a wheezing fattie like so many of today's kids.
 
Reminds me of a story I once read; a woman was preparing a meal in her modern, up to date kitchen as her grandmother visited with her. The woman asked her grandmother of all the convienences of the kitchen, which one would she value the most? The grandmother didn't hesitate a second and replied; I'd pick running water every time!
 
4 inch grinder or any handheld grinder was always a dream. Cutting torch was a second dream. We had a hand crank drill press and stick welder.
 
When I was a teenager my neighbor had a 40 foot wooden extension ladder that I borrowed, he said I could have it, it was too heavy for him. I accepted it and thought it hilarious the reason he didn't want it. 3o years later I now think the same way as he did.
 
nail gun
torch (oxy/acyt)
MIG welder

that nail gun is probably this biggest time saver for carpentry work around the farm and house
 
Of the power tools that were available at the time, an electric drill, an electric saw and a chain saw.
We had a universal milking machine that you put between two cows and would milk two at a time into the same bucket. The vacuum pump hung from a track behind the cows and got moved down the barn as the cows were milked.
We had a radio in the barn that I took out of a 49 Buick, put on a shelf and ran it with a battery charger. We used to listen to LONE RANGER and THE CISCO KID.
Dad did buy a new Ford 8N in 1951 and the horse went down the road.
 
Gutter cleaner!! I"ll second that motion. Cleaning gutters twice a day with shovel and wheelbarrow in winter was a pain. Also silo unloader, always had to that by hand too. Milk line from stanchion barn with 75 cows would have made life easier. But I reckon that all the above helped a skinny 12-17 year old kid grow up to be the 70 year old curmudgion I am now. If the kids of today had the "opportunity" to work on a dairy farm as I did, they would sure be more responsible.
 
good god who said nail gun - I agree 1000%.

When I think of the thousands of nails I've hammered buidling sheds, fixing outbuildings, building decks, fences, etc etc etc. sooooooo slow, inaccurate, and often painful.

I got my first framing gun a few years ago and felt like shooting myself in the head with it for not doing it sooner.

Greatest invention ever.
 
"Sees-ko! The sheriff he is getting closer!"
"Theese way, Pancho! Follow!"


You listen to a lot of radio when you grow up in a dairy barn.
 
I second the motion on an air compressor, and also air tools to go with it. Don't know how We made it without. For sure, a post hole auger, but those SC and DC cases didnt have 3 pt, so it wouldn't have worked. Grand dad and Dad both belived that post's had to be 8' long, with no less than 3' in the ground. Guess who got to dig the holes, and tamp the dirt back in. ( all the dirt) We had a firewood splitter, it was called a splitting maul, and hand operated! Grain wagons that dumped would have been nice!, and at least a front end loader, that tripped, would have been great.
 
A dirt bike or a four wheeler to round up the cows and the stubbornest horse that ever wasted good air. TDF
 
Post hole auger is near the top of the list. The top of the list is a pneumatic nail gun.

But dad never would have sprung for the nails! Every dang nail I ever drove was SALVAGED, straightened and reused from something else we tore down.
 
Post hole auger is near the top of the list. The top of the list is a pneumatic nail gun.

But dad never would have sprung for the nails! Every dang nail I ever drove was SALVAGED, straightened and reused from something else we tore down.
 
A decent pickup, a Super M, a gutter cleaner, and a silo unloader. (All things my uncle got within 3 years after I left him and the farm).
 
frist,dad brought a diesel tractor with wide front end and best of all power steering!then four years later we remodeled the dairy barn and put in a gutter cleaner! same year put up a 18 bye 50 silo with a unloader! what a change from shoveling manure and forking silage from a snow fence silo! then a electric feed cart! it was like coming out of the stone age to the jet set for a kid! those are good memories!
 
Makes me think of my dad.When he left home to start farming on his own my grandfather bought a new tractor(Allis Chalmers 190XT)plow,two row chopper,bale thrower,barn cleaner and pipe line milkers.
 
Manure loader tractor. Next, power steering on a tractor, especially the loader tractor. In retrospect, I'd probably be less of a tough ole farmer had we had those.
 
Me and dad were talking about this the other day. Back in the sixties all we had was hand tools to work with, No air tools or weldes and no torch. It was in the 80s after a good harvest I bought a big air compresser and air tools, welder and cutting torch and a band saw. My granddad was in his 80s and was so impressed with everything you could hardly keep him out of the shop, 8am he was at the shop ready to work on something or build something. I realy miss those days with him. The only thing I realy wish we had back then is a skid steer to use! Having to work with hand tools made you have a better apprecation for what you had and you took care of it, Because you knew how hard it was going to be to fix it if you abused it. Bandit
 
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