What is the oddest machine you have worked on or operated

[Dennis Mohn]

A number of years ago I worked for a John Deere dealer in central Pa. It was on the commercial equipment side and I worked with a lot of forestry equipment. One of the units was a Bell feller buncher. It was three wheeled , hydrostatic drive, and looked like the body for an old helicopter. It was made in South Africa and even with correct part numbers you were never sure what you might receive. And when it came to operating , if the linkage was out of adjustment which they always were , it was like trying to control the wildest animal you could think of. I had one parked between to new JD machines and when I went to move the Bell it almost ran into the two new machines, I was a busy somebody for a few seconds.

 

[sea2summit]

Not sure if it counts but I used a reconstructed fish wheel, used it in '96(?) but not sure when it was originally built sometime early 1900's.

 

[Dennis Mohn]

Not sure if it counts but I used a reconstructed fish wheel, used it in '96(?) but not sure when it was originally built sometime early 1900's.

whats a fishweel?

 

[sea2summit]

whats a fishweel?

 

[grsthegreat]

I had to wire in a early 1930’s era coffee roaster that was made in germany. All controls were disassembled and tossed into box. Everything printed in german. Actually had **** cross symbols forged into steel, though thew were mostly ground off. Absolutely no instructions existed. Everyone, including 3 state electrical inspectors were stumped. We finally got it going thru trial and error.

but it was eary working on that machine due to its history.

 

[prairiegirl]

so what do they do with the fish? Eat them? Count and weigh them? Move them somewhere else?

 

[sea2summit]

so what do they do with the fish? Eat them? Count and weigh them? Move them somewhere else?

I was eating them, it was a community subsistence permit for use. They are commonly used to count and/or tag though.

 

[MossRoad]

A self propelled rail car ramp for loading autos onto rail cars.

It looked like any other ramp, except there was a hatch between the ramps that you opened up, hopped in, and drove a little tractor-like machine. You'd raise up the legs, lower the ramp, and you looked like a parade float driving through town to get to another siding.

You'd pull onto the tracks at a road crossing, and drive up to the car, raise the ramps with some cable system I forget how it operated, locked it down, set the feet, hopped out and closed the hatch.

 

[ArlyA]

I worked on one of these GE engines. I thought it was built in the 40s.

 

[jjeff]

travel lift. It's like a mobile gantry crane for lifting boats in slings out of the water. The one I occasionally operated was much older, smaller, and imagine more quirky than the one I found off the googler.

 

[lilranch2001]

There were a few “Alaska” shows that has had these on them

 

[Williy]

Back in 1966 did a tune up on a home made
tractor with a model a Ford 4 cylinder engine
new plugs, points, capacitor, rotor, dist cap,
plug wires, fan belt, change oil, radiator juice
also worked on a large wall clock similar to this:

willy

 

[herm0016]

Zone rated offshore oilfield equipment. Engine driven hydraulic power packs in explosive proof form, positive pressure cab full of my computer equipment with multiple interchangable winch drums with different IPS steel cables approx. 20,000 feet long for different situations to lower tools for data collection or mechanical services in oil wells. And associated equipment to let that cable into the well under up to 15000 psi of well pressure. Some really interesting and unique equipment to run, transport, troubleshoot and fix.

 

[CliffordK]

I'm not sure if this counts, but at one time I worked in a furniture mill.

We had one machine called the "RF Machine" or "Radio Frequency Machine". It was a big microwave for gluing wood together. Whatever they were laminating, they'd run glue along the edges then push anywhere from one table top to a whole pile of legs into the machine at once. It would press the pieces together and hit them with the microwave for about a minute at which point it would shove a sticky mess out to be thrown on pallets with sawdust thrown between to keep them from sticking. Thinking back, a lot of manual labor.

Anyway, the interesting part of the machine was on the back side, outside of the machine, there was an ordinary florescent light tube sitting on a wire rack. No wires going to the tube. The RF power from the machine lit up the tube without wires and the person tailing the machine knew it was turned on.

 

[mikester]

CAT 631 Probably the funnest off road machine, 500+ HP, hauls 30+ yards and goes 35MPH. When you are riding you get to look down into the cabs of dump trucks and tractor trailers.

 

[lilranch2001]

View attachment 850697
CAT 631 Probably the funnest off road machine, 500+ HP, hauls 30+ yards and goes 35MPH. When you are riding you get to look down into the cabs of dump trucks and tractor trailers.

Never driven one but it looks like a wild ride, and a kidney buster!

 

[shooterdon]

John Deere 40 dozer.

 

[ArlyA]

I once worked on a 24 (or 27, I can't recall) yard bucket on a payloader. Didn't get a pic of the machine but each tire was 13ft tall. This was many years ago and it worked in a powder basin coal mine.

 

[MossRoad]

Here's one half of the largest machine I ever operated and/or worked on. Six stories high and half a city block long. A little noisy when running all-out.

 

[careyo63]

Printing Letterpress. Ran on the fly wheel.