nigel

Well after 15 years my lease was up on my workshop and the powers that be won’t extend it, so what do I do? 2 choices realy, first one is retire and sit in my rocking chair pissing me knickers and dribbling until I snuff it , or start again,  we’ll it wasn’t rocket science and the decision was made. 😂



And 2.5 weeks later

Well after 15 years my lease was up on my workshop and the powers that be won’t extend it, so what do I do? 2 choices realy, first one is retire and sit in my rocking chair pissing me knickers and dribbling until I snuff it , or start again,  we’ll it wasn’t rocket science and the decision was made. 😂



And 2.5 weeks later

Went to see a friend. While there I took a few photo's of his 1954 Eitcher. Starts and is road legal. Runs beautifully and sweet.
 




 
 Nice long stroke air cooled diesel. Fan behind the air filter, driven off the centre pulley in front.


 
 While there, Dunc bought this very good condition trailer.


 
 

Happy birthday Norm

We finally managed to arrange a ploughing match for last Sunday. We had a good turn out of 34 tractors. A bit down on the usual entry list of around the 50 mark. But a good day was had by all.
  I didn't take the Black Horse, as the Brinly plough would have barely scratched the surface of the hard ground.
 

 

 

 

 

 
  Watching the drag ploughs was quite interesting. The setting up of them was educational. A real art form.

 

 

 

 
  Smokey little Fergie, but could do the business.

 
 
 

 

 

 

 
  Neat homemade cab.

 

 
  Tidy Wheel Horse on show.

 

Dealt with Meetens since the late seventies when they were in Coombe Lane , Wimbledon; for parts and re-bores etc. Always good service and advice. In those days the phone was often answered by the redoubtable Miss Childs who was the proverbial encyclopaedia of all things Villiers . Let on that you thought that you should be talking to a chap and your card was very politely marked.
A sad sign of the passing years. Best wishes to Paul.
 
PS. Should add that I’ve heard  that L&S Engineers are taking over Meeten’s stock.

I spoke to John Cruse recently and he seemed ok, I know he is scaling down the repair side of the business and concentrating on parts sales through ebay...
 
 

My mate Dunc had an old buck rake of unknown origin lying about. For fitting on the rear of a tractor. We'd got it into the workshop last week to see what we could do with it. First thing was a new hydraulic hose which Dunc had got made earlier this week.
 With that fitted we set too to make it into a forklift, for mainly moving crates of firewood. First we cut off the two outside prongs and the centre one. Then some scrap angle iron was welded to the now outside prongs.  This was to extend them to reach fully under a pallet.
 

 

 

 
   Pleased to say things worked well. And cheap as well.
 

 

 
 

At a bit of a loss what to do yesterday. Then I had a thought. I'll cut back the first half of the bridleway. It had got somewhat overgrown. So out with the C-81 and finger bar. Nice steady pass down. Low 1st.
 

 

 
Then back up.
 

 
  Tackled the remaining section of the bridleway this afternoon.
 
 The start.

 
The far end.

 
Ready to start back from the far end.

 
After the return.

 
After two passes with the C-125 and mowing deck. The deck was set a little high as the track is pretty rough at the far end.

 

 
  Not bad for two hours work. Now when we get the new pup, we can walk her down without tripping over briars and brambles, or getting stung by nettles.
  If I mow every fortnight it should stay clear. There's some big ruts at the far end and they'll get filled in over time.
  There was just one down side. Got a thorn in the LH front tyre on the C-125.
 

Happy Birthday Nigel,   🎂🍺🥃🥃🍾 Many Happy Returns. Sorry it’s a bit late. Hope you had a good one! 👍
 
Doug.

This arrived during the week via the bay of e
 
Does anyone have any information about it please (other than what David has sent me, many thanks) ?
 
 

Called in to see a friend of mine who's into vintage cars on Friday. As usual, after not seeing him for a while, another vehicle had been acquired. 1925 Renault pickup. He took me out for a little ride. LH drive and iffy brakes made traveling the lanes quite interesting.  
 
  This is not my photo but it is the same vehicle.
 

 

Hello all 
Some of you will  remember my Huttenwerk Tractor which i had on here,  well I have been busy overhauling the Tracks starting with the track plates then new rubbers and bolts , And today the track cover plates were fitted 50 off factory made from 1.6 mm mild steel  then drilled and painted  Matt black .
and to finish 200 coach bolts washers and m8 nuts all to be tightened up.  Then over to the wash and clean corner this now runs so well now i can hardly believe it hope you like i think it great 

.........If anything.........That was the issue I was asked to sort out recently. A heavy bronze carb fitted to a small water cooled 1/2hp engine from 1923 and had been adapted to fit onto an early 1930s Lawnmower!!.-
 

 
I actually found a Manual and parts list for the engine, but of course not one single available spare part. Failed to find anyone else online familiar with, or who had a similar ''N' type engine made by Stuart Turner.
Several bits missing according to the parts list diagram and one item had fortunately been acquired from ebay...the all important Float Bowl (screw on) Lid.
So I had to make and find the bits etc, so as it had not run for god knows how long, it was dismantled-
 
 
 
Certainly overdue for a clean and repair. The small clip under the spring (bottom middle of above pic) should be fixed by solder to the float. It holds the needle at correct height.........duly fixed.
Established that the large hollow brass nut (top left above) which acts as a sediment bowl should have a screened filter and a spring within. items (on left of next image) 4044/4045-
 

 
The bits had to fit within these parts-
 

 
So after a search for materials, a bit of lathe time and some soldering, I had the 'makins' of the necessaries-
 
 
 
The 'Stove Pipe' top hat filter body was silver soldered together, so that I could soft solder the mesh to the bottom and sides. But not before it was subjected to some careful milling to put some 1/4"wide slots into the side wall.
Appears to be some distortion in the image below which makes the filter body look crooked, but assure it is not.
 -

 
I was lucky to find in my stock, a suitable spring to apply pressure to the filter and keep it all in contact with it's seat. That filter/sediment body nut is 1 inch A/F.
So all done and ready to bolt on. Now super clean inside and favoured the patina to polish on a motor of this age-
 

 
Oh and yes, I have the task of getting this thing running/working, along with another pile of broken rusty bits......I may be some time!.
Regards 
 
 

Now for a errr... Interesting challenge..  How to cut a smallish square from that big slab!
 
The best and quietest way I could think of was a bit "iffy", but it worked..
 

 

 
 
That looks very close!!
 

 
 
But it clears, just..
 

 
 
Lot's of cutting and turning later, all three parts are the right size.
 

 
 
A quick look at my plans... Or should that be rough scribble?
 

 
 
And it was time to fix all three parts together... A single bolt kept it all in check..
 

 
 
So I could mark out and start drilling holes to put some bolts through. Here's the top drilled out..
 

 
 
And the base...
 

 
 
A bit of countersinking was needed..
 

 
 
So the bolt heads would sit flush.
 

 
 
More to follow later including a rather well edited if rather long video... Tune back for more later..

Hello Gents,
                      Thanks for viewing and your comments. A little more progress to date. The front end is more or less sorted ready for the chimney to go on and is now sitting on it's front wheels.
The cylinder in the original model design had a bland side face just shaped and usually painted black. I, as may be seen in a previous post,  just had to make things more difficult for the sake of detail.
I made up a cover plate and secured it with screws as per the full size engines. This has been painted the same dark blue as other parts and (I think) helps to finish the area off. 
I have just replaced the last temporary screw on the cylinder part for a stud/nut, but you will see a countersunk screw in the top Guide Bar in this pic which I had taken earlier.
The tiny (7mm dia) steel handwheel on the Blower Valve was drilled and finish filed by hand/eye, but looks ok I think.-
 

 
The steering chain drum finshed and now fitted is also modified from the model design to reflect full size layout. The chain (brass) is what used to be supplied to clockmakers for the winding system on long cases.
I plan too make my own at a later stage in steel with brazed links-
 

 
Lastly for now, I finished making the square headed blanking plugs and stop pins in bronze for the water pump and now fitted in it's partially hidden place down behind the rear wheel.
Original model design was for it to fit on the side of the boiler, which looks way out of scale, and over the years, other modellers have experienced priming issues when in steam with boiler mounted pumps.
I think it is because of the heat, but I fortunately redesigned this back in 1987 to locate in a cool area similar to full size layout-
 
 
 
Sorry about the last image quality, I deleted the wrong one . You may notice a red dot adjacent to gear tooth on both the 2nd and 3rd motion shaft gear wheels.
I have a slight resistance in rotation where these two coincide, so i think i must have a tiny burr on them, so i will pull these off and run them with some p600/oil & 'T' cut grinding paste to bed them in.
The running clearances were set using cigarette papers (about 0.0015"), so it doesn't take much to obstruct free movement. Hopefully more soon.
Regards.
 
 

After 2 months of poor weather conditions, I have managed to continue with painting and some assembly. I finally fitted the last of the valve covers on the cylinder block after setting all the valve event adjustments and finishing the motion work off to a standard of sewing machine smoothness. This allowed me to apply a penultimate semi matt black coat over all the joints, stud heads and nuts to consolidate the whole finish. The Chimney saddle and the exhaust pipe were painted separately, as the saddle is bolted, instead of the original model design of riveting. It is easier this way, as I can reach into awkward corners and touch in the bolt heads with the Airbrush on a fine setting.
Just need a little more care this way of fitting without paint damage. I detailed the exhaust a bit more with fitting a bolted flange at the cylinder end. The exhaust is 1/4" diameter pipe for clarity-
 

 
The Regulator Rod just under the safety valves in the next pic has a dummy tail rod and gland. I have to make the 2 x 14ba studs and nuts for it yet.
I decided to machine and file it from the excess metal on the casting to give it some detail, as the original model design just showed a lump of round metal there.  
A bit of cleaning up of the overspray on the raised brass lettering to do, but otherwise a major step forward on the assembly front-
 

 
I did manage to get the top coat on the flywheel last month and very pleased with the finish. Only temporarily fitted, so the gib key pulls out easily-
 

 
Hopefully progress and updates will continue to speed up now, as the jobs on other projects are building up as well as work down at the museum.
I have managed to get some lathe time in though, helping out with making unobtainable parts for old mowers for a guy on the Old Lawnmower Club forum, so I have been busy really.
Regards.

Message Paul mackellow he collects them

I've been making a couple of attachments for the Sears/Roper recently.
 
First was a front tow hitch out of some scrap lying around. May not look pretty, but functual and cheap.
 

 
  Secondly a rack for the rear of it. I did make a tote box for the front to carry my chainsaw etc, but on really rough ground it would hit large bumps or ground out on deep holes. So I decided to make a rack to carry it behind the seat.
  Again made from scrap and an old scrap gate.
 

 
Box trial fitted.

 
 Finally some paint thrown on with a brush.

 
 Later I had an idea. I was bored BTW. A seat was lying on the shelf, so let's fit it to the rack.

 
Not ideal but good for a laugh.

 
Certainly strong but best not pull any wheelies.  
  

Just after Christmas the log store was getting a bit depleted. So I reluctantly order a load of logs that where duly delivered. A week later, talking to a farmer neighbour I mentioned this. "You needn't have ordered any", he said. "There's a tree I want down and you can have it". Typical!
   This was a fair sized sycamour. Maybe 2-3 ton. What surprised me when I started to cut into it, the amount of water that came out of it. Anyway a few hours work and a few trips with the Sears/Roper and Saxon trailer and log splitter at home, the 2' x 4' x 8' wood cage is nicely full. Due to it being so green, it's being left to dry out for next winter.
 
 
 

 

 

  I've had a bit of a trim since that photo was taken. And Carol is just posing.
 

 

 

 
   Not long after that, my mate Dunc landed down from over the border in Scotland. 10' x 5' trailer in tow. Full of seasoned timber. And all for me. Some of that is now cut and logged and stored ready to use.
  About three weeks ago, the same farmer's son was felling dykes/hedges down the side of a field. I could go and get as much wood that I liked. Oh! I liked alright. I can't remember just how many loads I brought home. Maybe 8-9. Decent sized stuff as well.
 
   Problem now is, my little wood yard is full and nowhere else to store more.

 
And there's another stack for me waiting over the border.
 

Socially distanced collective sale at Ardingly this morning
 
One or two interesting items...
 
 



















 
 

Good evening all here is some pictures of a machine  I  owned and sold some time ago and as I get older I am getting more sentimental I decided I wanted it back so here it is at home 

Here are a few photos of the 3point “Kit of parts” removed from the tractor. Winch now has a synthetic cable fitted, due to breaking the original, (my fault entirely, a design feature omission! ). A couple of pic’s show where the hydraulic oil tank, (original idea), would have been fitted.
 
 

Hi Norm,
good to hear from you, I've not been able to do much over the last couple of years. The medication I was given for my bulged disc problem triggered ulcerative colitis, which really affected my life style. Eventually I was prescribed a course of steroids which so far appears to have worked. The problem is, steroids suppress the immune system which is not good considering the present crisis. I should now however have been off them for long enough for the adverse effects to have diminished. I seem to have done more during ' lockdown ' than I have over the last couple of years since I retired.
Having a couple of acres of horse pastures to play in has certainly helped. 
The winch is one of the " cheepo " ones, around £40.00p. The cable tied on control handset is just temporary, if everything works out I will make a more suitable remote unit with solenoids etc. 
I need to carry out a small mod to the lower mounting channel to allow the winch cable to be run underneath if needed to winch the tractor forward.

And you have still got your checked shirt 😂