A Dead Head (er) Fan
Aug 25, 2015
Homage to a National Beauty
She’s a “Dead Head” (er). “Heavy metal” sounds is what she lived on. She has passed on. We were left wondering what to do…where should she be laid to rest? Cremation is the norm, but we thought she deserved better, based on her "All American" past. You see she was born around 1955 in the heartland. She was a NATIONAL beauty in her day, with no equal. She could lay it down…and did for many years…until the foreign upstarts passed her by. In her old age, many thought she couldn’t keep up and cast her aside. We found her and thought differently. She had a good heart and her heavy metal leanings were just the music we wanted to hear. We tried to revive her, but could not. Instead, we did the only logical thing for someone her age. We harvested her parts. Sounds morbid, but it’s what you do now days. Yet, because of her heritage we looked for a way we could preserve her. We coated her with special embalming fluid and laid her to rest in the center of our new sales office. It seemed appropriate for all she had done for America.
She's now our front counter in the new sales office. Below are some facts about her.
- Her dimensions are the size of a Go-Kart, but she weighs more than the largest SUV.
- We couldn’t get her in the door without disassembling all her moving parts.
- Some of the moving parts weighed over 400 lbs.
- Just her casting alone, overloaded a 3 ton flatbed truck.
- We got her in place and laid carpet. My (Bryce) wife said she was in the wrong place.
- We moved her a second time; as instructed by my wife.
- She was bought as a back-up machine to our other ¼ headers, but was missing a main part.
- National machinery quoted us over $100,000.00 to rebuild her.
- We never got around to building the part, nor got her running.
- She sat for 5 years in our parking lot until we decided we needed the parking space more than her.
- Considering labor, freight and disassembly; she is one of the most expensive front counters anywhere.
- National machinery built her in Tiffin Ohio around 1955.
- Her casting took a year to cure before she was a finished machine.
- Normal process for old headers is to melt them down. They usually come back as rebar.
- Modern headers weigh 40% less and don’t last.
