Reprinted from
Gas Engine Magazine
October, 2000

by
Robert Hall
Hartford, Michigan

    Dave Friday was a June 1934 graduate of Michigan State University and met his wife, Beverly, there.  Dave, with a degree in horticulture, moved to a farm south of Hartford, Michigan, that belonged to his late father, George Friday.  Dave farmed with his father.

   Behind Dave's house was a small garage that he quickly converted into a repair shop for both families.  He soon saw a need for a bigger shop, so he put up another building and bought the 80-acre farm from his father.

  At this point, Dave remembered that his professor at Michigan State built a welder out of a transformer, so Dave, at first, built welders himself out of old transformers. Also, seeing a need for a tractor that he could afford, he built the first doodle bug tractor out of a model B motor, a Ford truck rear-end, a truck frame with an old Fordson radiator and gas tank and the first Friday Tractor was born. 
      Other farmers seeing them, of course, wanted one also.  Mr. Bob Weber, a friend of mine, has the only Weber Special Doodlebug Tractor.  It was sold to his late father and has a hand-cast brass tag on the radiator that says Weber Special Mfd by David Friday, Hartford, Mich.  He also has another Friday Doodlebug tractor he bought locally, years before, for $20.00.  He overhauled the motor and put a lift-truck on the rear-end and uses it on his large fruit farm, as it's the only lift-truck that he has. 

    At the same time, Dave taught welding using the homemade welder.  In 1940, Dave bought out Love Tractor, design and components, from the late Jacob Love of Eau Claire, Michigan.  Dave called it the Friday Tractor, with Chrysler industrial engine, six cylinder, with Dodge truck, 5-speed transmission and rear-end with two-speed.  All of this gave you 10 speeds forward and two in reverse. 
                                                                                           Weber Special - the only one made

Later on, Dave also made a Friday tractor with a bigger motor, also IND 32 with rear  gears, reduction boxes, and bigger tires.  The IND 30 would travel on the highway at 60-plus miles per hour.  Note the picture of me on my Friday Tractor at the Friday Tractor Factory.  Mine was the first one built in 1951, with serial #01-51, and was sold to the late Ed Spiess of Rock Island, Illinois. These tractors were very powerful. A lot of farmers had farms several miles apart and they could travel more quickly to the other farms for spraying or other field work.   From 1948 on, Friday only used Chrysler motors and never made a lift-truck out of these tractors, they were after-market installed. 

This Friday tractor cost about
$250-$300 in 1944-46.

Early Friday owned by Bob Weber
(not a Special)

          Dave had a large fruit farm and raised, among other things, strawberries and asparagus. In shortage of help, he build a power-hoe, a small tractor, 9.2 horsepower, Wisconsin motor and a small Crosley type transmission and motor on the rear-end.  You sit very close to the ground, steering with your feet, using your hands to move the hoe back and forth, thus the Wiggle-Hoe was born.  It had hydraulic cultivators, with a fertilizer attachment.  You could work one acre of strawberries in one hour with just one man.  It also had a hand clutch and brakes.  Some of these wiggle-hoes were also converted to pick asparagus, by adding one or two seats out each side with a metal frame to hold old beer lugs or crates to put the asparagus into, and you could travel at a steady speed.

               
 Dave made a lot of cost-saving machinery, include a straw spreader, used to put straw down between the strawberry rows.  You will also see the picture of the tiller made out of a Friday tractor drive-train, with a Seaman tiller on it.  Dave was also a Seaman Tiller dealer.                                   

                                                        Friday tiller used on strawberries
   Dave Friday with a stem of
strawberry blossoms on his farm                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                   → (con't)