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All ready for the Hethersgill Vintage Rally on Sunday. Been helping set up today and more to do tomorrow.

After finishing the last project I thought it was time for a bit of a rest but Joseph had other ideas. The new project is a 1964/5 Bolens 900 which has been in storage since 2004, which was before he was born. As usual my role is one of cameraman. A quick introduction by Joseph aka Garden Tractor Boy

Been a while since I posted a project, this has been in my head for years and I did the axles early last year... Left over axles make good bogies. Been stalled for a few months until a few weeks ago a tracked barrow skip turned up on that site. So so that set the juices flowing Building a frame Sprung drawbar

I have been watching that engine as well Must mean my collection is worth a fortune lol

yes Mattblack it is home made when I do a table display I have a 1/12 scale greenhouse and garden so out of devilment I decided to make a model as I have a few Allen Scythes

Well, those of you who have been watching this have seen glimpses of bits that don't really mean much. So I have decided to let you know what this thing is, despite having a fair way to go before (if) any mechanical life can be breathed into it. It's 90% there, but still have the drive chain hurdle to overcome. So bearing in mind that it's nothing really spectacular, it is uncommon. This is what it is - This ad is from the Tatler Magazine of Aug 1922. I have other images, but are copyrighted and not for public use. Designed to provide assisted (Ride-on) power to existing, manually pushed lawnmowers at the time. So it can be called the first known British Ride-on that was available to the average domestic household. Earlier large private Estate/Municiple ride-ons were available. They were built by Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies for the MP Co. At the start of this Topic, I mentioned the condition and it's neglected existence, albeit virtually complete. This is what it looked like- Not my pics, but shows it was in a bad state. It's debatable whether to replace some damaged/missing parts like the (left) lower end section of the Fan cover- I suppose it is really part of it's existence, hard knocks 'n' all. What I have found strange, is the varying immunity of certain sections to corrosion. Some very thin metal sheet parts are hardly eroded, but heavier, thicker spring steels are heavily pitted?. All exposed to the same levels of weather. Suppose it's lucky to be able to save/use most of it. Today, I've made up the Cables for Carb controls. Tricky job and I decided to set it up in a way that would be easier to manage. Bolted the Carb to my Lathe tail stock barrel and the Levers to a bar in the Chuck- The inner cables were different length from a donor source and I had make them both the same length and produce new outer bowden cables. Lots of careful measuring, as the 1926 Carb manual says never dismantle the Lever and cables !!. I had no choice. So with a lot of cleaning to get the solder to take on the shortened inner cable, all the ends soldered up and the bits fitted correctly- And relieved to say everything operates/adjusts correctly - Most of the control levers were in a bad state as mentioned way back and showed the end result, but here are a few of what they were like- ...... the Counter shaft - So here is what it looked like as assembly progressed- And to date- If I can get it running, it will be one of only a handful of working examples in collector's hands. Hope to have more updates soon

Fitted and ready to trial plough as soon as I get chance.

The answer is 'Balls' Norm! ....................................Yes the item is the original, but I have added the dome to it. Back around Xmas, I observed some Kiddies Ball shaped tins that contained chocolate of some kind. Managed to get hold of a couple and found one without any significant damage. Measured pretty close to the radius, so went for cutting a slice off for a test. First job was to clean off the paint/ink to see what the finish was to the steel (top left). I then had to polish it and measured the amount needed to slice off for a sample and what method to slice it off with ( bottom left)- First go was 3/64"(1.2mm) short, so went for it on the good cleaned off section - Cleaned up and tinned with solder, it was soldered to the original, which was not easy as had to use passive resin flux, but went ok. Had a good coat of fuel proof lacquer and settled for an old small cafetiere s/s gauze filter cut to fit as a dust collector. All done and will go nicely with the now very tidy Carb. Regards

Made a hitch for the Brinly yesterday. First photo is of some bits. The second one is of it trial mounted. This afternoon I've been setting things up and hoping to go up to the farm with it. Give it a try out and see how it performs.