The Home Machinist!

Wonder why these things are so prevalent back east and very rare in the west? I have lived in Oregon all my life and never heard of hit and miss and the like until about a year ago. Maybe I need to get out more

you need to get out more. the groups that play with them go thru cycles. pendleton has a old iron show every spring,baker used to have a gathering that i hear has restarted up.i am sure there are others but lets face it we dont have a great population densiety or machine culture in this part of the state.

do some checking up in eastern washington. lots of retired machinest types living up there

here is the pendleton info

Place: Roy Raley Park, SW 10th and Court, Pendleton (Next to Round Up grounds)
Dates: 1st weekend in June (Annually) June 5-6, 2010 Hours; 8AM-dusk Sat. – 8AM-1PM Sun.
No charge to the public, although donations will keep us coming back!
Food vendor on site Sat. and Sun.
FREE DINNER ON FRI. AND SAT. FOR EXHIBITORS!
Exhibitors can unload all day Friday and Saturday. All equipment must be removed from the park by 4PM Sunday. Forklift operator on site.
RV parking for exhibitors is available in the park on a first come-first served basis as space allows.
For more specific information please call Jack Remillard at 541-276-5949, or Bill Dawson at 541-276-6624

Back in the 50's my dad cut fire wood with a fairbanks morse to heat the house. There are still quite a few of them around here. Though most are in the hands of collectors. The Brooks Oregon show at Antique Power land" is a big event.

Richard W.

Actually they are very common in the west. It just depends on the exact area your in. I'd think that at one time any area that was extensively farmed like the eastern part of Washington State would have had a lot of them for irrigation at least. Even today hit n miss engines are still used a lot around remote oil wells. They run on unrefined gas coming off the well heads to operate pumps. Northern B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan are full of them. Alaska would be the same. And I'd bet there's still thousands tucked away and slowly rusting on farms and ranches from the Mexican border to the Arctic circle on this side of the Mississippi. Even the L.A. area probably has more than a few when it's not worth stringing a power line to a very low producing oil well. But to be honest, the modern ones seem to be what are called a 6 cycle engine in the oil fields today unless the well is very old. They really sound like there going to die between power strokes.

Pete

Here's one in your backyard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0xifuTqVA