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Arrived Friday afternoon and just managed to set up camp before the rain started. During the night we had heavy rain and strong winds and 2 stalls lost their gazebos, Saturday was fine until lunchtime then it all started again and it really chucked it down most of the night. Sunday morning was bright and sunny but windy, loads of exhibitors turned up and we had a brilliant day, the ground dried up quickly and I managed to get out without a tow. Heres a few photos for your enjoyment.

A piece of plate was found for the engine mount, cut to size and drilled. Two sets of holes, one to bolt the plate to the frame and the other set to mount the engine. With the crankshaft in line with the gearbox shaft the right side engine bolt holes were well clear of the chassis. The left side bolts were directly above the outer edge of the chassis. A lot of head scratching later resulted in the top outer edge being drilled and filed out, just enough to allow the heads of 1/4" UNF bolts to sit in the notches and be held reasonably secure while tightening the nuts. These notches can be seen in the third photo which also shows the seat and fender mounting plate with a rough fender mock up. More of these later. The rear plate mounting bolts passed right through the chassis. Due to the lower face being filed out for extra axle swing the front bolts had to be inserted into the chassis, through the top face and engine plate. A fiddly job but after assembling and taking apart a few times it got a lot easier. There was just enough clearance in front of the axle to pass the bolt, stuck on the end of an extending magnet, up through the chassis and plate. Not much clearance as said, which resulted in the magnet trying to get friendly with the surrounding metal. As there was a lot of jumping around on various parts, due to getting stuck while looking for suitable materials or thinking how to do it, I have lost track of the exact build order but never mind. The next few photo's are of the early steering mechanism, later scrapped for a simpler setup. As seen, bits and pieces were bolted together until I had something which worked reasonably well and also had steering lock. This can be seen in these top views. The idea was to remake with fewer parts, but as said, a better arrangement was thought of. The cranked plate, after lots of adjustments, touched both the chassis sides and spacer, stopping the wheels from turning too far. It would have been better with the stops at the axle ends but couldn't see an easy way to do it. No obvious problems occurred during the later test runs so maybe I could have left it as it was. A temporary tiller steering was fixed up for these test runs which worked well, sort of. The handle end was close to the engine exhaust which resulted in an overheated hand. This was cured by swinging the handle around 180 degrees. These last photo's show the arrangement. Blocks of wood clamped to the chassis with the tiller from a cut down mower gear lever.

Looking good Norm, we'll have to find something else to do while your down.

Finished off the bosses this morning. Skimming the bores. and finished. Next my attention went on the side plates. Using the pipe bender to shape them. Nicely bent. In the jig ready to tack side plates to bosses. After tack welding as seen, the sides were removed and turned over and tacked t'other side, then fully welded up. From this point, taking photo's went out the window. Two more hitches are now tacked up ready to fully weld.

Your friends Rollo is much older as the the first picture shows a mid to late 60's Briggs and the engine on this beast looks to be a late 50's Briggs or Wisconsin.

Continuity of your workmanship and ingenuity continues with consistency !! 'It's gonna be Great' . That was close Norm, you may have nearly missed the Show by a week!....but we wouldn't have let you.

Only two weeks to RPT's Norm. Won't be completely finished but complete enough to show.

I'm really looking to seeing Half a Horse when I'm down. You've three weeks to finish it.

Thank you its been a labour if love if I am honest I will be sorry to see it go I am glad you said it will last .....it runs really well I changes the sump gasket and also the crank seal yesterday along with a full service. It was leaking oil but it's dry as a bone now

I added three more vintage Homelite saws to my collection. A 1979 Homelite Super Mini SL Automatic. Sweet little 40.9 cc saw with vibration dampeners and automatic and manual override oiling with a 16" power tip bar. Also a couple of one yea only saws, a 1965 XL Automatic, like later Super XL Automatics, this has 58.2 cc and is the first model in the lightweight series of Homelite XL saws, it came with a 16" bar and is an automatic oiler and has a port to add a optional manual override oil plunger. Lastly, a 1969 XL-850, also an automatic oiler with option plunger port for manual oiling override and at 82 cc is almost the same size a a Honda 90 trail bike. This saw also came with a 20 inch power tip bar and new chain.

There's a wild beastie on the loose, terrorising the neighbourhood.

There's a lot of foxes round here. A farm nearby used to have free range hens. We called it the foxes local take away. There were bits of hens everywhere.

I Get a regular visit from several Foxes/Vixens. This one was in particular- http://home.bt.com/ It kept turning up and eating the Windfalls, which by April when this was taken, had fermented and contained a fair amount of Alcohol. Got to a point where it could hardly walk- Couldn't establish if it was Drunk or Injured initially, but turned out to be the latter. Got the RSPCA on to it and they came to collect it. Didn't put up much of a fight, as it had an injured right Hind Leg and an infected left front Paw. I paid them for it's collection and treatment. 3 months later I was informed it was released into a field local to me Firing Running on all Four !. Got another really scruffy Mange one now. He even sat down behind me a few feet away when I was washing the Car the other week.. nonchalant as hell!. I'll try a catch a Pic of it next time.

Got a bit more done today. Making enough bits for three more. Top and bottom plates cut and drilled. Arms cut out. End of arms roughed out with slitting disc to fit bosses. Finished off with grinding disc. Bosses ready to cut in half.

My mates got one in kent