Thursday, December 1, 2011

Iron Aged


I love the textures and tones in weathered old-time farm equipment.


No cheesy plastics, grainy fiberglass, or high tech polymers. Just good ol'e rusting American sheet metal and pitted cast.


Real workingman colors. Greens and, well, more greens. Save the red-hot reds and day-glo yellows for your muscle cars, thank you very much.


Instructions in one language, not four. And no CYA, fine print, legal bullshit.


From back in the day when Mr. Briggs and Mr. Stratton powered our small agriculture.
Exclusively.


Yes, I love my gaudy orange Stihls. And I respect them sweet-running Honda horses and the space age carbon fibers that make things light as feather. But in twenty years, when I find the tools of today's man's livelihood abandoned in the woods, will I be drawn to them like I am to this old chipper?


I doubt it.

6 comments:

Chris said...

Cool find Mike.

I agree. I have a Briggs & Stratton bolted onto my tiller and it just runs and runs...

cofisher said...

I wonder if it's just a man thing. We saw the days when those were useful and needed equipment.

HighPlainsFlyFisher said...

They just don't make stuff like that anymore do they? Todays goods seem to all be manufactured as disposable items which more than likely won't even survive to be looked upon by generations behind us. That old chipper has "character" that can't be found in a plastic resin molded body.

Karl said...

Mike,

Great post. I love old relics too! This old Briggs and Stratton made some great pictures. Very nice eye...BTW, great blog, saw it on OBN news feed.

Karl

Nancy said...

Are you sure you weren't lurking around our farmland this weekend, Mike? That rusty machine looks familiar! :)

Susan Simon said...

Wonderful pictures, Mike. I've actually been hunting for a few similar up here in MA. There are some great old tractors rusting near me and I'm waiting for a snowfall to do them justice. Found a strong blue one in CT last fall and had some fun. T
Thanks for sharing.