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The Chugger
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Branch 13 |
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Serving the Greater Sacramento Area |
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Published three times per year, March, July and October (Click here for the archives!) |
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July 14-Aug 1, 2010 |
California State Fair Sacramento, Ca |
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July 17, 2010 |
Yolo Tractor Ride: Plainfield Branch 158 Start at W. Plainfield Fire Station, 24901 Co. Rd. 95, Davis, Ca |
Wilbur Reil 530-756-1018 Wilburreil@att.net |
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July 23-25, 2010 |
Fortuna Redwood AutoXpo
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707-725-3916 |
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July 29-Aug 1, 2010 |
Amador County Fair Gasup Plymouth, Ca |
Richard Blodgett 916-735-9838 richblodgett@ymail.com |
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Aug 11-15, 2010 |
Nevada County Fair Grass Valley, Ca |
Carl Mehr 530-432-1502 |
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Aug 18-22, 2010 |
Yolo County Fair Branch 158 Woodland, Ca |
John Boehm rustyacres@yahoo.com 1-530-668-9410 |
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Aug 21-22, 2010 |
Carson Valley Branch 132 Gas Up Valley View Ranch Minden, Nevada |
Pat and Ann Geary Host President Marty Breitmeyer 775-722-2236 |
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Sep 23-26, 2010 |
Draft Horse Classic Branch 111 Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley, Ca |
Carl Mehr 530-432-1502 |
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Oct 1-3,2010 |
Galt Historical Society Farm Days McFarland Ranch, Galt, Ca |
Julie Alvey 209-748-2800 julienron@softcom.net |
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Oct 9, 2010 |
Sixth Annual Yolo Tractor Ride Zamora Branch 158 Zamora Mini-mart I-5 at Zamora Exit |
Wilbur Reil 530-756-1018 |
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Oct 30-31,2010 |
9th Annual Branch 13 Swap Meet Yolo County Fairgrounds, Woodland, Ca |
Rich Cleland 530-662-3560 RCLE9898@aol.com |
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Nov 6-7,2010 |
Branch 8 Swap Meet Tulare, Ca |
Floyd Schmall 559-351-9272 1gingerbreadman@comcast.net |
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Nov 13, 2010 Start 8-9AM |
Branch 158 Fall Plow Day Silmer Scheidel Ranch 6201 S Brewer Rd, Pleasant Grove, Ca |
John Boehm 530-668-9510 rustyacres@yahoo.com |
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February 25th meeting was the first for the newly elected board and all were in attendance. Minutes from the prior meeting were read and approved. Treasurer reported a balance of $4319 on January 1, 2010 and $2971 on February 25th. Membership Chairperson reported we had a total membership of 331 for 2009, and 87 members have paid to date for the 2010 year. Dues are due by April 1st for the next fiscal year. President Leroy will be sending thank yous out to Connie Fischer of the Woodland Elks for their great dinner and meeting hall, to the middle school students who served us, and to Jess Gilbertson for all he did to make the Wallace Collection available for us to see and hear. What a day this turned out to be! Old business included a discussion of our annual meeting and the fact that our final cost to the Branch was $599. What a deal. We talked about our last swap meet and felt it was successful although we have no idea about the amount of money it earned for the Yolo County Fairgrounds. Next our raffle engine netted us $211.62 to the Branch which may seem like not enough for the effort, but it’s not always the amount of money made versus the amount of fun times shared in the repair and painting of the engine. We will decide one day soon if we want to try this again. Last old business item was President Leroy passed out copies of our National Web Site information on youthful driver’s training and programs. New board member Allan Avery accepted the challenge of chairing our efforts in this area of endeavor for our Branch. Thank you Allan. New business began with a discussion of our 2011 annual business meeting and we will be making decisions for this during the next few board meetings. Bob Hinds reported some on the Rio Linda Gasup and the fact we will have the pull sled there. All else is going smoothly and we will have a show budget for next meeting. Talked about having show flyers for |
our web site, and a flyer for our prospective members. Richard Blodgett will continue on as our Safety Officer and has agreed to take over the Amador Gasup. He will meet with Gene Borsoff who will get him off on the right foot. Ron and Julie Alvey will be our Branch Trailer Tenders. Last item for new business is that we’ve been offered an opportunity to hold a gasup (at no cost to the Branch) at the Wallace Collection location, and we will be working on this. Julie Alvey announced that the Galt Historical Society will be renewing our contract at the same price as last year. Next meeting will be March 25th and President Leroy will be in touch with the location. Meeting was adjourned about 8PM sharp, or close to it! Our March 25th meeting was held back at the Round Table Pizza at Madison and Hazel at their new building. It was like sitting in a fish bowl with all the glass doors closed to give us a private meeting room. I could only imagine what a fish might think as they swim about the tank, looking out at the populace, “feed me”, “give me a little privacy here”, and “not all you people are as cute as you think you are”! Oh well, maybe more on this next time as we agreed to meet here again at the next board meeting. The meeting was opened with the minimum number of board members present as one was off to Colorado buying a tractor, and three others were home caring for family members in need of help. Hope all are better by now. The minutes of last meeting were read and approved and the treasurer reports a balance on this date of $3458, with an estimate of an additional $1000 from membership chairperson, who couldn’t make it to the meeting. This also means no membership report this month. Old business began with more discussion of our Swap Meet, and deciding since we had no monetary inter-est in this event, we’d just let whatever |
information we hoped to get, be put aside for this year and President LeRoy says he’ll be more involved in it next year. We approved a budget for the Rio Linda Gasup of $800. Allan Avery reported on his youth program efforts, and it’s obvious we have the right person handling this. He is working with the California Auto Museum (formerly Towe Museum) and attended the Kids Engine Class taught by former Branch member Joe Montgomery. He passed out Branch flyers and Rio Linda Flyers, and created some excitement particularly with the kids parents. He will be attending the next Kids Engine class on May 1, 2010. Allan will also be visiting the Rio Linda High School FFA and shop class at 7AM tomorrow. Will report back what he learns on this at next meeting. We will put on a Youth Tractor driving certification class at our Rio Linda Gasup. President Leroy, reporting as our Grass Valley Gasup director, that all is running smoothly. He has paid a deposit to the Nevada County Fairgrounds of $150, has made arrangements for the forklift from his employer for $300, has signed a one year contract with the fairgrounds (that’s all they’d do), the ice cream and hot dog vendors will be there both Friday and Saturday, and the tractor games will again happen on Saturday with a couple of additional events. Keith Smith’s tractor will be the show tractor and be on the button. Next board meeting will be April 22, 2010, and meeting adjourned 8:15 PM. May 27th meeting began 2 minutes early as all members except Bob Hinds were present and food ordered. Several items were added to both new and old business agenda items. Prior minutes were read and approved. Treasurer reported we began with $3107 on April 19th, and ended on May 25th with $3646. Continued page 4 |
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YOUTH DRIVER TRAINING/CERTIFICATION Allan Avery At the Rio Linda Show we had four youths (two sixteen year olds and two twelve year olds, all boys) in the program. On Friday, Andrew Ford, of Elverta, was sponsored by his mother, Michelle Crites, who is a new member of Branch 13. Andrew, who is sixteen, comes from a family who farms near the Sacramento River. Andrew was a very good student learning to drive Leroy Diede’s 1947 Case S with a hand clutch. Andrew passed Test’s 1, 2 and 3 which allows him to drive on the show grounds and in parades. On Saturday, Andrew was seen all day long driving all over the historic farm ground, he even had to fill the gas tank from so much driving. Congratulations to Andrew and welcome to he and his mother as new members of Branch 13. Also on Friday, Steven Ludford, of Sacramento, was sponsored by his father, Jason Ludford. Both Steven and Jason are members of Branch 158. You all have seen and enjoyed Jason’s big Caterpillars at the shows. Steven, who is sixteen, chose to learn on his mom’s John Deere MT with a foot clutch. Jason passed Tests 1, 2 and 3 on Friday. On Saturday, Jason had some refresher training and went for Test 4. Passing Test 4 allowed him to enter in tractor pulls. Steven did 4 tractor pulls that day, it seemed like he was always in line at the tractor pulls. Congratulations to Steven. On Saturday, because we had such a wonderfully large turnout for the show, we didn’t get started on the training until the afternoon. There were just too many people and tractors moving around everywhere, particularly the area for the training. There was plowing and tractor pulls and fun rides. When things finally settled down, the trainees were getting pretty tired of waiting. Colin Dye, of Rancho Cordova, was sponsored by his grandfather, Odes Kilpatrick, of Sacramento. Both Colin and Odes are members of Branch 13. You all have seen the beautiful restorations done by Odes. Colin, who is twelve, chose to learn on his grandfather’s John Deere B with hand clutch. Colin passed Tests 1 and 2 on Saturday. Odes and I will be continuing to coach Colin to help him successfully pass Test 3 to allow him to fully drive on show grounds. Congratulations to Colin. Colby Cowan, of Sacramento was |
sponsored by his grandfather, Lee Hardesty, of Fair Oaks. Both Colby and Lee are members of Branch 13. Lee is the Editor of the Chugger and has shown his restored John Deere’s. Colby, who is twelve, chose to drive his grandfather’s John Deere M with foot clutch. Colby is not tall enough to be able to put the clutch pedal down to disengage it. A phone call to Colby’s dad was made. His dad made a block of wood which was bolted to the clutch pedal. The farmer ingenuity allowed Colby to drive the tractor. Many old timers saw the block of wood on Lee’s tractor and said that’s how they learned to drive at a young age. Colby successfully passed Tests 1 and 2 on Saturday. Lee and I will be continuing to coach Colby to help him successfully pass Test 3 to allow him to fully drive on show grounds. Congratulations to Colby. On Sunday, Andrew and Steven, were seen very busily and tirelessly as a team, helping to clean up the show grounds. Thanks guys! The Rio Linda show was a success for the Youth Driver Training/Certification program. I personally had a lot of fun and learned a lot. We need to continue this activity and encourage as many youth as possible to join in this program and continue the hobby. Remember, “It is by the students that we are taught”. |
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LeRoy Diede We had 51 engines, 30 tractors and 14 campers showed up for the Grass Valley show. We had a little rain on Friday morning but not enough to dampen anyone sprits and a real nice sunny day on Saturday. All had a good time relaxing under the big Fir trees and getting together for a real good potluck dinner Friday evening and good BBQ on Saturday evening. The show director put a curve to the Saturday evening BBQ by serving baked potato instead of the normal bean dish and cake instead of ice cream. Our newest certified youth tractor driver (Colin Dye) was having fun driving a tractor around the fair grounds. We had a few real nice tractor drives around inside the fair grounds exploring new areas of the grounds. Some drivers even went into the arena where the crowds cheered for them. We also played some tractor games for points and Colin beat the show director in points on the show director’s own tractor. If you missed the Grass Valley show you missed a real good show. |
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Thought to remember: God never created anybody to be a nobody. |
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First Wednesday Of Each Month |
**Monthly Breakfast Coco’s Restaurant, Madison Ave. at Sunrise Blvd Citrus Heights, Ca |
Ken Green 916-782-2759 kgreen@surewest.net |
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Third Monday of Each Month |
**Monthly Breakfast Marybelle’s Restaurant, Sacramento St.(take Maple St offramp Exit off E/B I/80 Auburn, Ca |
Bob Currie 530-333-1028 tracturs@att.net |
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Building a Display Trailer Ken Wyman This journey started about 25 years ago when I bought my first engine at an estate sale. Well… the old iron bug bit pretty hard. I had been content to restore old cars, but I really wanted an old stationary engine as well. As time progressed, I found an old ammonia compressor made by the Cyclops Iron Works in San Francisco. This could be a good centerpiece for some sort of a display. Along the way, I acquired another couple of engines. I was still working and I planned to eventually restore my collection when I retired. That happy day finally came, and among many things, such as relocating and remodeling, the restoration project could now begin. Having an engineering background, I decided to first research the engines and the compressor. I then began to design the trailer setup. The overall size of the trailer had limits because I wanted to house it in one of our garage bays. After figuring out the size of the trailer, I then weighed each piece of equipment that would populate the trailer. After gathering many data for the design, I decided to use a computer to actually create the design. The design had to account for physical size and weight of the old engines, the trailer’s tongue weight, and functional placement of the engines on the trailer. This was fun, seeing |
if it would all fit and work as planned. I began by creating spreadsheets to calculate force and length, center of gravity, equilibrium, pulley speed, etc. I then drew the trailer and each piece of equipment that would be on the trailer using an art program. It was like using cutouts and placing them on a sheet of paper, only I used the computer. The most challenging part was calculating the center of gravity and keeping a constant specified tongue weight at the same time. That’s where the spreadsheets came in handy. Once I was satisfied with the layout and the tongue weight, I could now have a trailer built to the calculated specifications. I gave a trailer manufacturer the requirements for its construction. This all looked good on paper, or in this case, on the computer screen, but there is always that little doubt … will it all work? The trailer was ready and now the real work could be begin. Placement went smoothly; the only thing I had to move was the compressor about an inch toward the front of the trailer. I began drilling the trailer to fasten the equipment to the deck of the trailer. Plumbing came next; I had pre-plumbed most of the items and would use unions to tie them altogether. The next step was to belt all the engines up to the various pumps and compressor with the help of Draper at Woodland. All things were up and running. A few tweaks here and there made things better. I could now actually show the display after some 25 years of hauling these things around and finding places to store them. Some details are glossed over, but that will leave room for additional stories.
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