Russell wood machine
By Lawrence Porter
Rushville, Ind.
I have been a subscriber to the Iron-Men since 1948 and saved every copy. No magazine that I receive gives me more pleasure.
I have been a threshing machine enthusiast since I was a boy. Both of my grandfathers, father, and uncle were all machine men, so I was indoctrinated early. I, myself, ran a Huber tractor outfit for 10 years, until the combine took over.
When I was a boy, I visited all of the threshing machines in the neighborhood, sat on the engine 'til the engineer ran me off.
I bought my first steam engine in 1949, an old 1912 Baker, and since then I have had a Case and a Russell, which I sold, but now I have a 22 Keck, No. 1814, and a 21 H.P. Baker, No. 17318. I have the Keck belted to a Garr Scott sawmill and do custom sawing, so get a fire up once in awhile.
Courtesy of Lawrence Porter, Rushville, Ind. Threshing oats with the 21-75 Baker Uniflow engine.
The enclosed pictures show my Baker belted to my 33-54 Russell wood machine, which is one of the last made. It was bought new in 1929 by Cecil Simpson of Bargersville, Ind. and only cost him $500.00 as the company was going out of business. Mr. Simpson owned several Russell outfits, and is now over 80 years old.
I stacked 15 acres of oats in the year, 1963; and that is the way to do it in this day and age. You can thresh anytime you get ready, and you don't have to have much help, just 4 boys to pitch in the machine.
I have a buck rake with a push-off attachment which is an ideal stacker, and made three nice stacks the first try. We could put up about 4 or 5 shocks at a time, and could stack these easily before the next load. I plan to thresh again next year in the same way.