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As his wife has stated,
the backyard was full of Dave's inventions, as well as a few failures.
She stated that he would dream at night and the next day he would start on a
new project. But in `960, the farm situation got a little worse and,
at the urging of family and friends and the Michigan State University USDA
engineers, Dave began experimenting with a method of harvesting tart
cherries more economically and faster. Thus was born the
Cherry Shaker,
the first one built. It was driven by a Wisconsin
motor, hydraulic pump for driving it and also shaking the cherry trees, made
in two pieces and both with four wheels. It had shaker frames to pull
up on both sides of the tree. The hydraulic shaker would shake each
large limb of the tree, the cherries would fall from the tree onto a canvas
frame, then move up a hydraulic conveyor to a tank full of very cold water.
Then, Dave decided that he could design a better one that had a hydraulic
arm to grab the tree trunk and shake the entire tree in about 30 seconds.
With just one man to drive the fork life, again cutting cost, the filled
tank was usually loaded onto a semi-truck that soon left the field for a
processing plant.
Dave
shipped pa rts to several foreign countries. He also shipped one Friday IND
30 tractor with turf tires to South Africa. He had an order to ship
twelve tractors, but there was a problem with the South African government,
so he only shipped one tractor. Dave also had an air strip on his farm
and would often fly parts to farmers. He was a member of the Flying
Farmers Association. His plane had the same numbers on it as
that of Lindbergh's
Spirit of St. Louis.
The first Friday tractor (new style)
was made in 1948 and the last one was made in 1959, but Friday Tractor
still made lift trucks, pruning equipment, and a small crawler tractor
similar to a Caterpillar tractor, with a Honda motor on the rear, rubber
track and a platform on the front.
Friday Tractor closed in 1993. Dave Friday died April 26, 1988 at the
age of 79. His son, Phillip Friday, and grandson, George Friday, still
make the crawlers and the hydraulic pruning towers, but have since changed
the name to
Special T Farm Equipment, Inc.,
and they are both very busy with farming three farms with fruit and grain.
 I talked with several of the old and
original employees of Friday Tractor, including the Welty Brothers, Jim
"Doc" Owens, and Elmer DeMay, all of whom spent over 30 years working for
Dave in the tractor business. Lindell Carlisle worked there 43 years,
twenty of those years as shop manager.
In the Friday shop.
Dave Friday is at right.
continued
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