Carpentering for the Carpenter

Growing up on the farm in an era of expanaion, and being interested in engineering, I was intrigued with the many larger and larger tractors being produced. Even on the farm, we had gone from 20 horse power, to 40, 55, 70, 100, and even 160 horse power.

Pictured here is an experimental tractor made by Versatile in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was called "Big Roy" and at 500 horse power, it was the world's largest farm tractor in 1980! But it did not work well. The four tires in line packed the soil too much. So they went back to the more conventional design of their already successful line of four wheel drive tractors.

Interestingly enough, a few years ago I was on a farm in Saskatchewas where two brothers had build a simple two wheel drive tractor which had 500 horse power. As you can imagine, its four dual tires were quite wide. I tried to find a picture of it on the Web but couldn't.