What is it? < > < > 6' tall "comb" & a harrow with a disc

[Doug Hobkirk]

Two yard sale finds - what are they?

1 w gray.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg
1) The first is a heavy steel bar, a full 6' long, with sharp points on what I am describing as a "comb." The end of each tooth is quite sharp and the shape of each tooth is still quite crisp - i.e., they haven't been rounded off or worn away by use. The other end has a well-done knob. Working ice, maybe?

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2) The second item is, I think, a harrow designed to be pulled by a small tractor. There's an adjustment for the angle. But what's that circular disc for? The metal seems too thin to be used to go into the dirt - our NE soil seems to be almost entirely glacial till and is very rocky.

Thaanks

[Dick Brown]

Hi,
The bar thing could well be for ice or frozen silage, manure, or many other things. Does look like it would work well for chunking off stuff. Can't see it being used for post holes and such. The other is just a very small moldboard plow. Looks like maybe an 8" Must have been for a lawn tractor with some kind of strange lift hookup. The disk part is called a "Colter" and it slices the soil and roots in front of the plow to get a clean furrow. My suggestion for it would you buy a small farm, put handles on the plow, and get a mule to pull it. That is how our ancestors spent their time rather than in a wood shop. (L.O.L.)
Dick
a.k.a. Farm Boy

[William C Rogers]

The second looks like a plow for a Farmall Cub.

[Doug Hobkirk]

Hi,
The bar thing could well be for ice or frozen silage, manure, or many other things. Does look like it would work well for chunking off stuff. Can't see it being used for post holes and such. The other is just a very small moldboard plow. Looks like maybe an 8" Must have been for a lawn tractor with some kind of strange lift hookup. The disk part is called a "Colter" and it slices the soil and roots in front of the plow to get a clean furrow. My suggestion for it would you buy a small farm, put handles on the plow, and get a mule to pull it. That is how our ancestors spent their time rather than in a wood shop. (L.O.L.)
Dick
a.k.a. Farm Boy

That's truly lovely! And on point, too.

[Doug Hobkirk]

The second looks like a plow for a Farmall Cub.

The vast reservoir of knowledge in the Creek never fails to astound me. After doing some searching on eBay, I think the Farmall "hitch" was more sophisticated than on mine, but you sure put me in the right direction.

[ray hampton]

what type of fork do they use when digging for clams ?

[Keith Weber]

You bought two pieces of rusty metal that you didn't know what they were? When the time comes that I need to get of my parents life-long obsession with hoarding, I'm inviting you to the sale!

[Bill Orbine]

Fork isn't for the devil, I think........ The second...plow obviously as Dick Brown knows his stuff with the terminology.

[Lee Schierer]

I think the fork is a tool, possibly home made, for removing shingles. The grooves would help pull out the nails.

[Doug Hobkirk]

You bought two pieces of rusty metal that you didn't know what they were? When the time comes that I need to get of my parents life-long obsession with hoarding, I'm inviting you to the sale!

Guilty, guilty, guilty.

• Although I plan on selling both harrows - I also bought a second one, older, hand-pushed design, two wheels.
• And I plan to sell the 10" x 1.5" 100 RPM water-bath grinding wheel that I got at the same sale.
• And the 1910 Stanley #3 plane that still has most of the Stanley decal on the tote.

But I will keep the 6' nose-picker. In the garden tool shed, next to the straight 5' pry bar. And I, or my 28-y-o son, WILL find a use for it someday. And it will bring a smile.

But, I am a hoarder, and buying things to sell is a dangerous tightrope.

[ray hampton]

your 6 inch nose-picker can be press into service this coming winter when you need to break the ICE from your sidewalk

[Yonak Hawkins]

I could use the heck out of that fork thiing when it came time for yard work, especially planting chores.

[Ryan Mooney]

Although I plan on selling both harrows - I also bought a second one, older, hand-pushed design, two wheels.

Sorry to be a pendant (ok not really ) but its a plow not a harrow a harrow is a substantially different type of device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_%28tool%29

Note that while a disk harrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_harrow) has a passing similarity of appearance to a plow the actual operation is somewhat different.

The main difference is that a plow is designed to turn the soil while the harrow type devices only "disrupt" the soil leaving the layers more or less in the same order they were in (again the disk harrow is perhaps leaning ever so slightly towards wanting to be a sort of plow).

The confusing looking part of this rig is of course the disk on the front which makes it look like some small part of a disk harrow, however its job is just to prep the way for the operational part of the plow that runs behind it.

Small correction on Dick the round disk part is spelled coulter with a u (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulter_%28agriculture%29) - although I could certainly see the u being dropped in parts of the US similar to how color is no longer colour.

Agree that the fork thing looks more or less homemade or maybe made to order by a small metal shop, the welds (nicely done) make it look like it was built up from maybe three pieces (there seems to be: the pipe handle, the tooth piece, and ?maybe? a bar welded between the two?). The teeth look somewhat like the teeth from some sort of clipper but seem much coarser than the ones I'm familiar with so no sure what it would have come from. Would be interesting to figure out what the teeth came from.

[Jim Matthews]

what type of fork do they use when digging for clams ?

+1 for homebrew Clam rake.
(Proximity to the ocean, bivalves and beaches...)

[Jim Matthews]

I think the fork is a tool, possibly home made, for removing shingles. The grooves would help pull out the nails.

Thanks to everyone for playing, we have a winner!

http://www.strippingiron.com/Razor_Bar.htm

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