Aviation Maintenance
Great write-up about Russell Mayes, about his career in aviation maintenance and his second career doing restorations.
Video About Mayes Tractors
Restoring Antique Tractors for a Living
Reporting in Montgomery County, Mike Brooks, ABC NewsChannel 20.
Wednesday, April 23 2014, 11:23 AM CDT
As the owner of Mayes Antique Tractors, Russell Mayes spends his days with his hands full of history.
"It's an Oliver 440, made in 1960," Mayes said. "I looked up the serial number. This tractor was the 111th one built in 1960."
His shop in Raymond is a go-to destination for everything from a ground-up restoration like a Graham Bradley, or a more modest update like a Case.
"That's a Case 830, from over at Franklin, Ill.," Mayes said. "It's been owned by the same family since new. They bought it right off the showroom in Jacksonville, drove it to Franklin. It didn't need a lot other than just paint, put a clutch in it, paint and a little electrical."
Fabrication skills are key when you're fixing machines that haven't been in production for decades.
"The right-hand side panel for a Minneapolis-Moline U tractor," Mayes indicated. "And they all have this problem. They sit against the manifold and they get burned up over the years of being used, so I've made a couple of them for tractors I've restored. So I fabricate a new reproduction panel to put on the tractors."
He also dabbles in old cars, but tractors present some unique challenges.
"Most of the tractor is seen," Mayes said. "Even the engine sits out in the wide open. You walk up to it, you see the engine and all of the parts, so you really gotta detail them out real nice."
Most of these tractors are done for customers, but he has one of his own here as well.
"It's a 1935 Twin City tractor," Mayes said. "It's a Model J. They didn't build very many of them. It sat outside in a fence row for 47 years. I took it as a challenge. It was a challenge."
But this tractor has a special place in his business.
"This is the first tractor I restored in the mid '90s," Mayes said. "It kind of got things going. People saw it when it was done. I started doing people's tractors on the side, then when my main job ended I just went full-time with the tractors."
He hasn't regretted the career change yet.
"When you get to a point that you start putting paint on them and you see the fruits of what you've been doing," Mayes said. "You come home at night, and you say, 'Man it's looking great, because I got a nice coat of paint on a chassis.' But it's a lot of work."
Dave Bakke: You never forget your first ... tractor?
From The State-Journal Register
By Dave Bakke
Posted Nov. 1, 2013 at 12:01 AM
For some people, their first car remains a sentimental memory. Some even go so far as to find that car (Where, oh where, is my blue 1963 Chevy Bel Air?) and get it back. That is what Norm Diehl did — but not with a car. For him, it was a tractor.
Norm was all of 8 years old when he first climbed onto his dad’s 1952 Oliver model 77 on their farm outside of Carson in western North Dakota.
“I probably started by cultivating corn,” Norm says.
In those days, the Oliver Farm Equipment Co. was churning out its green and yellow tractors from its huge factory in Charles City, Iowa. Norm’s father, Ruben, bought his and drove it 20 miles home at a top speed of, oh, 12 mph or so.
Some years later, that yellow grille on the family tractor was painted white because Oliver was painting its newer tractor grilles white and the family wanted its tractor to look like one of the newer ones.
Norm grew up, left the farm, attended the University of Illinois and eventually settled in Springfield. His father died in 1995. His casket was drawn from the church to the cemetery behind that Oliver 77.
A tractor is a partner to a farmer, especially a tractor that has been around and done as much farm work as that one. It almost becomes part of the family. Norm’s dog is named Oliver in honor of that tractor. Like real estate, they aren’t making more Oliver tractors, either. The Charles City factory closed in 1993.
Norm’s sister has a ranch near Almont, N.D., and she and her husband used the tractor after Ruben died. In recent years, with its better days far behind it, the Oliver 77 was used mostly as a power source for an irrigation pump. Otherwise, it had pretty much fallen apart.
Just over a year ago, Norm asked his sister if he could have it, and she agreed. He went to western North Dakota, about 1,000 miles from here, and hauled it back to Springfield.
Norm took photos of the tractor when he brought it home. “You can see it was quite a mess,” he says as he shows the different frames.
Then he got a break.
Norm uses some of his farming background to operate Kristin’s Pumpkin Patch by Toronto Road. He is also treasurer for his subdivision’s association. The association uses a bank in Chatham. One of the bank tellers is Olive (an appropriate name, considering), Olive Mayes.
“I talked to him about his pumpkin patch, and he was saying that he had an old tractor,” says Olive. “I said my husband has a tractor-restoration business.”
That was what we call serendipity. Her husband is Russell Mayes, who was a jet engine mechanic at Garrett Aviation at the Springfield airport for more than 20 years. When Garrett closed, Russell opened his tractor-restoration business, first in Pawnee and now in Raymond.
Norm took his old Oliver tractor to Olive’s husband about a year ago. Two weeks ago, it was finally finished. Norm was going to drive the tractor from Raymond to Springfield to re-create his father’s drive home when the tractor was new. But he thought better of it.
“It would probably be throwing rocks,” Norm says, “and I didn’t want to take a chance on chipping the paint.”
He hauled his tractor home on a trailer instead, and it looks great. It still has the original steering wheel and the original tractor seat that once held Norm’s 8-year-old backside.
Norm says he will use the Oliver a little, possibly to work the pumpkin patch next year, and maybe for hayrack rides.
“Other than that,” he says, “I don’t think I’ll use it for much, other than to look at.”
And to remember.
Tractor Talk: My Sweet Green Valentine
Russell Mayes and Mayes Tractors and Restorations was featured in Farm and Ranch Living magazine.
