Quote:
Originally Posted by herr_oberst
I've said it before, it's amazing to me how sophisticated manufacturing technology was in the 30's. I see those great big castings, machined with huge cutting tools, and I just shake my head in awe at how smart some engineers were, and how big some people could dream.
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Right you are. The era of the mechanization of farming was an incredible time in history. Studying it has been a passion of mine (not to mention making me a good living) for over 25 years. The bottleneck was often the chemistry. Lots of great ideas had to wait for metallurgists to come up with materials strong enough to carry them out. I compare it to the computer industry waiting for processors and memory to catch up with developer's ideas.
For a while the trend was for one-wheel-drive three-wheeled tractors like this Case 10-18.
Some companies tried to make a power unit that literally replaced the horse. This one let a farmer use all the equipment their horses had pulled. Some didn't have steering wheels, they were controlled by reins.