Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Fordson Snow Devil



In the 1920s Armstead attached their Snow-Motor kit to a Fordson tractor and created the Fordson Snow Devil. The Snow-Motor was two large screws replacing the wheels of the tractor so it could maneuver in snow. They formed a company to sell the kits, and then pretty much vanished from the records. I have no idea how many they sold, if they ever sold any.

However, the idea of screw-propelled vehicles was revisited during WWII and later the Soviets built a number of different versions of them. You can read about the Soviet versions, and see pictures of them, at the post Strange Screw Vehicles

I believe screw drives were also considered for lunar rovers, but I couldn't find any information about them, so I may be imagining that. However, another post which covers even more screw-driven vehicles is Screw Propelled Vehicles at the website Unusual Off-Road Vehicles.


2 comments:

OMMAG said...

Yep ... I've seen that video before. The Fordson concept was covered in a Popular Science ... back in the 1950's I think.

In any case .... I made a model based on the idea using balsa to make the frame and some Mechano hardware fro the power train (electric moter and chain drives) ... fabricate the screw tubes from the tubes that come with waxed paper and used wire to wrap helixes.

No controls but I could turn it on an let it go until it found some place to get stuck ...

ambisinistral said...

I would have like to have seen that. Too bad you couldn't get the steering working. Did it run over pretty much any surface?