Moving To / From Show

[jfirebaugh]

Hi Walt D7-3T,

I just got a very nice PM from steeltracs, who as it turns out, knew my Dad (small world isn't it) Anyway he added the following:

The guy that did custom scraping and landplaning with D7's in Madera was named DelBono. He had a custom made 100 ft. land plane (what a monster!) that was one of two fabricated in the Sherman Thomas shop. He used to pull the land plane from job to job with a Jeep. They had a steering wheel in the back to aid in turning during transport. The picture of the land plane that you posted is a Marvin, most likely 70 ft. long (most common in the 50's & 60's)

He's right it was a monster! Evidentially they were a Marvin on steroids!

[steeltracs]

Marvin made many different sizes of land planes . some of the smallest ones were only maybe 16ft long,and low profile for orchard use. They made their largest ones that would expand for use and collapse for transport. Now, the prefered type is a tri-plane design made by Sweco or Schmeiser of Fresno Ca. The one pictured in the previous post looks to be a Marvin, maybe 60 or 70 ft. long, still used by many farms today. The land plane use is for filling small potholes, disk ridges, etc.. not for scraping to change grade. They replaced the old drag type floats that original where horse drawn.