Recycle Tractor Built Mostly Just For Looks

Recycle Tractor Built Mostly Just For Looks AG WORLD Ag World 19-1-21 "I built it in 1991 partly to create the illusion of something as visually close as possible to the real thing without really working," says Ralph Jorgensen, Calgary, Alberta, about his "Recycle Tractor." He uses hoppers on the tractor to hold newspapers, tin cans, glass and waste oil for recycling, and uses the main barrel on the tractor to burn trash. He also pulls it behind a garden tractor in parades. The tractor is 4 ft. wide and 9 ft. long. Many of the parts, such as bull wheels, drive bearings, and worm gear from its platform, are from an old binder. Two pulleys are from an old wooden thresher. Two bins mounted above each fender hold tin and glass. A bin mounted above the drawbar holds 3 cu. ft. of newspaper and a 20 lb. propane tank, also above the drawbar, holds about 3 gal. of waste oil. Household dry wastes are burned in what's made to look like the tractor's boiler, which opens from the front with a handle on the side. "To create the illusion this is a working tractor when we pull it in parades, I have a compressor driven by the wheels," Jorgensen says. "The compressed air activates a whistle. A governor rotates as the wheels turn. The driver steers and clangs a bell along the route." Contact; FARM SHOW Followup, Ralph Jorgensen, Box 7, Site 9, R.R. 6, Calgary, Alberta Canada, T2M 4L5 (ph 403-226-0429).

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