as one of the older members,,,,,we get older and not as active as we were before....I have seen hundreds of members come and go......very few of the old timers are still around.....still have a 8 p lister clone and a 3 1/2 petter plus a few dozen of antique engines,,,,plus hundreds of antique tools etc..still active but not as much as before...miss going to Portland swap meet and meeting old friends but all of my friends can not stand the 12 hour drive any more,     but I still stay in contact with of a few of the old gang....as we use to say in the Army...keep up the fire,,,sid

A little more of what has been going on.......I still have about 8 large antique engines, about half are hit and miss.the biggest is a 15 hp Fairbanks,,,,,about 3000 lbs, runs like a watch..on a 14 ft. trailer....my old friend is 93 and we have traveled around the south east for 30 years....he had about 80 engines,.....a few years back he gave his friends one. I got first pick...did not want too but I finally picked a 1 1/2 sattley... still left him with about 70...most of his were smaller ones...this summer he decided that he had no one to in his family that knew or wanted old engines....they were just scrap to his family.I stop over one a week to take him to lunch,this day he said come look at some engines....I went home with 9 engines,  Iron horse, Johnson.reo,bradford,Waukesha ,etc...a week  ago I stopped in this time I went home with 13 more....all he said was I do not want them to go for junk.....I would of given anything to have these 30 years ago....... hopefully my son will keep and take care of them.......I use to go to about 15 engine shows a year. from south Florida to Indiana and stay about 5-7 days.. the last few years I noticed I only go to 4 or 5 and stay about 1-2 days... does not takes as long to see everything,,, just not as fun as it use to be.......my favorite engine and set up is a corm mill on a 18  ft. trailer....with a Desjardin hit and miss engine....I usually take it the Ga. Nation Fair for 11 days in the fall......I still own a 8 hp lister clone and a 3 1/2  hp petter......still love old engines but we all slow down...sid

no problem camping. I tent camped for years but the mud and cold finally got me.the reason it is so high is they raised the room price this year,also they have a 12% tax that week plus state tax. runs a little under $200.00, but depending on the room I think it could top that..sid

that is not an unusual problem.some of the older clones with braided fuel lines would swell up inside and stop fuel flow.my solution was to grind the flair off and throw away the braided hose and use a good quality fuel line on the banjo fitting. only few minute repair.all of the older lines would swell inside,did not matter what fuel you used.sid

made it back from Portland with several hundred pounds of mud in the truck. Rained for 3 days but meet up with Butch(38 ac) and had a wonderful time playing in the mud. did not buy an engine but found a very nice anvil. Just what I need. Another anvil... Looking forward to next year. Next show and swap meet in in Denton N.C on July the 4 th.  all ready loading the trailer.sid

Wow. it has been a year and the Portland swap meet starts next wed.got the trailer loaded and a room at the motel.let the show start.sid

yup/ it is Portland time again and I will be there/    .hopefully, I can meet up with Butch again and bargain hunt/  ,I have been traveling a lot the  last few months and have not kept up with the forum as much as I should.sid