What is your oldest, yet relied upon piece of equipment?

I have this old snow blower, it's a Hann snow giant, paid $25 on EBay, a few years ago, I use it every winter.
It's made of heavy duty metal, hardly any plastic on this one. I believe they were made in the 70's, I guess that would make it around 40 years old.

I use 100 year old wooden moulding planes. I have started using them after inheriting one from a family member. Not as old, but still used, is a Stanley smoothing plane and level from the 40s or 50s.

I have a nice lens from the 40s that is on my view camera--I do have a pack of photographic paper with an expiration date of 1918, but I will not be relying on that. I also use a nice optical rangefinder from about the 40s as well.

Not that old, but late 80's JD 420 GT that I cut grass and maintain property, remove snow, and haul firewood with.

The oldest thing that I use on occasion is an old Finnish rebarreled Moisin-Nagant. The barrel is dated 1940 but it has a hex receiver with the Tsar's eagles on it so it was made prior to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. It is mostly a wall hanger but I still shoot it every few years.
I think the oldest thing that I use often is my single bit axe. After my grandfather passed away in '92, I found it in his shop. At that time it was just a rust pitted ax head with no handle. I cleaned it up, put a yellow fiberglass handle on it, painted the head red and filed a nice sharp edge on it. I have no idea how old it is and have yet to find any axe new or old that I liked any better.

Winchester 1897 12 Gauge pump shotgun, made (going by the serial number) in 1941. I bought it for $90 years back with almost all of the finish worn off of both metal and wood. I cleaned and refinished it- enough that it looks agreeable- but not so fancy you have to ever think about using it.

I have a 6 ft long -.1in dia tempered steel bar with a point at one end that my father gave me.

A great lever , it has gotten me out of jams when felling trees in the woods.

With the tapered end it can punch through or destroy about anything. I've use it to dig up and bust rocks, move frames into position for nailing, lift my tractor etc.

Requires no maintnenance.

Only problem is remembering where I left it on the property.

I have something similar. It is about 5 feet long. One end is square with a wedge shaped point and the other end is round, tapered from just over an inch down to about 5/8". I found it about 20 years ago when moving junk cars for somebody. Big bars like these are very handy. I used mine to lever my stuck truck off of ice. Pounded into the ground, it make a pretty good anchor for a come-along. I have no idea how old mine is, but it was kinda old a rusty looking when I took possession of it 20 years ago.

Being a bit younger and not getting much past down to me, I always try to buy older equipment. My 1982 snapper 28inch cut rider was not doing it for me so Instead of going newer, I went older





1971 cub cadet 107 (38years old, thats 11 more then me) Hydrostatic, with a 42in cut 3 blade.

I got it mid summer and after some work have been using it every week to cut the grass. does a far superior job and it makes mowing a lot more fun.

I also have a snowblower attachment that needs some metal work done to repair the rust, hopefully I will have it fixed by the winter.

I do have a maul of unknown age, guesing 80s vintage, it was my fathers and I use it to split almost all my wood, although I have gone through a few handels.

The stove i use has got to be ancient it says better n bens across the top keeps me and the family warm every winter.
Eats wood like a sawmill

Nice Cub! Is that a Tecate I spy in the background? Those were sweet quads. I miss the ol' two strokes.

Simply, My Remington 870 in 20 gauge. Gun is as reliable as death and taxes.

Keen eye, 1988 KFX250 quad. I had it for the last 5 years. I used it a lot the first few years, but the last few I found myself just pushing it around the shop trying to get it out of the way. I just sold it a few weeks back. It was a lot of fun, but now I am more interested in the Cub cadet. goes to show how your tastes change with age

Here I kept looking for a 6 pack of beer. :lol:

Prolly the hoist on my truck.It's 80 vintage and has prolly lifted a quadbatrillion tons in it's life. Been on 3 trucks before mine. I've rebuilt cyclinders a couple of times and replaced one. A few dozen new hoses and thats about it. It has served me and several others well.

VERY cool thread. Thanks!

I've got a whoknowshowold screw lathe, guessing close to 90, but I haven't set it up since I moved 4 years ago. Used it occasionally before that. Came with a nifty sheet metal punch of similar vintage, which I do use regularly. Sometimes I play my 1957 Wurlitzer 120 electric piano. Still has all the original parts in the amp and fires up like new.

oldest thing i use is my house, to live in it. circa 1850 new englander.


i also have a coffee grinder that i use every day, circa 1850.

for motorized/engined/etc, i have a jd 350b dozer - 1972, a 5hp toro snowblower - 1974, a 6hp troy-bilt rototiller - 1971, a dodge 1.5 ton dump truck - 1948.

i have a biltmore stick for cruising timber made by my grandfather in the 1940s that i use occasionally.

I have 2 old D-8 Disston saws from the 1800's 1 ripping and 1 cross cut, they have been handed down I use them every now and then when I just need to make couple cuts and do not want to run cords.
they cut great and I did learn to set and file them.

I have a '53 Farmall Super M with an old home built 3 point hitch that is regularly used for moving round bales, running the wood chipper, and other tasks that require some muscle. It's dirt simple, always starts (even down to -20 F) on the first try and has never failed me when I needed it. I bought it from my wife's uncle, who inhereted it from his father, who bought it used when it was only a few years old.

I have a '52 Ford 8N that I use to haul the wood splitter and plow the drive in the winter. It has an old wagner step through loader that I use with a converted plow blade for snow. Otherwise, i use it to move gravel around or get a scrap car on to the trailer every now and then. It's more convenient to use in the woods than the Farmall. It's a gutless wonder (especially when compared to the Farmall), but it gets the job done as long as my expectations don't exceed it's power rating.

It's hard to beat a Farmall M! Up until a couple years ago we were still using one as our everyday tractor on the farm.

It's been improved to just gutless since I overhauled the engine, it was super extra gutless when I bought it. The P.O.s had a wrist pin clip come out on #1. Their soultion was to pull the piston, slap in a new clip, and stuff the piston back into the block. There was a mark ~.060 inch deep in the cylinder wall from the wrist pin, it was a great 3&1;/2 cylinder mosquito fogger.

For being gutless, I'm still surprised how much I use it. It's small enough to get around in the woods wihtout too much trouble and tote the log splitter and small trailer around. I've thought I sould get a newer small tractor to replace it, but can't justify parting with it after all I have put into it. I can still do close to the same amount of work as my frinds with their small 4WD tractors, it just takes a little more operator finesse to work within it's limitations.

The 9N/2N/8N Fords had two outstanding characteristics -- the Ferguson system 3 point hitch [which, as we all know has become the modern norm] (if I'm recalling correctly, they were the first to feature it and were exclusive for some years) and they were affordable/ simple to run/maintain/ repair. Other than that, not much stands out as great or even average, but overall, it still adds up to a great design.

The extent to which many of the machines of that era will continue to soldier on even if worn, abused, or neglected is absolutely remarkable-- I have a 1957 JD 520 that came to me running well- but even though the tach/hour meter cable was snapped, clearly had a lot of hours on it. Eventually, I worked with a nearby engine guru who knew the idiosyncrasies of the JD 2cyls to take it all apart for an engine rebuild. At first, the engine guy looked at the innards like the main bearings and said "this does not look like it needs much" (the original owner/owners had clearly been good about changing oil) but when the clearances were measured with plastigauge, they were so huge-- almost more than he'd seen-- that he said it was a wonder that it hadn't torn itself up.

Here's my good old bar.

Sorry I'm late with this!

I hear ya though. I have a Yamaha Wolverine that I use up in VT. There's no riding in CT...and trailering up to Mass was getting to be a bit of a drag. It's a different world in VT. People actually wave when you drive down the dirt road...