Very cool. In the 1970s, my buddy who lived down in southern Ohio, near Athens, Ohio, was connected with a farmer, who had a very old Caterpillar tractor that was half-way sunken in a muddy, wet bog, on his property, that he wanted to be hauled away. My friend, was offered the Cat, for free if he could remove it from the bog. My friend, a natural mechanic,....took the challenge, and he needed a Caterpillar to clear his recently purchased tract of "holler" land. A holler, being an irregular, un-farmable, valley or ravine. See part two.
Part 4: Eventually he inserted some salvaged, steel framed, old factory windows, and re-purposed some windows from an old 1940s car, to create the windows for the cabin. He built his own pot-bellied stoves from junkyard found materials, that he welded together. He was a bit of genius,...in the fact that he started out as an Artist, sculptor, who grew up in NYC. He had never been to a farm, or a backwoods area, until he got it in his head he wanted to live like a Pioneer. He had two college degrees in Fine Art, and lived in NYC, until the day he decided to live in a remote "hollow", in southern Ohio. He bought the land with the money left-over from his college funds.
Part three: So this old CAT he got, it turned out to be one of the very earliest models,...I forget now, but maybe from the 1920s,..or 1930s,.....I'm not the historian, here. Anyway, it was a hand crank engine model. The CAT folks were very interested in it,...maybe for their own archives. Nothing more happened, though. My friend trailered it back to his "hollow", land area, and began using it. It was instrumental to him clearing his land, and building several out-buildings, and two cabins. He was in his late 20s, at the time. My friend, wanted to build a log cabin with hardly any machines or power tools. At first he used a two man, hand saw to fell the trees, then used a two horse team to drag the logs out of the woods. He employed "come-along" manual ratchets with chains to move the logs into positions, he used hand operated auger drills, because he used "pegs" to do some of the assembly. He found an old timer, who taught him how to build a stone foundation. Employed a volunteer group of Amish builders, to help him apply the "chinking" between the logs. Chinking, being a mix of: I think dirt, and horse hair, probably some other old time recipe,...but it is the gunk you use to fill the spaces between the stacked logs.
Part two: So my friend, with the help of friends, tools, winches, pulleys and who knows what else, was able to pull the sunken Cat out of the bog. He fiddled with the engine, found the hydraulics were working, oil in the right parts and in the engine. Fueled it up, and Viola!...than damned thing started right up. My friend is an avid historian of all things mechanical,....and he wrote to the Caterpillar company, to get their input. See part 3.
my family has one that my Grandfather used
Very cool. In the 1970s, my buddy who lived down in southern Ohio, near Athens, Ohio, was connected with a farmer, who had a very old Caterpillar tractor that was half-way sunken in a muddy, wet bog, on his property, that he wanted to be hauled away. My friend, was offered the Cat, for free if he could remove it from the bog. My friend, a natural mechanic,....took the challenge, and he needed a Caterpillar to clear his recently purchased tract of "holler" land. A holler, being an irregular, un-farmable, valley or ravine. See part two.
Part 4: Eventually he inserted some salvaged, steel framed, old factory windows, and re-purposed some windows from an old 1940s car, to create the windows for the cabin. He built his own pot-bellied stoves from junkyard found materials, that he welded together. He was a bit of genius,...in the fact that he started out as an Artist, sculptor, who grew up in NYC. He had never been to a farm, or a backwoods area, until he got it in his head he wanted to live like a Pioneer. He had two college degrees in Fine Art, and lived in NYC, until the day he decided to live in a remote "hollow", in southern Ohio. He bought the land with the money left-over from his college funds.
Part three: So this old CAT he got, it turned out to be one of the very earliest models,...I forget now, but maybe from the 1920s,..or 1930s,.....I'm not the historian, here. Anyway, it was a hand crank engine model. The CAT folks were very interested in it,...maybe for their own archives. Nothing more happened, though. My friend trailered it back to his "hollow", land area, and began using it. It was instrumental to him clearing his land, and building several out-buildings, and two cabins. He was in his late 20s, at the time. My friend, wanted to build a log cabin with hardly any machines or power tools. At first he used a two man, hand saw to fell the trees, then used a two horse team to drag the logs out of the woods. He employed "come-along" manual ratchets with chains to move the logs into positions, he used hand operated auger drills, because he used "pegs" to do some of the assembly. He found an old timer, who taught him how to build a stone foundation. Employed a volunteer group of Amish builders, to help him apply the "chinking" between the logs. Chinking, being a mix of: I think dirt, and horse hair, probably some other old time recipe,...but it is the gunk you use to fill the spaces between the stacked logs.
Part two: So my friend, with the help of friends, tools, winches, pulleys and who knows what else, was able to pull the sunken Cat out of the bog. He fiddled with the engine, found the hydraulics were working, oil in the right parts and in the engine. Fueled it up, and Viola!...than damned thing started right up. My friend is an avid historian of all things mechanical,....and he wrote to the Caterpillar company, to get their input. See part 3.