The Grim Reaper

I’m going to take a week off talking about sports in one manner or another. At our last museum meeting our group suggested that I write about a project that I have been working on at the antique equipment lot near the Depot Museum.

In June when Jeff Duval and I had finished the wagon next to the header box on Railroad Avenue we were putting our tools away and cleaning up when some guy comes up and starts ranting about this old piece of equipment that needed to be saved because it was sinking into the gravel. I said that we just finished another project and as he hurried away he said you better save that one. Gee, I would have accepted some help but he was long gone by then and I haven’t seen him since.

The piece of machinery that he was talking about was a McCormick-Deering Reaper from the 1880s last used in 1936. This sad looking piece of machinery was in disarray. I took some pictures and did some research on the internet to get a better idea of what it was supposed to look like and I found some great pictures and even some video of these reapers in action. It is hard to imagine but this piece of equipment took the place of 8-10 men using scythes to cut the grain while this reaper with a five foot header and a man that operated the reaper and drove the horses did all of the work. To be honest if this machinery was designed today OSHA would not have allowed this piece of harvest equipment out of the factory.

As we watched harvest with the behemoth combines of today with 30 and 40 foot headers that seem to fly through the fields the appreciation for what Cyrus McCormick designed in the 1840s gets lost in the annals of time. This reaper changed farming and allowed for more production and less manpower for harvesting which we have seen with the bigger farm implements of today.

Getting back to the rebuild of the museum reaper, when I first decided to tackle this job I had to get an idea of what was useable and how it was supposed to look. In the late stages of life for this reaper the farmer had a metal platform built that covered the wood that most reapers utilized. The metal covered up a lot of problems and by getting to the bottom of it all so to speak I was able to figure out where to begin making this thing look like it might be able to cut grain again.

I didn’t rebuild this using new wood. I still had some old barn wood that is over 100 years old so the age fits the piece of equipment. With the help of a borrowed Hi-Lift jack I was able to lift the header out of the dirt and gravel. A header wheel was unattached so I had to figure out about where it needed to go. I don’t have a spec sheet for this reaper so much of what I did was by guessing after seeing the pictures on the websites.

Fortunately harvest finished before the reaper was close to being done. But I’m sure with the right mechanic and a bunch of penetrating oil and a spec sheet that tells where a couple of parts need to be attached it might be field ready by next July but I think it is best that the ‘Grim Reaper’ stays put.

Like I said the wood is old but I decided to paint the bat reels and I put a sealant on the header platform. So it doesn’t look as old as it really is. It’s funny how a sander and sealant can change the look of old wood. I guess I still want this piece of equipment looking good after I leave this earth.

Now getting back to the young man that critiqued our antique equipment and scurried past me I guess you could say he motivated me to take action. I hadn’t scheduled this project for this soon but then I really hadn’t spent the time to get a better look at this pile of rubble and what it could actually become. Now that I am in the very late stages of finishing the project the Grim Reaper doesn’t look so grim anymore. I’m sure if you ask anyone they might say that this is the kind of technology that I can understand.

— Dale Anderson is a sports columnist from Ritzville. To contact him, email [email protected].