Minneapolis Moline's

[kmmcrafts]

So I finally finished these up last night. The cuttings have been done for a while now but I struggled with frame design / material / backer etc. Everything I tried I just didn't really care for.  Last week @Old Joe posted in the "unframed projects" topic in the business section about how he doesn't use frames and showed his method, Thanks Joe for your contribution.  I like this way better than being framed, at least for these two projects. 

I cut these from 5/32" Maple project panels from Home Depot, BTW Thanks @FrankEV for your topics mentioning these panels, I like them much better than the BBply that I normally would use. I bought a pack of these panels some time ago and these two projects are the first time I've tried them. Very stable quality ply without the bland grain of BBply. I think I'll buy some Walnut panels to cut and use a solid maple backer to see how that backwards from my normal looks. Used a Pegas MFG #3 blade to cut these. Cut at 11 x 14" so they could go into a standard sized frame in case I wasn't successful at frame making, LOL. The backer panel is a glue up of 5/8" Walnut lumber, was hoping for 3/4" but by the time I planed glue up down to rid of a blemish in the wood I was left with just shy of 5/8" 

 The finish is semi gloss polyurethane from a spray can, can't remember the brand off hand but it had a good spray pattern but the can tilted much it would suck some air and spit.. so not too happy with how the finish came out.. not horrible but not great either. Probably should have used a satin finish but this is what I had on hand.. These aren't perfect but they are also just going to a friend for free because he loves his tractors and a thank you to him for his serving our country.

Almost forgot to mention ( shame on me ), Thank you to @TDpainter for creating these patterns for me. Patterns are in the pattern request section if someone is wanting to give them a try. 

[GrampaJim]

Thanks for the reminder of how old I am Kev.  I drove past the MM factory in the Twin Cities, and remember one of our neighbors growing up on the farm had an MM tractor.  Yup, I'm old. LOL

[lawson56]

They look Awesome!!! I was asked a few seasons back if I could make a Oliver, I had to tell him I had never heard of one. He showed me a pic, I came home found the same pic and in a few days had the pattern made and cut. He Loved it. I never heard of the 2 you made, but you did an Awesome job!!!

[daveww1]

excellent job

[TDpainter]

Great work Kevin glad I could help you with your projects. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

 

Travis. 

[heppnerguy]

nice tractor plaques. The old gasoline tractors really do not go back that far. Me wife's great grandfather was the first person to manufacture a gasoline tractor. It  was called 'The Little Bull'. When he started the manufacturing  he hired a company to make them but soon they could not keep up with the agreed production rate because the motors took them too long to make and slowed them down. So  my wife's GGrandfather started a company just to make the motors. That company is still in business today and you may very well have some of their products. He started TORO.

Dick

heppnerguy

 

[heppnerguy]

OH, here is a photo of The Little Bull tractor

Dick

heppnerguy