Ox Power Unit

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Dear Syamasundara Prabhu,

 

PAMHO. AGTSP.

 

Thank you for your several letters about your proposed ox power unit. They are

sometimes called gear heads or sweep units.

 

I can send you a copy of the plans of the one we built at Gita Nagari in the

early 80's or do you already have them? The first one we built was not heavy

duty enough and the oxen torqued it out right away. We then went with heavier

gears and a heavier (differential) from a very large lorry.

 

The design we used was from a small Amish lumber mill. They were using 10

horses as the power source. They were slabbing lumber which meant that in the

process of cutting the lumber the blade had to maintain its RPM's. If the RPM's

went down, the saw blade would slant to wobble which in turn would warp the

blade and also give you a wavy cut on the wood.

 

Vaisnava das and John Fletcher were the main builders of the unit and it was

built with wheels so that it could be moved to different locations to do

different work. When it was in location the wheels were removed and it was

staked to the ground. The idea was that during the winter it would be used for

firewood and that in the summer it could be used for irrigation if need be?

Also for processing grains as needed. However we only used it for firewood.

 

I have some videos and I will try to make you copies so you can see it in

action. We did firewood with it very successfully for a number of years. All

the firewood we used was from the farm and was gathered during the week by the

oxen and Teamsters. It was hauled to the ox power unit and on Saturday a crew

of men spent most of the day "Bucking-up" firewood and delivering loads. We

kept 16 fires going. The only cost was the chain saw we used in the woods for

cutting logs into hauling lengths and sharpening the big saw blades at the

Amish place. It cost an average about of $200 a winter to heat the whole farm

and community.

 

We only cut dead trees. During the summer we would go into the woods and mark

the dead trees with red and orange paint. It was easy to tell the dead trees as

they had no leaves. In the winter when all the leaves have fallen from the live

trees its hard to tell what's dead. However, all the dead trees were marked so

it made gathering the firewood much easier.

 

How are your endeavors progressing? I'll try and get the copies of the plans

into the post this week. The video will take a little longer. Actually I thin

Hare Krsna dasi was mentioning about getting these plans on the ISCOWP WEB

page, but that would be later on.

 

Your servant,

Balabhadra das

 

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