Why am I building a Tractor?

The simple and honest answer is that my dad had one on the property that I grew up on. It was so endlessly useful that I can't imagine living on any sizable property without one. There is more to it than that though.

A reminder: This is what I'm building =)

I'm building my own tractor because I want to understand it and be able to maintain it. It's also a project that will teach me many valuable skills. I've already learned a ton about machining and CAD.

Finally, I'm interested in joining the material economy at some time in my life. So far I've earned my living by working in the knowledge economy. I think really hard and get paid to do it. I'm employed as a programmer. It's a job I love, but constrains my life quite a lot-- I work 40hr a week and have to commute to my place of work. One day, I'd like to have a bit more control-- perhaps program as a hobby.

What do I mean by 'material economy' (a green wing article)? I mean that I take ingredients and make a product. The product is a tangible thing that solves a tangible problem like hunger, need for shelter, etc. This is important because the tangible problems are the ones that force the average person to take a 9 to 5. If I can provide fixes for these root human needs, I'll have high security (someone somewhere is hungry) and be encouraging smaller scale self sufficiency. The OSE folk argue (see Village Scale here) that a material economy of about 200 people is enough for comfortable modern living locally. That sounds like somewhere I'd want to live.

So what will I produce in the material economy? I mean really, what will my tractor produce? I don't have a firm plan, but my current thoughts are to produce pelletized biomass. With a few tools (Tractor, Hay Cutter, Hammer Mill, Pelletizer) and some land, I may be able to produce a renewable, carbon neutral (or even negative!) local fuel.

This is Pellitized Wood (wikipedia)

I'm not yet clear on the economics-- how much land make how many pellets? How much labor for each acre of land? How much do pellets cost? Where would I sell them? But, I'm going to have a tractor regardless so if the economics don't work, I'll find a different plan.

Time Card & Bill of Materials updated.

Want to produce faster? Pick the right tool!

What is this?

There is a kind of knowledge that is important in any kind of work. It's the ability to pick the right tool. You might be great with a hammer, but if you're repairing a computer that skill is of little use. And so I've learned again and again. This time the lesson was in welding.

I've done all of the welding on my tractor with a tiny little TIG welder. It puts out just barely enough heat to weld 1/4" steel. It takes about a minute to make an inch of weld with it. I was using TIG on the advise of an experienced machinist (my instructor).

This week I switched to MIG at the suggestion of another fabricator. I could weld at about a foot a minute with this (much more powerful) machine. That is a speed increase of 12 times. I'm very proud to say that I finished all the welding on the Hydraulic tank (see above)! I need to do a leak test as quality control, but I may be ready to move to the next component.

Note: While MIG is faster, it's more likely to leave voids. With the TIG I could probably have made the tank leak free on the first try. With MIG I expect to have to make some (quick) patches. I took some pictures of the welds to show the difference in quality.

TIG - Smooth finish, lots of control, slow

MIG - Lots more material, some spatter, fast

Machining my first machine!

In Fall 2011 I operated a mill and a lathe for the first time. I did some simple operations and made some parts that were 'machined', but those parts weren't machines. This semester, in addition to working on my tractor, I'll be machining my first machine. If I do it right, it'll look something like this:

My instructor calls it an 'air engine', but I think of it as a 'steam engine'. Air (or steam) goes in the quick disconnect (which has a red handle). It enters the metal block on the left. In the block is a piston which rotates the cylindrical fly wheel which can be seen on the back on the machine.

It's not an efficient or complex device, but I'm really excited to make a real machine. At class this week I began machining the piston which must be very precise. I got it to .0005 inches from true. For the record, that's pretty accurate. There are a lot of operations on this machine, so I'm expecting to be hard pressed to get it done. This also means that I won't have as much time to work on my Power Cube.

In order to make more time, I'm planning on using some vacation time to spend full days in the shop. I'll update on Power Cube progress when I have made meaningful progress. Not much has happened yet this semester.

Am I building a Tractor, or is it a metaphor?

I discovered today that one of my readers didn't realize that I was actually building a tractor. So let me be clear. I am building a real tractor that does real things and produces real value. This is not a metaphor. This is a machine that does work. This is the most subversive economic action that I've ever taken. This has the chance to move me from a knowledge economy where I work 40+ hours a week, to material economy where I work 15+ hours a week.

It is no guarantee. This isn't a sure thing. It's a gamble where I risk some money, time and effort. In exchange I will get a tractor, mechanical facility, and material skills (welding, machining, practical design). I might get economic autonomy for significantly reduced effort. Is it worth it? If it all falls apart, I walk away with my 'will gets'. If it works, thenI walk away with freedom from a deeply compromised economic system.

Our economy channels money from the masses to the super-rich. These people work primarily in the knowledge economy where their money, luck, and situation allow them to reap enormous material well being for negligible material effort. Many of them have resigned from work and continue to reap the benefits of past work (stocks, bonds, investments, patents, copyrights...) Then there are the vast majority of Americans who working day in and day out to support the super-rich. They make the cloths, electronics and shoes that situate the rich so comfortably.

These people work long hard hours in the material economy and pay most of the profits of their labor to those in the knowledge economy. Doesn't it seem strange that a clever idea about what to produce and sell (knowledge) can satisfy the material needs of an individual for their entire life while backbreaking labor for 40+ years barely satisfies the material needs of a different individual from day to day?

The problem is size. America rewards individuals for finding ways to convince others to work on their behalf. It's a hierarchy and being at the top is best-- you get the most. This works in a big community when the top dog has other top dog friends. In a smaller community, the top dog sees the hardship they cause and the bottom dogs see who causes their suffering. In a big community, change is hard and slow. In a small community, hardship is a recipe for fast change.

So what about my tractor and my freedom? How do these relate? Well, small communities can't be globalized. They have to live locally. Building a small community based on locally available materials is only possible in two situations. Either the participants accept the need for a lifestyle of barely surviving, or they depend on technology to multiply their effort.

Agricultural technology like the tractor is responsible for the trend toward higher density human population that has been prevalent in all recorded human history. This is because it allowed one farmer to do the work of 10 farmers. The other 9 would-be-farmers end up doing other tasks like business and hedge fund management. Without technology like tractors, there isn't enough surplus time in a community to allow for surplus production like comfortable beds and clothing.

So, to start a small community that is free of many of the boils of American Capitalism, one starts by producing tools. These tools allow high productivity individuals and therefore a comfortable community. And so, I build a tractor.

(I'll be in the shop again for the first time in more than a month tomorrow. Expect a progress update soon.)

Will my tractor be quality?

A college buddy of mine Michael Senkow, asked about my tractor. He said:

are the new tractors as good as professional ones? Part of why the expensive ones cost so much is their long term life right?....will these last as long?

Here is my answer:  I can make a tractor that is categorically better than a professional one.

That tractor is called LifeTrac. Here is my reasoning...

This is a four minute TED Talk in which the founder discusses his experiences with 'industrial quality'.


For me, this resonates. My experience of commercial products from our economy is almost universally dismal. I'm not surprised to hear an experienced farmer say that modern tractors are fragile.

What does my tractor have to be to be better? It has to have a long life with generally low maintenance costs. It must be versatile enough to do the jobs I need to do. It must be affordable to produce and safe enough to operate.

Long Life: LifeTrac is built with very heavy duty materials. Commercial ventures skimp on materials because consumers don't generally differentiate between a product that lasts 20 years and one that lasts 50 years. I've had too many tools break because of this kind of skimping.

Maintenance Costs: LifeTrac will be maintainable for a couple of reasons. It's very modular so one broken part can often be replaced on the spot with a spare. The tractor keeps working while the broken module goes to the shop. Each module is inexpensive too. I expect to repair or replace any module on my tractor for $500 or less. I probably couldn't get a professional tractor to the shop for that much.

Versatility: LifeTrac uses the Bobcat standard for bucket attachments. Additionally, it has auxiliary hydraulic power connections which can be used to attach arbitrary machines. The power module on the LifeTrac can be removed and replaced with a more powerful one. It will be able to do any job an equivalent commercial tractor can do.

Building Cost: I expect my LifeTrac to cost around $10,000 to build. That is about a quarter the price of a commercial tractor. Factor-e-Farm is already selling them for a profit. I don't know how many hours of labor it will take to build. I've already put a lot of time into the project and there is a long way to go. I'm tracking my time and money costs. I'll report on total costs when I'm done.

Safety: All heavy machinery is dangerous to operate. LifeTrac will be safe enough when operated carefully. It may be less safe than industry tractors-- I don't know enough about safety to judge.

The Long Run: Open Source projects improve and grow as they get more contributors. As more people build and use LifeTrac the failure modes, and inefficiencies will become apparent and the design will be improved. This will likely reduce cost, extend lifespan, add functionality, and improve safety.

2 Weeks, 1 Post. That's efficency.

My Christmas present to you is a post! I worked on Dec 8th and 15th. On the 8th I made my biggest mistake yet. You may recall that I had two flanges left to weld onto the hydraulic tank. On that faithful day, I welded both into place. Then I tried to screw in their hydraulic fittings. The top flange got a breather cap and the side flange got a male to male adapter:

Breather Cap on Left, Male to Male adaptor on right

That was the plan at least. The side flange went in just as planned. See it here:

The grey is the tank, the teal is weld and the green is the flange itself

The top flange went in like this:

Can you tell what's different? The flange is upside down. I could screw the breather cap in from the inside of the tank but it wouldn't fit from the outside. This was the state of affairs at the end of the 8th.


With a week to think about it, I decided I would skim the surface of the tank with a cutting tool and go back to square one. In the shop on the 15th I tried that and found that my cutting tool was too dull to cut through the weld (which was made of stainless steel). So I switched to old faithful: the boring head.

I would cut out the flange and weld on a new one. Half way through my first pass with the boring head I stopped. I had an idea! This was the situation:

What would you do? I decided to back off the cutting head and clean out the threads which were buggered a bit by the cut I'd just made. After that, the cap fit!

It probably saved me two weeks of recovery work. I hope you like my diagrams, they were fun to make. The whole process may seem clean by my description above. It was actually pretty messy. I got to practice clamping again-- here is my rig:

A really tall clamping arrangement

I finished my machining course, so I won't be working on the Power Cube until the spring semester. During the down time, I may write down my thoughts on why this is worth doing.

Time Card updated.

Dec 1 - Cleaning and Welding the Reservoir

December 1st was another day with big plans. The reservoir tube was finally cut to spec. It was time to weld again. But first the tank needed to be cleaned out. Below you can see the specks of rust from the light rain that was falling when I carried it into the shop.

Mr. Lyons suggested that I clean off the inside with Scotch Bright. As I did, I noticed a lot of black dust coming off of the tube. It collected as a dusty shadow on the ground. I'm glad this stuff won't be running through my tractor.

Scotch Bright getting dirtier

Junk from the tube interior

To keep the interior from degrading I coated it with WD-40. This will prevent rust while I'm finishing the production.

Next I took the angle grinder to all the surfaces that I was going to weld (to take off the mill scale). Then I ground a chamfer into the flanges. This is a small angle that will allow fill material to flow between the surfaces that I will weld.

Ground and ready for welding

It turns out that professionals assemble gas tanks and other water tight things using TIG welding. TIG is a stick welding technology that gives extensive control over a weld. You apply heat and add material separately. This means that as you weld, you can backtrack and fill holes.

I decided to use TIG instead of MIG for this job. First I welded the large flange to the standoff tube. It went well except for a mild burn to my leg and a crater from my attempt to weld without any shielding gas.

The first section of the weld. The tip of the TIG gun is visible shown.
You can see that the chamfer leaves a gap between the flange and tube.

This is what happens when the shielding gas isn't turned on.
Fortunately you can weld back over the spot pretty easily.

I finished the flange and then welded the tube to the tank. I forgot to get a picture of that. I'll include that next week. I'm pretty happy with the product, the welds look good and are almost certainly air tight and very strong.

* Timesheet updated

* Open and Closed questions updated