sharpening plowshares

[Dave51B]

 I am trying to find out what a smith, in say 1940, would charge to sharpen a plow share. My Dad, raised on the farm, now 91, can't remember. Jimmie, 95, a member of the B/S group I belong to, doesn't remember either. But, did say whatever it was, it wasn't enough....I talked to Ben Carlson at Quad State a couple of years ago. (He has a vid up on the process) and didn't remember either. I have not found anything in my searches to help.

 With all that being said....Does anyone have an old price sheet or anything, that would help?     Thanks for any insight.            Dave  

[SLAG]

Dave,

Would searching in the archives of a period farming magazine help.

A net search should turn up such a publication. And you may be able to do your search on the net. Some of those magazines were nation wide. And there were publications in the nineteenth century too. (not your time frame of interest).

Also, a search of  more local newspaper would result in an advertisement of a more local magazine or even newspaper.

If that doesn't pan out. Someone at a local agricultural school or farming museum might suggest a good avenue for search.

They might even have a copy of a price sheet for such a service.

Good luck.

SLAG

[Glenn]

An internet search turned up Norman Macknair of  B.W. Macknair & Son 3055 US HWY 522N Lewistown, pa 17044. Macknair is a farm equipment dealer from Central Pennsylvania that specializes in horse drawn and older tractor equipment and parts with 16 acres of new and used equipment and parts. 

I spoke with Mr. Macknair  and he has some plow shares in stock, $40 to $100 or so, depending on your plow. He also has plow tips in the $20-25 and up range. You will need to get any numbers off the plow bottoms and contact this place. He has lots of NOS plow parts around, just might have what you need.

As to the cost of repairing a plow share, contact an old time blacksmith and ask his hourly rate and how long it would take to do the job.

A search of IForgeIron found 26 results on plow shares. May be some information there that would help.

Frank Turley Posted July 20, 2011

I don't know a great deal about the subject. I have dressed two shares in my lifetime, and they did not come back. I had a tractor drawn steel moldboard share that came to me years ago from I know not where. It was in near mint condition and sharp, but without the moldboard. I kept it and used it as a model when dressing the two shares. I think the "I lucked out like Perry Mason." It really helps to have a model to follow. In any event, the moldboard will be unbolted from the share, usually by the owner, before the share is brought to the shop. 

Over the years, I've found out a few little things which may be helpful. In the world of smiths and machinery, we're usually confronted with two kinds of wear: metal to metal and metal to ground. The point of the share is going to get lots of wear contacting the ground. You will notice in the one reference that Bob S sent, the point has a sharp angled cut. With wear, the shape becomes rounded. If it is just a little rounding and made of steel, it can be drawn out at a heat and the angles restored somewhat with the hammer. A final hot cutting may be necessary. If it is rounded and worn way back, a steel "overcoat" is forge welded on. I saw this done only one time in my experience, at a shop in Chihuahua, Mexico. A small rectangular flat of high carbon steel was bent in half and placed over the worn point and forge welded. The welding requires some hard hitting with a striker or heavy hitting with a power hammer. It is forged out and hot-cut to shape. At the Mexican shop, they had a small stand with a surface plate on it, so that after shaping they could lay the share down to check the correct throat clearance. The flat of the point has a downward curve which is hammered over the horn. 

There is a thick "bar" behind the smooth side integral with the share, and one time I saw at a museum a set of plowshare tongs. It consisted of one unit of two tong jaws and three reins. The common rein to the two jaws has a bend in it so that one jaw grabs the top edge of the share and the other jaw attaches to the bar which is up toward the point. A link through the end of one rein hooks over the other rein ball-end to hold it fast. I made a sketch of it and made one when I returned to the shop. When both jaws are fitting properly, the two free reins come together for a handhold and are parallel.

Hardening and tempering may be a great secret. On mine, I tried to follow an old Arkansas blacksmith's advice. He said that he heated at least 2/3 of the share length and 1/3 the width including the point to a cherry red. He said that he gave it a fairly rapid water quench leaving some reserve heat above quenched portion. Then he let it sizzle downward. He called it "frying." He let it fry until it reached the point. Then he quenched again. I never could get the frying to behave just right; maybe the old boy was pulling my leg. I notice in Bob S's reference link, that on solid steel shares, they simply let them normalize, and that's it.

I inherited a couple of walking plow shares through my wife's dad. He did a lot of horse drawn plowing in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's. Those shares are quite small when compared to the larger tractor drawn shares. By hearsay, I was told that it was more difficult to dress the horse drawn shares than the tractor drawn. If you're walking behind the horse drawn plow, it takes some effort and concetration to "make a straight row." If the share is improperly dressed, it can misbehave by constantly "jumping" out of the ground or continuously going point down into the ground.

When I began work in the early 1960's, I was shoeing horses. I visited a blacksmith shop where the smith had about a dozen shares on the floor waiting to be fixed. He said the farmers always bring them in the Spring and ha ha want them done right away. I knew zip about that kind of work, but now I wish I had investigated it further. Too late for tears.

Nowadays, the use of moldboard plowshares is waning rapidly. There are too many other ways of tillage. There is even a no-till method of farming. 

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

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[Dave51B]

 Slag, thanks for the reply and suggestions I have done quit a bit of research on the subject, to no avail. I haven't given up yet though. Just thought I'd throw it out here for some input..

 Glen, thanks for the link to Frank. I have read a lot on his site. Not everything I'm sure. I'm not presently looking for shares. I have several plows and extra shares, along with 2 replacement points to forge weld on an old share. I'd just like to find what it would have cost in the day, to have the work done        The search continues.....                        Life is Good          Dave

 

[ThomasPowers]

I got to watch this being demonstrated at a SOFA meeting once by a retired fellow who used to do it in the time frame you mentioned.  It's been 20 years now so he is probably not around; but you might ask just in case, Emmert lasted into his 90's after all.

Also ask at historical societies if they have any "day books" or "account books", etc for blacksmith's shops.  I've seen excerpts of them for the early 19th century before from that source.   Might check with the Grange too.  

It definitely was a skilled task as the shares had to be dressed for the local conditions: sand, gravel, rocks, turf, etc and a properly dressed on made a big difference in productivity and ease of use.

[Kozzy]

Might have a handle on the answer but the person I asked has to get back to me.  He's got a few contacts he's passing the question on to...plus we have the early ledgers from the local blacksmith/machine shop in our agricultural museum so he's going to take a look.  Just wanted to let you know that we're digging....

[Judson Yaggy]

Aldren Watson in his book "The Blacksmith, Ironworker and Farrier"  reprinted an excerpt from a blacksmith's account book circa 1842.  The entry "to use of plow" cost the customer 75 cents.  100 years too early but interesting none the less.  

[Dave51B]

 Thanks Thomas, Kozzy and Judson.....I try to remember to ask this question whenever I run into a new Smith or go to different groups or shops. The date 1940 is just an arbitrary date, no real significance. Just back in the day when this would be common work for a Smith. Of course I realize there would be different prices depending on the share. Different size shares, adding a point, adding cutting edge or just drawing out and setting the suck. Any info you guys throw at me will be much obliged.    Thanks           Dave 

[SLAG]

Dave,

If you do not get much success searching, (hopefully not)., there is an unlikely source of information, that usually does not come to mind. That is the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. They have many experts and staffers working in divers areas of life.

There is even a sub-group that identifies tools of unknown function.

SLAG.

[Dave51B]

 Thanks Slag. Research is not one of my strong suits. But I try and will continue.....               Dave

[Kozzy]

Got hold of a guy who knew a guy....

To the best of this elderly man's memory, it cost him $ 2.00 each when he brought in plowshares for sharpening in the rough era you asked about.  That's the same as $ 29.45 in current dollars based on inflation and 1942 dollars.

He remembers that it took "...two or three..." trips between the forge and power hammer to get them drawn back out to shape.

Additionally, he mentioned that it was $ 5.00 extra for hard-facing to be done which was a bit too expensive so most skipped it ($ 73.62 with the same inflation conversion in addition to the $ 29.45 earlier).

I haven't had a chance to check the actual sales ledgers of the machine works in town who did the work yet to verify.  When I get a chance to get down to the museum, I'll see if I can find some records of the actual work being done just to check his memory.

[Dave51B]

 Thanks a bunch Kozzy......That helps, But now, that brings in more research.....I have to look up what plow shares sold for in the 40's......... Before Thomas tells me, I'm going to bring up the ole Sears catalogs.  

http://www.farmcollector.com/looking-back/oliver-raydex-point-plow-shares-zb0z1607zhur

 I may have found what I was looking tor...........       Life is Good            Dave

[Kozzy]

Wow, quite a bit different costs mentioned there.  I still need to get down and look at the actual accounting books but it looks like the old dude's memory was probably from a little later era than he thought.

 

Had another response from someone who's father was a smith:

"... from what I remember i thought it was a dollar a share in and around 1954 and 1956.  I also heard comments like " you could beat yourself into hell beating cold iron". 

Regarding your link on the Oliver plowshares--after forwarding that, I got the response that they really were the cat's meow and worked remarkably well...and that he still has some in his shed from his own farming days.

 

Ok, I finally have a verified number but it was from 1931.  The local ironwork shop charged 50 cents to sharpen a single share according to their accounting records.  So far, that's the only one called out specifically as sharpening a plowshare and nothing else included in the price.  Not sure how bad that share was or if there was a premium because it was worn to nothing.

 

 

[Dave51B]

 Thanks again Kozzy. Sorry I didn't respond to your earlier reply's. I missed them somehow. Must not have shown up with the "unread content" button. I got another recollection from a local farmer here, that stated he paid $2 to get his sharpened in the early 50s. He didn't even have to think about it. By the mid 50s, just about every farmer in these parts had switched to throw away shares.

Sounds like we are in the same ballpark on pricing. If your contact has some old shares, you might let him know that they are still of value if he doesn't know. The antique tractor "plow days" are a popular event in a lot of areas.    Life is Good         Dave 

[Kozzy]

A little additional information from the guy who went through the ledger last night:

"Further looking into the Krouse Machine Shop Ledger confirms earlier info sent you, with the following maybe of interest----

Most entries were in the late 20's and early 30's

Sharpening generally 50 cents each, with some at 40 cents

If new points were added, that was $1.50 each

Setting tires were $1 or $2 each

26.5 hours of labor was $32.50    or $1.25/hour

A cloverleaf was $1.50"

 

[Frosty]

After my Father passed I was talking to my Uncle Fred and showed hi a picture of my 50lb. Little Giant and that triggered some family history. Seems Dad earned $0.25 a day starting out sharpening plow shears and worked his way up to $0.50 a day. These were Depression wages and he would've been his early teens.

That story explained a LOT about Dad's attitude towards blacksmithing. For him it was a hard scrabble survival job and he didn't feel he'd been treated fairly. He earned better money chipping bark off logs in Lk. Washington to sell as kitchen stove wood.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Glenn]

Email from Norman Macknair

If you want to add something,  a 1961 dealer price book listed a JD 1442 which is a very popular share for $2.75 and another dealer price book that I cannot date  but is called "The S.P Lummus Supply Company" #38  out of philadelphia listed that share at $.80.  (i suppose if you could figure out the history of the Lummus Co  you could be reasonably sure of the year of the print if you found company start date and added 38 years (or they possibly put one out biannually)

So logic would have it that anything over this price would not make economical sense for farmers to have done.

Obviously this is assuming that the farmer had a dealer within a reasonable distance to buy the shares from, and could rely on a supply of them over having them sharpened.

Also the post asked about 1941 prices, so there would probably be an asterisk beside this as the while WWII had not taken full effect on the availability of metal products , it would figure that new shares would have been getting scarce, but it would be hard to figure this out to a point of certainty.  But that would certainly have more shares sharpened in that time period.

Norm