Horse power/horse turn setup

[j.l.holt]

How do you stick these to the ground.   Drive steel stakes ?

[grey]

Yep, stakes. The horsepower needs to be built on a very stout skidding framework. You drag the horsepower to where it needs to be, then stake it to the ground. A series of rods and swage blocks (the blocks also each need to be staked down) transmits the drive out away from the horsepower, outside the radius of the horse’s travel to a piece of machinery. I have some great pictures of a clutch, some different types of speed jacks and some equipment being run by the horsepower. I think a water pump, a corn sheller and a grain grinder. Some things commonly run by a horsepower include thresher, baler, saw. At demonstrations they like to use them to run an ice cream maker.

[grey]

Oh and because we have not yet said it in so many words – I don’t know if that is the correct tongue for the horsepower. On a horsepower, the evener or singletree needs to be out at the end of the tongue to take advantage of the leverage, not near the base where the hammerstrap is on the tongue you showed us. It’s possible that someone took a wagon tongue and put it on the horsepower. The complex iron pieces at the heel of the tongue are intriguing.

The tertiary rod goes to the horse’s halter to keep him angled the correct direction to walk in a circle. In this photo the rod comes off the tongue near the horsepower and is hooked onto the singletree just for storage. When you go to use the horsepower, you’d unhook the rod from the singletree and attach it to the horse’s halter.

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[grey]

In this one the tertiary rod is square and is made of two different diameters of squarestock that telescope into one another. I don’t remember if this rod is adjustable. Seems to me that it would be if a person bothered to design it this way. Probably a set screw or a pin.

In this photo, the rod is lying entirely on top of the tongue and has a leather strap at the end to buckle to the halter. The metal rod jutting up from the vicinity of the leather strap and leaning to the left is not part of the tertiary rod. I don’t know what it’s for. Perhaps to hold the leather strap to keep the rod in place when not in use.

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[grey]

Reading back through my posts, I see that I called that tertiary rod a “tertiary draft rod” and I shouldn’t have. I was tired. That tertiary rod doesn’t transmit any draft, just keeps the arc of the horse’s travel correct and consistent. It is rigid so the horse can’t come in too far. It is identical in function to a jockey stick.

[Lane Linnenkohl]

Ok, that makes perfect sense now. Thank you Grey. Thank you everyone. And no, Grey, it’s not the right tongue for the machine. The butt end is far to wide to fit into the slot, and there are no wear marks on the wood that match up with the machine. That’s ok, it’ll make a good spare wagon tongue.  I do have an oak plank here that will fit the machine. It’s about 10 feet long, though. Anyone have any thoughts on whether it would be long enough?

I am curious if anyone has any thoughts on what this tongue might have gone to based on that bracket. Does it look familiar to anyone?

 

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[j.l.holt]

Does the bracket look like one on a mowing machine?

[Lane Linnenkohl]

Does the bracket look like one on a mowing machine?

Not like any I’ve seen (McD & JD) . Plus the tongue doesn’t have tapered edges like I’ve seen to shape the tongue to the mower, and it has a typical hammer strap on top. The mowing machine tongue brackets I’ve seen have always had the evener attachment on the bracket under the tongue.

[j.l.holt]

with the fresh sawed edge, I thought it might have been cut down.  I was wondering if it was turned over. but hard to tell from a picture.

[near horse]

There are a couple of top notch restorers  at the ag museum linked below.  They rebuilt a huge horsepower and display it at the spring plowing event (they were setting it up w/ 2 horses per “tongue:” and there were 7 tongues).  They’d also be a good resource for you.  http://co.garfield.wa.us/eastern_washington_agricultural_museum

[near horse]

Found the thread RE: the above mentioned horsepower (they were calling it a ground power).  Sadly the picture(s) are not with the thread.  They are somewhere here but I have no idea how to figure out where.

 

http://draftanimalpower.com/forums/topic/the-finished-ground-power/

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