He Makes Ice Cream The Old Fashioned Way

He Makes Ice Cream the Old Fashioned Way ENGINES Engines 15-4-32 When Troy Pawson, Tipton, Mich., cranks up his 1915 Nelson 1 1/2 hp. "hit or miss" gas engine, all kinds of people are likely to start showing up because they know that familiar "putt-putt" sound means something tasty is being created. Pawson, who collects old tractors and steam engines, paired up the old engine with a hand-cranked ice cream maker so that with no effort at all, but a lot of fun, he can make a gallon and a half of homemade ice cream that almost no one can turn down. He got the idea of teaming up the old gas engine with an ice cream maker because he likes to find jobs for his old engines. He uses other old engines to power equipment around his farm, such as his sawmill and a home-built shingle mill. The powered ice cream maker mounts on a 2-wheel cart. Pawson rebuilt the Nelson engine by equipping it with a new piston sleeve from a 250 Cummins engine (he had to bore out the cylinder to make it fit). It belt-drives the ice cream maker through a pulley mounted on brackets alongside the bucket. He had the pulley custom-cast at a local foundry. It's an exact copy of a pulley off an antique Emerson clover hauler that he still uses so he couldn't spare the pulley. It's sized to turn the ice cream maker at just the right speed. He fitted the pulley with a special-made bearing. The Nelson engine, which Pawson says some antique engine collectors jokingly refer to as the Nelson "boat anchor", originally powered a cement mixer and was hand-cranked. Pawson equipped it with an electric starter. It takes about an hour to make 1 1/2 gal. of ice cream. "It comes out perfect and people really get a kick out of it," says Pawson. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Troy Pawson, 5463 Pawson Rd., Tipton, Mich. 49287 (ph 517 431-2520).

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