[dorigny]

Britains Atco and roller…

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[dorigny]

I may have posted this before.?

Dinky Super Toys “Hand Mower” 🙂

C.

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[dorigny]

The sun has come out and I should be out exercising, doing the front garden…but then my mind wandered back to the mid 1980s and the mowers that Central Spares distributed….went under names such as Apollo, Gemini, and the chunky alloy deck, orange painted, Jupiter, etc,etc… I’m not suggesting here any connection with above ask, just genuinely pondering on what was their source.??

C.

[dorigny]

In July 1986 Garden Machinery Price Guide, Garda is listed with Vic Konash of Fakenham, Norfolk. Included is a G38E, electric rotary and G38/3.5/4 15″ rotary 3.5hp BVS143 4 stroke. There is also a second range with designation begining PA…
Four Ginge handmowers and a couple of Ginge rotaries are listed with same too…

Looking back to 1985, I only have a few rescued guides, the same distributor is listed with a range of machines that take names from local and countrywide big houses…such as the Blickling, Holkham, Sandringham, Beaulieu, Hatfield etc,…I assume badged import.??

Clive.

[dorigny]

Hello,

Seeing the Flymo reminded me, due to the lower handle shape, of a year when USA spec Flymos were sold in UK. Maybe 1981/82.? Not sure now why it was, maybe in a time of the company UK restructuring.?? The ones I recall had a different kind of plastic governor vane and a control knob on top of the cowl/tank.? So were quite different to the side choke/throttle we were used to. Assuming they had true Tecumseh engines, rather than the licence built Italian Aspera/Tecnamotor engines.

C.

[dorigny]

Have a Google for BarOmix power barrow…the photos I found look similar.? less the back skip extension.?

C.

[dorigny]

That’s where our old Honda F400 used to win with its positive gearbox reverse to back out from having worked forward up to a wall of the walled garden.
Reverse half speed makes sense, did MT use this system.? I have seen an old “back out” system of theirs on this chassis type that used a second large drive pulley drilled, bolted and spaced to the standard drive box pulley, taking drive from a fibre/rubber disc mounted on engine crankshaft pulley..but by the time the machine landed in my shed though only the drive disc, second large pulley and lever remained, all the rest had been lost in its previous history 🙁

C.

[dorigny]

I have realised that I should have written, first left click on thumbnail photo to open in forum viewer and then right click and open image in new tab to get enhanced view.

C.

[dorigny]

I have newly discovered that a right click on the photo and then use open link in new tab opens up the image better which can then be enlarged further.

It is largely a Merry Tiller that has had a green repaint and lost its belt cover, drive box input pulley, engine pulley and the vital belt guide. It has an improvised transport wheel set from a n other tiller or home-bru.?

The engine pulley fitted looks to be camshaft drive so won’t be any use for this application.!!
I wonder if the engine is ex a cement mixer ? as I think some used a cam shaft drive and the long exhaust may also match a former boxed in application.?

C.

[dorigny]

Yes, I would always associate the name with Wimborne..
In the old price guides by 1988 JT Lowe, Wimborne, had one Norlett cultivator in their entry. Previous year a listing was for 2 cultivators, 2 “handmowers” and a cement mixer and the (division of Flymo sales ltd) was no longer part of their title.
During 1986 though it shows a full list of Partner, Norlett, Kawasaki engines.
Partner was in 1987 listed under Partner UK, (a division of Hyett Adams).
I always found it interesting piecing together the curious world of who owns who.

C.

[dorigny]

Amazing what you end up finding on a wild windy day with time to sit at the keyboard..
http://liberallawnmowers.com.pk/products/lawn-mowers/manual-lawn-mowers/ I’m off at a bit of a tangent here but there is a Ginge link to one of the side wheel push types.

C.

[dorigny]

As it’s very much not a day for digging the garden, as I was doing yesterday, I’ve had a rummage and found some of the machinery directories from a former career..

Entry update 4/86 shows Ginge with Gardenflex Ltd at a Milton Keynes address, listing 2 handmowers, 2 rotary mowers and a petrol cylinder mower but no riders.

Update of 2/87 shows Gardenflex Ltd at a Newport Pagnall address with a longer list of machines including 4 ride-ons under the names Rider 5, Rider 6 and Rider 8. There’s a Rider 6 listed as a 26″ with 6hp Tecumseh recoil start.

Update 10/88, a much bigger range of machinery but only 3 ride-ons listed by model numbers 421/203292 and 422/203392.

By the last of my stock of old books, July 1989, with an update of 4/89 it shows Ginge listed under JT Lowe Ltd at the same Newport Pagnall address of earlier Gardenflex entries, with quite a range of machines but now only 2 ride-ons a 6hp and a 8hp both listed as elec start but no size info.

C.

[dorigny]

Resting in the shed I have a Ginge 4 wheel steel deck push rotary which looks early/mid 70s. The steel deck is tired but the Tecumseh derived engine was a very long lived runner, gifted to me by a neighbour when he upgraded to a Honda HR17 a few years ago. It was in turn a replacement for his pre recoil starter Suffolk Colt which also lurks in the shed, along with its friends….

Clive.

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[dorigny]

Have at look on this link; https://www.jacobsen.com/europe-manuals/ and go to the models out of production box to see if you can track it down.
I’m thinking it’s Multimower 76 ? rather than Vergecutter 76 that you will need to peruse.

For a few months, one summer 1983?, I walked behind a brand new, it was a Y reg, Vergecutter 76 but then moved location for a while to the seaside and an older Multimower, you needed the second speed on the gearbox knob to get across the road quick and dodge the holiday traffic…what you needed was a taxi coming from each way and their drivers would recognise I was in need of crossing to work back the opposite verges into town and would halt the traffic flow…thank you taxis.. 🙂
No handbrake back then, and fitted with hefty Mag engines 🙂

Clive.

[dorigny]

It’s set me thinking. I wonder if this Valor mower design was a UK one or if it was sourced in.?

I am always fascinated to learn the stories behind these sometimes short production runs of machines

No links to this mower type but I remember going to GLEE exhibition in maybe the late 1980s and there was a range of cast alloy sided cylinder mowers on the Wolf Garten display that were more or less a copy of the Super Colt and Super Punch design, possibly South African.? ( not the pressed steel type sold by many including a time badged Wolf) I don’t think the cast alloy Wolf I saw then ever made it into the catalogue in UK. ? Sorry for the aside, but just me having one of my oft mower ponders.

Clive.

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