Going ploughing

[mathias1]

mine did come with no weights at all. So I'm keeping an eye and some day I hope to stumble up to some. I'm even willing to drive to the south of the UK to pick them up In the past I used to visit Brighton by car. Using the eurotunnel is fast and reliable

[oehrick]

Matthias

Find a pair of scrap cast iron front major wheels and weld up a bracket to bolt to the front tombstone to hang them on - or if you have the pressed steel wheels fitted, fit cast ones instead, that will improve the nose weight for less money

[mathias1]

Matthias

Find a pair of scrap cast iron front major wheels and weld up a bracket to bolt to the front tombstone to hang them on - or if you have the pressed steel wheels fitted, fit cast ones instead, that will improve the nose weight for less money

I'm doing this for fun/hobby, and searching the right parts is maybe 90% of the fun. I'm travelling to the south by the end of September to pick up some wheel weights. Means the wife will have a short holiday, everybody happy

[oehrick]

I thought I might help you save money Matthias, clearly there is something MUCH MORE important involved if you are spending tractor money while your wife is pleased you are giving her a holiday

Hope the weather is as nice for you as it has been here this week

[AdrianNPMajor]

About seven acres into a nine-and-a-half acre field.
Got off the tractor to check and adjust the vertical alignment of the plough, ear defenders round my neck, when I heard a distinctive, bass note whoop-whoop-whoop of rotors compressing the air. Wanted to get my camera out, but today I decided not to bring it, and was just doing a bit of this and this as not one but two Chinooks flew directly overhead.
Ploughing is Zen. Discuss!
Best, Adrian.
ps Anyone wanting to come back with this emoticon would be making a fair point!

[oehrick]

I may be able to help out there Adrian as they also flew over Bogside on Bure (temporarily renamed Simmering in the Marsh) while I was heading home from a wasted attempt to photograph a basking grass snake so I did poke the lens upwards and took a couple of frames, they were High and sunside of me so probably just specs, however the camera is downstairs, the kids are watching a horror film and I'm in me pink'n crinklies so uploading from the memory chip will have to wait.

A very emotive sound the Chinook but not as good a a Major engine or two in harness.

How goes the ploughing, the acreage is increasing but with the dry are the clods coming up like dustbin lids yet ??

Don't forget to whop on plenty of suncreme, I'm told that Garnier Factor E27N Sump is good...........

[oehrick]

Done the digital bit (eventually) and here are the Chinook pics to support Adrian's tall story about ploughing ( ), not going to win any prizes with them and have been heavily cropped - Having lived within 5 miles or so of RAF Coltishall for most of my life these and the Wessex & Sea King S & R helicopters were so common they didn't get a second glance, now people take photos of them and stick them in a bucket!

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hello Rick
Just staggered in from another session at the field.
The photo below shows how far I've got. I thought it was an eight acre field but it turned out to be nine-and-a-half acres. The conditions are dry and tough, so it's a bit of a challenge.
Re the Chinooks, well done for grabbing an image. I thought they were heading for Lakenheath. Must have been going further north. Wonder how many minutes elapsed between me and you seeing them.
Yes, I did slap on the suncream. The smell of it kept telling me I was on a beach!
Best, Adrian.

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[oehrick]

You are making a nice job of that Adrian, bet the shares and landslides have a deep polish on them now

I'm currently battling with the long grass and much entangled bindweed in the orchard, I had a carb problem with the Alien Scythe earlier in the year so it didn't get its first cut and is near 6 foot high in places so its cut a bout, draw off the swath with a pitchfork then have another bout! i'm now in among the young apple trees so having to be careful that I know where the end of the cutter bar is, it'll take an inch sapling out without coughing ! My neighbour said they had a laugh the other evening, they could hear Mr Villiers chugging his heart out, could see some movement of the grass and the occasional cloud of pipesmoke, even the odd outburst of swearing but couldn't see me - I am about to collect Scythe carcase #6 (for its cutter bar you understand) so that makes 2 (mostly) reliable runners, one at a push runner and three one day projects - oh for covered space to store them - the 'new' one has lived under a hedge for a number of years without spark plug so probably now a boat anchor but its surprising what a long soak in diseasel does

By the magic of finding where to look for the digital metadata I can advise the pics were taken at 5 arter five and they were heading slightly North of North West - any idea what time you stopped and saw them ?

[AXEMAN78]

As already said looks like your doing a fine job at the plough Adrian, not much call for that up here around our part of Lancashire, an old Kidd rotoflail would probably be better suited up here.

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hello Rick and Paul
Rick, thanks and yes all wearing metal well and truly shiny. One of the discs is worn down to a diameter that makes the hub drag, so I've had to raise it to the point where it doesn't really cut.
Re the Allen scythe, that's a machine that doesn't take any prisoners! Lovely description of a fine machine being used for just such a job as it was designed for. You haven't got an Iron Horse as well, have you?!
Paul, thanks for your kind comments.
Best, Adrian.

[oehrick]

No Iron Horse Adrian, although a Howard Yeoman Rotovator and a Barford Atom Mechanical Gardener are currently under consideration for selling or bringing over here from the parents place where they are at least under cover although at risk of theft / rusting !

Who needs Alton Towers when with an Allen Scythe and a bit of rough ground you can have your very own white knuckle ride !

Are spare disks about at an acceptable price ? if not sounds like a plasma cutter job is in the pipeline........

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hi Rick
I only got up close and personal with an Allen scythe once, and as soon as I saw it, both ends looked pretty daunting! The business end you obviously want pointed away from you, but even holding onto the handles looked like grabbing a male bovine by the pointy bits!
Have you got a death wish?!

Best, Adrian.

[oehrick]

Hi Rick
Have you got a death wish?!

Best, Adrian.

Nope just a lot of rough grass, a reluctance to mow by handscythe or brushcutter, no big rotary at the time the first one came along, an enjoyment in using obsolete but nonetheless superior technology (father bought a modern equivalent called a Decimator, what rubbish, tiny wide tractor treaded wheels constantly winding up big doughnuts of grass, modern engine without the torque of the Villiers and almost as temperamental hot starting, the only design improvement was the cutter bar articulates to accomodate uneven ground but that comes at a cost ) I also like haymaking, though since the horse totties moved out of the village there is no ready customer if it doesn't all turn to compost.

I think the greatest boon of using the Allens (yes I've had two running together, one with a central and one with an offset blade) is that the uneven popping and spitting bugs one of my neighbours for some strange reason, he has a monstrous ride on golf course thing operated on a weekly basis regardless of the row it makes, likewise various brush & hedge cutters !

Oh tis my delight on their barbeque night when the Villiers hits the ear

[AdrianNPMajor]

Rick, joking aside, I agree that the Allen is perfect for the job you are using it for. It cuts and lays the grass as the large diameter wheels make steady progress through the thickest undergrowth.
Re the ploughing here's another video.
Best, Adrian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChbuG7-GtDU

[Brian]

Did any of you chaps ever come across a Vivien Lloyd Sickle?

Bit like an Allen Scythe in size but no power driven wheels, they were just small bicycle ones. Similar Villiers engine but lying on its back with a belt pulley on the bottom driving a front mounted disc with four mower sections on it at 90 degree intervals. We had one at Lenwoods and it was the boys job to trim the rough grass and nettles on the acre of land at the back of the works. It really rapped your ankles if you hit a piece of gravel and anything like a stone would take a blade off which would be thrown anywhere in any direction. How we did not take out all the windows in the works or break dozens of car windscreens I will never know.

I have seen some heavy duty strimmers built on the same principle in recent years.

All this talk of ploughing! I have been turning in rough grass into rock hard ground down to about a foot with Nuffy and the single furrow deep digger then ploughed one of the bulb plots and hand picked the daffodil, tulip and iris bulbs from the freshly turned furrows. Then back over the ploughed ground with Dotty and the spring tine harrow, pick up more bulbs, repeat same again numerous times, then think you have them all only to find more everytime you walk the land.

Yesterday we planted one row of pink daffodils, 2000 lily tulips, autumn onions and ten rows of Sweet William seeds all in rows about a hundred and twenty yards long. All by hand except for the Sweet Williams which went in with Dotty and the Webb Space-a-matic precision drill.

All this in a break between building circuit boards. Since Brexit the work has been pouring in, usually my customers build in the Spring or Autumn but this year there has been no letup, I have worked two weekends solid in the last month. So far we have built three times the number of units that we expect to build in a year and the orders are still coming in. The circuits are for onion toppers, parsnip toppers, red beet toppers and potato planters. For those of you in the Eastern Region one of our customers's machines with our circuits was shown on Look East digging onions. Big green machine lifting three beds of onions at a time, built by Jones Engineering.

[RH]

Very nice thread, Very interesting thread!

Meanwhile here in the colony of western Alberta, weather is still wet! Wet since first week of June. Hay still to be made. Barley dead ripe and breaking down but can't combine till it dries up. Oats flat on some of the land, and undersow growing through.
My Red Fife wheat looks decent still, but wheat don't like over much wet when getting ripe.
There. Done moaning! Fordsons harnessed to hayrakes in the event we get some dry weather.

Thanks for the nice sunny thread!
Richard.

[AdrianNPMajor]

Hello Brian
Lovely description of the undergrowth cutter. Must say I haven't heard of a Vivien Lloyd sickle. Just Googled it. It does look slightly Heath Robinson!
You've been busy with your tractors. Any chance of photos?
The circuit board manufacture sounds a very intricate business.
Best, Adrian.

[blackbob]

Interesting...

I spent a lot of my youth cutting the sides of our road with a Wolseley Merry Tiller and its very similar mower attachment, it also had a robust disc with 3 or 4 mower sections - although the whole lot was covered up...

This isn't ours but exactly like it, courtesy of Google:

[oehrick]

Busy on all fronts it seems, Glad brexit has done you some good Brian, buying in before Stirling vanishes in a puff of smoke or before the EU start the Chinese building up trade barriers for them against us Given your indoor job I'm surprised you are still mucking about with bulbs, they tell me over in Spalding all the smart money is being invested in planting tulip LED's.

I've not used one of those Lloyd Sickles but have seen them, at one point I almost bought the American version with strimmer type blade to import as ballast in our diplomatic bag (we shuttled a container between here and our plant in Chicago which was very handy) but then the Allen arrived.

Not seen the Merry Tiller version before Bob, some of the add-ons for rotovators are interesting, not least in how the makers expected the operators to work them, talk about value adding a core product - Merry Tiller and Howard (although I always reckoned MT and the other front rotor mounteds were poor rotovators!) were not too bad for attachments but some of the others were dreadfull, not least Allen, the pump was absolutely brilliant but fell over at the first hurdle with the trailer and water tank, goodness only knows how anyone managed to plough with them and I cringe whenever I see the sawbench attachment

You sound as if you are not too far behind Pavel in the wetness stakes Richard

I'll have a look at your video when I've finished waffling Adrian

BTW does anyone know if Dandy Dave is OK ? don't seem to have heard from him in ages.

Rick, last of the long grass now cut and had an afternoon at the steam up over at Forncett http://www.forncettsteammuseum.co.uk/ where I play with heavy metal - last chance to see in steam this year 1st Sunday in October - Model Engineers day where all sorts of interesting stuff is on display indoors and out.

(where's the shameless plug emoticon when you need it)

[Brian]

Couple of pictures I pulled off the web. Not sure whether this was the same company that made the Lloyd Dragon crawler but it is possible as Vivien Lloyd was ex Vickers - Armstrong.

[oehrick]

They look nearly as manoeuvrable as a brush cutter Brian (well on the flat), though the guarding may not quite be CE compliant The tendency for any rotary mower to sling lumps hasn't had them banned yet though

I have thought about making a nylon line version for in among the graveyard headstones but more pressing things keep taking priority.

[AdrianNPMajor]

Just finishing up.
A couple of images.
Best, Adrian.

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[oehrick]

Keep that up year after year Adrian and you'll wear it away and have to buy something else for the FSM to play with - and too many photos have the same effect if you use a digital camera, the Phototons (which film reflects back into the object being snapped) are absorbed by the sensors - it is predicted that by 2020 as much as 7% of central London landmarks may be eroded away by visitors cameras - I'll tell you more about it come April

[RH]

Adrian,
Grand photos and very good ploughing!

Thanks for posting.

Rick,
It's some comfort to know that we aren't the only ones with wet weather...