Weekend Steam

This Aultman-Taylor traction engine is an unusual design that stands out in the crowd if you know your steam engines. Most traction engines have a clutch with wooden shoes which grip the inside surface of the flywheel. This century old beauty uses a sliding pinion gear on the crankshaft to drive a bevel gear which transmits motion via a drive shaft to another pinion, which turns the differential.

Click the photos to enlarge them for a better view of the system. This drive system uses fewer parts than the typical engine of its day, and I am sure that there was much less clanking going on when starting and stopping.

You can see the back side of the crankshaft drive pinion in this photo. Aultman-Taylor engines used the Woolf reverse gear that you will also see on Case steam engines.

Photos by True Blue Team Member Engineering Johnson

Crankin' It Up

Snappy dance number (Fox-Trot) by the Manhattan Dance Makers, recorded on March 17, 1926. This is the flip side of "When The Golden Rod Is Blooming," a song we posted last year. Our good microphone is still away, so this one was recorded with our old mike. This record is loud and boisterous, so I think we can get away with using our tinny microphone, and we hope we will have the good one back soon. Shake a leg.

Today In History

Go Here. It never grows old.

Econo Cases For Airline Travel

Here is a tip for travelers who cringe at the thought of paying big bucks for a TSA approved locking case for airline travel. All you need to convert a Ruger pistol case into a sturdy locking case is a drill, two long-shackled padlocks, and a stack of washers to take up the slack when the locks are snapped. The washers can be epoxied together so they don't scatter when you open the case for the TSA inspector. One or two of these can easily be packed in your suitcase for trips to far-flung shooting events. This is also a suitable solution for folks who need a locking case for land travel across state lines in vans or SUV's that don't have a trunk to lock up your guns. Hat tip to EJ!

Load Up!

November 19 is National Ammo Day! Click the pic to read about it, then go buy (at least)100 rounds.

Rescued Treasure

More than thirty years ago, a good friend of mine spotted this 10 HP Mogul engine, which was almost totally concealed by blackberry and trumpet-creeper vines, near Flat Gap, Kentucky. My friend was able to locate the owner, and after he made a deal, we loaded it on a borrowed truck and moved it to his home. It has been under cover ever since, but it never was restored.

Last summer at the Pinckneyville show I visited with the owner of the beautifully restored 4 HP engine shown in the video below. I mentioned the 10 HP engine in Eastern Kentucky, and he took down the contact info. I had a call a few nights ago from Jim (the 4 HP Mogul owner), of St. Peters, MO, and he is now the giddy owner of the 4000 pound, 10 HP Mogul. He made a deal over the phone with my old friend, and made the round trip from west of St. Louis to Johnson County, Kentucky to retrieve the very nice specimen of old iron. He is already well into the restoration process, and he expects to show it next summer. This old engine ran a stone buhr mill for grinding corn meal (and probably malted corn for whiskey) during its working years, and it also powered a generator to charge the batteries for a rural phone exchange.

The machinery on the 4 HP model operates the same as the 10 HP, and they have great appeal for old machinery aficianadoes. I hope these two are operating side by side next year at Pinckneyville.

Early Start

We started seeing Christmas decorations in the stores before Halloween this year. At least they waited until after Labor Day. Mr. McCurdy was on the town square in Washington, Iowa last Saturday, and even if Thanksgiving isn't here yet, his old tuba sounded pretty good. While I was taking his picture, my classmate from our one room school came by. We started school together 53 years ago. Visiting home makes you wonder where the years go.

Hometown Visit

I stopped in to see my brother Chester while I was in Iowa to visit Mom. Chester is quite a craftsman, and can do all kinds of jewelry repair and construction. If I have to build or repair anything, I first look for ways to utilize a chainsaw in the process, so the skills my brother has are way out of my league. He showed me one of his torches: it has a TINY ruby tip, with a microscopic orifice, and the flame it produces is much smaller than a match flame. He does fine work.

Chester and his wife have built a thriving business, and he typically works at his bench six days per week. His motto is, "If you bought your jewelry from someone else, you paid too much!" Mom and I would have liked to stay and visit all day, but my little brother needed to get back to weighing his diamonds.

Not My Victrola

"A New Kind Of Love," sung by Maurice Chevalier has always struck me when I listen to it because Mr. Chevalier is such a happy sounding fellow. He was a Great War veteran who served in the French Army, was wounded, captured, and was a POW for two years. After the war he continued with his performing career, which was very remarkable. During WWII he made a deal to have some allied prisoners released from the same camp where he had been held, by performing there. While he worked in Hollywood for Paramount he did earn a reputation for being a penny pincher, bargaining the parking price down to a nickel from ten cents per day. According to the current philsophy being touted by the news media, Maurice should have been a murderous, misunderstood malcontent who's life was ruined by PTSD; instead, he was only slightly miserly. He was a remarkable man, and I think you will enjoy this song.

Mondays Are Piling On

Back To The Old Grind!

Not My Victrola

GramophoneShane posted this Rudy Vallee rendition of "As Time Goes By" on his YouTube channel. I think this is the first recording of this song I have heard with the verse. My dad's mother was Rudy's biggest fan. I can't listen to him without thinking of her.

Object: More Trigger Time

I visited Mom (Bea, for you Gun Bloggers) this weekend to help with pruning, plumbing, and etc. Mom has been wanting to pick up a new semi-auto that would give her high quality practice getting on target and delivering lead downrange, so we made another trip to the Scheel's store in Coralville. We looked at lots of pistols, and she settled on a Ruger 4" 22/45 Hunter model that will provide many hours of shooting range enjoyment. While she was completing her paperwork I looked at the amazing selection in Scheel's, and had a hard time leaving. The highlights that stood out to me were two Ruger Flattop .44 specials, a convertible .45 Blackhawk like Mom has, and a couple of stainless, laminated stock Marlin 45-70's. There were many AR rifles, and some Springfield M1-A's.

We finished up the various chores that had to be done, and spent Saturday afternoon stuffing .45 ammo for the Blackhawk. And speaking of big bullets for defense, be sure to click over to Brigid's blog and read about the need for meaningful calibers for self defense at home. First Caleb, and now Brigid has had a close brush with bad guys. The moral that comes out of both encounters is to be well prepared. I believe, Mom believes, and you should too! Be prepared!

Weekend Steam

Peerless engines are not very plentiful in the Midwest, but this nice one was running at the American Thesherman Show at Pinckneyville last August. It has a bit of a knock; I hope the owner has it fixed before he works this beauty.

Crankin' It Up

"Tea For Two",from the 1925 musical, "No No Nanette" was the first record from our collection of old 78's that we posted on YouTube. We recorded it with our old microphone in front of our faithful Brunswick phonograph, which is the reason this recording sounds a bit tinny. Our new microphone, which does a much better job of picking up these old records from the megaphone is in the shop, because I tripped over the USB cable and it fell to the floor. Hopefully, in a week or two, the True Blue Recording Studio will be back in operation.

Boldly Sawing

Chainsaws have been a part of my life, well, for a long time. I have been helping to promote chainsaw safety and modern cutting methods ever since my first safety course, and recently I helped with a training course for women at the Dixon Springs Ag Center. We spent most of the first day inside doing saw rehab and sharpening, and by the time we went outside, all twelve of the students were able to sharpen a saw with a jig, and also freehand.

Our first cutting exercise taught the students how to perform a bore cut. The bore cut is considered to be an advanced technique by some, but I teach it first, because the bore cut is what separates chainsaw use from axes and crosscut saws. Once students are proficient in bore cutting, they are able to use a chainsaw to its full potential, and they can set trees up to drop
safely and accurately.

This was an enthusiastic class, and during our next session everyone will learn the process of falling a tree, limbing, and bucking.