Gentlemen,
Perhaps it's appropriate for me to comment at this point.
Last December, it was my intention to put this forum together all on my own but partner with Jack in the running of it. Fate put Charles into the picture and I decided that a three-way partnership was a beneficial move. When Charles closed down his old CCI forum, we brought Brad into the fold as a Moderator and part of the ADMIN.
We then added Rich Groh and Maynard Jodrey as our Official Greeters. I asked Charles to create a second, concealed forum outside of the ADMIN forum that Jack, Brad, Charles and I confer in. Charles gave Maynard and Rich the necessary permissions to join us in that forum to discuss certain site issues. When Ken stepped up and created the revolving banners for the site, I asked Charles to change his permissions so he could join all of us in that outer hidden forum. The latest member is Danny aka ING6018, due to his efforts in helping to improve the text on what we call the "front door" to the site.
Yes.... it's true that much of the scanning of parts manuals, op manuals and service manuals has been done by me but that's because I'm the member who has most of that material. However, numerous members have stepped up by mailing manuals to me for scanning or they have scanned manuals themselves and sent the PDF's to me. I send the finished product to Charles via a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program and then Charles puts all the links into the Tech Section and FAQ's.
In the meantime, Jack and Brad monitor the site as Moderators and Jack spends countless hours looking at C/L and e-Bay listings to try and find tractors and implements that may be of interest to the members. The point is simple This forum is not a one-man band. As I said in my initial letter to the membership, there is no such thing as a "Top Dog" on this forum. Every one of the eight people I mentioned above are valuable contributors in one way or the other. We are a TEAM and we make nearly all decisions as a TEAM.
The TECH section will continue to grow over the next 30 days. Right now, I have 13 manuals that are ready to hand over to Charles. I have another ten that would have been scanned today had my scanner not broken down. Jack just sent me a list of manuals I have at his place and it appears that 14 of them will get scanned shortly and uploaded. If things go as planned this week, I will visit fellow collector Ted Browne to see what he has that I don't have and then borrow it for scanning.
There are more FAQ's for me to write and those will be taken on as time allows.
We have not downloaded any manuals from the Eastman site because almost all of those SUCK bigtime. Our manuals are fresh scans of ORIGINAL paper manuals published by Case or by the Ingersoll Tractor Company. For the most part, they are very clean and easy to read. The ones on the Eastman site are grainy and full of artifacts because they were copied from old micro-fiche's . By the time I'm finished, the Tech Library on this site will dwarf what Eastman has on offer. You cannot get Service Manuals or Operator Manuals at Eastman but you can get them here.
However, we still need the help of our membership. PLEASE. if you have manuals of any kind, please gather them up, make a list of them and send me a PM. I will tell you what we can use and what we can't.
Thanks for your anticipated co-operation.
Tom
