November 3, 2017
CapitalPress.com
15
Antique tractor starts with a ‘bang’
By GEOFF PARKS
For the Capital Press
Courtesy Photo
Don Studier of Corvallis, Ore., with one of the tractors he brought
to last year’s Willamette Valley Ag Expo. Studier has been superin-
tendent of the Cascade Building for a decade.
Volunteer helps
Expo run smoothly
By GEOFF PARKS
For the Capital Press
For some reason, when
Don Studier claims he was
“roped into” or “had his
arm twisted” to become the
superintendent of the Cas-
cade Building during the
Willamette Valley Ag Expo,
it sounds a little tongue-in-
cheek.
Studier, who owns a
small piece of hay land near
Corvallis, has been involved
with the Expo on a volunteer
basis the last 10 years as the
huge Cascade Building’s su-
perintendent, or manager.
“Every year I say this is
the last one,” he laughed,
“but I enjoy working with
all the people and all the ma-
chinery at the Expo so much
that I keep on going.”
Volunteers are the life-
blood of the Expo, said
event producer Scott Ingalls.
Hundreds of hours of unpaid
work pay off in camaraderie,
goodwill among the work-
ers, those they are serving
with the work, and those
who attend the three-day
event.
Before becoming a volun-
teer, “I brought antique trac-
tors to the Expo’s Antique
Farm Equipment Display for
the first couple of years of
the event,” Studier said.
“And now I do what
others do (as a superinten-
dent). I check in vendors,
make sure everyone shows
up and put them where they
need to go,” he said. He
works about four hours on
the Sunday before the Tues-
day start of the Expo, then
all day Monday, getting the
equipment owners signed in
and the tractors themselves
lined up and grouped by
make.
“It adds up to about 16
to 20 hours, then on the
last day, Thursday, we work
clearing things out until ev-
erybody is gone at about 10
p.m.”
“Early on, I started dis-
playing equipment — I re-
store antique tractors — and
nowadays still bring in one
or two pieces,” he said.
One year he brought a
rare Ferrari tractor and this
year will display a 1950s-era
Minneapolis-Moline.
Alan Painter of Browns-
ville, Ore., has the perfect
machine to get the Willamette
Valley Ag Expo’s Antique
Tractor Display “off with a
bang” on Nov. 14 in the Cas-
cade Building at the Linn
County Fair and Expo Center.
Of the four tractors Paint-
er, 77, will be taking to the
Albany event, the 1929 Lanz
Bulldog is unquestionably
unique. With a removable
steering wheel that doubles
as a crank, the engine de-
velops 15 to 30 horsepower
running on “just about any
carbon-based fuel” including
kerosene or diesel.
The battleship gray Ger-
man unit has red accents,
massive steel wheels and a
jet-black smokestack.
Painter demonstrated the
10-minute routine the Lanz
Geoff Parks/For the Capital Press
Alan Painter of Brownsville, Ore., works with his 1929 Lanz trac-
tor, a German model that features a steering wheel that doubles
as a crank starter and a cigarette-and-shotgun shell starting
mechanism.
operator must go through to
start the tractor. He begins
by placing a lit cigarette-like
rolled paper into a slot at the
front of the machine. He then
loads a shotgun cartridge
containing gunpowder into a
slot leading into the combus-
tion chamber and sets it off
with a hammer.
It’s not the most elegant
starting mechanism, but
Painter says the machine
will “run all day, even during
WVAG17-3/101
lunch,” so startup is a once-a-
day event.
Painter was born in Eng-
land and moved to the U.S. in
1967 at the age of 27 to work
at Boeing near Seattle. He
purchased his Brownsville
land to raise sheep and hay
for their feed, and has been
involved in the 17-year-old
Willamette Valley Ag Expo
for several years.
Painter’s
Lanz
will
join 50-plus other antique
tractors and related imple-
ments and equipment at the
three-day Expo. He plans
on bringing three other ma-
chines from his 65-acre
farm. Those will include a
1931 4-wheel-drive 15/24
horsepower Massey-Harris;
a 1950 40-horsepower Field
Marshall and a two-cylinder,
25-horsepower 1959 Porsche
Diesel Standard, one of only
125,000 tractors the noted
German automaker produced.