Farm Horizons
•
Aug. 8, 2016
•
Page 17
This threshing machine is the result of the orginal drawn-up plan left. Creating a replica takes hundreds of hours, and
Sunderland crafts, paints, and assembles every piece of the machine himself.
PHOTO BY CALEB SEBORA
the replica is hand-made. In fact, one of his replicas
(a threshing machine) took 700 hours to build – that’s
equivalent to about one month’s time without stopping.
The process starts when Sunderland decides what
piece of equipment he wishes to replicate, and then
draws up plans to scale.
“Each one of the replicas is scaled down to either 1/8
or 1/16 of the actual size of the machine,” said Sunderland.
After he draws up the plans, Sunderland cuts up and
creates the pieces for the model. He constructs one side
of the model, then constructs an identical opposite side.
After that, he puts the two sides together and adds the
front, the back, the top, and the bottom. And, not only
does he construct the pieces, he paints each of them,
too.
Sunderland doesn’t stop at creating just a standard
replica, though – he creates moving ones.
Using small motors, wheels with pullies, and railroad
transformers, Sunderland gets his models to move. He’s
even made a windmill that shoots out water.
And, when he’s done with one?
“I just move on to the next one, if I have an idea for
it,” he said.
While none of his replicas are for sale, Sunderland
does display them at approximately 10 threshing shows
each year, for people of all ages to see.
“People walk by, and they enjoy seeing them,” Sunderland recalled. “The kids think that they’re neat with
all of the moving parts.”
Sunderland currently isnt working on a plan for a machine, stating that he builds them mainly in the winter.
“But we’ll see what I come up with,” he said. n
SCHROEDER
MEATS
• Sausage Making
• Custom Processing No extra charge for boning or grinding
• Ham Smoking
• Wild Game Processing
• On-farm Services
• Retail Sales
17425 62nd St., New Germany
(952) 353-2228