[alan]

It’s an unusual machine but the mower being driven is actually a Bolens Suburban 26.

It’s in the correct white and red colours with proper red seat too! That is a pretty early and rare machine especially for the UK.

In the background of the video there is also a Bolens Lawn keeper.

Imagine going down to the mower dealership asking for the loan of a couple of Bolens machines for an episode of The Prisoner!

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[alan]

Hello, Tom

On Westwood Gazelles the chassis were either black or orange. The Laser model was grey but also had grey bodywork. I may, however, be wrong!

Unsure of what the orange/red colour was and no mention of it in my brochures.

[alan]

Here’s a link to info regarding uploading images to the forum:

Photos

[alan]

There are some Hayter colours available online, but completely unaware of any paint codes. It’s usually listed as ‘Hayter Green’ although there is a ‘new’ version of the colour to confuse matters.

I don’t know the colour for the Murray mower but there is a link between Murray and Mountfield mowers through manufacture, so on some older machines they have the same colour – may be worth investigating although there is more than one shade of Mountfield red!

[alan]

I’ve had a look at my Allen scythe and there’s a large washer-like spacer on each axle. Even so the right wheel (from the operators position) is still really close to the handles. Photo attached.

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[alan]

Looking through the archives it might be the remains of a Stothert & Pitt powered barrow. The one in the image has a Robin engine although S&P used Villiers MK12 and MK15 engines on many machines.

https://vhgmc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Stothert-Pitt-Powered-Barrow-1.jpg

[alan]

Looks interesting! To potentially narrow it down a bit, do you have any idea of the original colour or any id on the equipment?

[alan]

Log into your account, then click your name at the top right corner of the screen next to your picture, this will open your account. Next, click ‘settings’ where you can change your email address, password etc under the ‘general’ heading.

[alan]

Welcome to the club. Hope to see some of your projects.

[alan]

Thanks. It’ll be good to have a little more info to fill gaps, when PM is soon sorted I’ll be in touch.

[alan]

I did find that information about Ariens just seemed not to appear after about 1990, thanks for confirming that sales did drop in the late 1980’s which would explain why I couldn’t find anything!

Interesting that you sold the tillers with snowblower attachment, first hand knowledge is always good. Thank you.

For research it’s always difficult to find enough information about any machine or manufacturer so it’s nice to fill in gaps from info from people who actually dealt with the machines in question. Reports and editorial from the time in newspapers, magazines and also brochures cannot always be relied upon, sometimes I leave out information on my articles quite often simply because there’s some doubt about whether the supplied newspaper/magazine information is actually correct – especially when there’s contradictory data and reports!

[alan]

Unfortunately the forum suffered spam emails being sent to users about two weeks ago, this meant that to stop spam messages being sent we had to suspend the service whilst we consider how to implement the solution. We have the solution it’s just inserting it without bolloxing up the forum.

If you need to spur a member into action then you can always using the @ symbol followed by a username in a post or update as this’ll send that user an email that they’ve been mentioned on the website. i.e. @alan

You can search for a members username using the search box at the top right of the screen.

[alan]

Sorted!

[alan]

Of course, glad to help.

The forum displays images as thumbnail attachments to a post. When the thumbnails are clicked by a user browsing that post then the image displays at it’s full size in the centre of the screen and then all images for that post can be scrolled through.

1: Write your post text but don’t click ‘Submit’ yet

2: Click on ‘Choose File’ on the left side just below the text you have composed

3: A window will open asking you to select an image from your computer

4: Navigate to your image on your computer, click on the image and then click ‘Open’ or whatever option is shown on your computer/phone/tablet

5: The filename of that image will now appear on the page to the right of the ‘Choose File’ button

5: If you want to add a second image then click ‘Add another file’ shown below that ‘Choose File Button’

6: Continue until images are added

7: Now click ‘Submit’ to send your text and photos to the forum.

Image Sizes: They are limited to 3072kb so using software such as shrinkpic to scale an image as it’s uploaded or the Windows snipping tool to save a smaller version of your photo beforehand is advisable. Image sizes are limited because otherwise the database would be overwhelmed by large data-heavy images that cameras and smartphones can effortlessly take nowadays, this also has the knock-on effect that someone viewing forum images would also have to download those images in order to see them which isn’t ideal on a ‘phone or slow internet connection.

I use Windows snipping tool for lots of things. The snipping tool is on most Windows computers as standard. Open an image on screen, then open the snipping tool, click new, and then with the mouse highlight the area of the image that’s required and click save – end result is an image that is not data hungry.

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[alan]

Written evidence from research done by another VHGMC member suggests that the Dronwal brand existed from about 1944 with sprayers of the type and size you have still being made in 1977 – so quite a large period of time and many produced. Looking at prices, somewhere £20 to £30 seems to be the price online.

[Author]

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