"When farmers go past us in their boats and realize what we're using for a paddlewheel on our pontoon, they always give us a big thumbs up," says Arley Engel.

What farmers notice when they get close up is that the paddlewheel of Engel's homemade pontoon is an old combine reel.

"It started out as a joke," explains Engel, who runs an automotive parts business in Chippewa Falls, Wis. "My neighbor had the reel off this old Allis Chalmers combine and said I could have it if I could think of something to make with it."

That's when Engel got the idea to build a pontoon. Now, five years later, Engel's pontoon is a well-known summertime fixture on the lakes and rivers of west central Wisconsin.

The combine reel mounts at the rear of the 8 by 20-ft. pontoon. Original belts and drive sprockets off the combine drive the reel, powered by a 3 1/2 hp Briggs and Stratton engine out of an old lawn mower.

Engel chose the engine over a larger one because of its low idle. "We don't go very fast and we don't go very far," he notes.

The flat-bottomed plywood craft, with 10 in. of styrofoam packed into the bottom for flotation, has a forward/reverse transmission, also out of the old mower. A lawn mower's steering mechanism turns the pontoon's rudders.

The steering wheel is a 14-in. dia. pulley with bolts fitted into it at intervals to resemble spokes.

A regular pontoon canopy provides shelter for up to 14 passengers. Park benches on each side hold seven passengers apiece.

Engel says he takes the pontoon out at least two or three times a week during the summer and has traveled as far as six or seven miles on one cruise.