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Tractors (London) Ltd. also made a Trusty that they claimed was steered by radar back in the forties/fifties. I will try to find out some more, but don’t confuse it with the remote-controlled Trusty that used ex-RAF controls and servo motors from the Queen Bee target drone. That machine required human input from a remote device.

Driverless tractors? Obviously many manufacturers have been working on it for longer than you may think.

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With so many sprays being outlawed for commercial use you may see it come back!

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That’s quite true, Charlie. After all, we don’t collect these machines because they are worth vast sums of money (most of them aren’t) but because we enjoy using them, exhibiting and talking about them.

The only thing that drives prices upwards is demand. If there is no demand then the item is not worth that much, irrespective of how old it is.

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It looks quite a modern machine. What year was it made?

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Thanks for your kind comments, Alan and Chris.

Phil- PM sent.

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A big thank you to all who attended over the weekend, and especially all those club members who took the time to have a chat on the club stand. The pork pie just about lasted through to Sunday afternoon (I didn’t tell Steve that it was there until Sunday morning!) and the club shop did a fair amount of business as well.

Next stop club AGM at Gaydon- see you all there!

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I hope that you’ll all have your teeth in this weekend because I’ll be bringing the pork pie again. First come, first served, so if you miss out it’s because you’re too late!

I will have plenty of copies of the book with me and I’ll also bring some sheets of transfers just in case.

We hope to see you there over the weekend, so come and introduce yourself if you are at the show.

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Let me know when you want it, Chris. Absolutely no problem to post you a book and I hope your injury recovers speedily.

I hope it wasn’t Trusty related???

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What more can I say? If I ever wanted to step down all I need to do is to stop buying breakfasts for people. Hmmm… I might save myself some money as well.

Great idea, Baldrick.

Vote Woollas for Chair

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I will take plenty to Malvern with me and hope there will be enough left to take to the AGM on the 11th March. Price is £15 unless you want an unsigned one, in which case it’s £16!! (Only joking!)

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You’ll have to bring some dosh with you because I’m going to Lavenham tomorrow to pick up a boxful of the new book, “Trusty, the All British Tractor”. So you won’t have to reconcile yourself to photographing the pages, Steve, you can take your own copy home with you. You will have to cross my palm with silver, though, but you can rest assured that I will tell Mrs. Steve that you’ve had it for some time!

First read? That went to Johnny Polish. He wanted me to autograph it but I spotted his cunning plan- “How much???? But somebody’s scribbled in it, I’m not paying full price!!!”

Luckily I’m wise to his tricks, so if I do sign the book it will be in pencil!

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Available through the club shop, details at top of page.

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An excellent idea, Pike. I wondered who was going to be the first to suggest that!

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It’s been a little chilly in the workshop of late so I didn’t relish doing anything on the plough until it warmed up a little. Enthusiasm got the better of me though, so I carried on with the furrow width lever and crescent, replacing the spacers with new ones that I turned up.

On the other side of the beam there is (or rather, should be) a longer lever that serves as a quick adjustment to the plough depth. It’s basically the same as the furrow width lever but longer, and the crescent that it works on only has one notch instead of the dozen or so that the other has. It’s sole purpose is to help lift the plough out of the ground at the end of the furrow so that the driver is not having to lift the weight of soil on the mouldboard as well as the plough. Approximately two feet from the end of the furrow the driver would pull the lever towards him so that it latches in the forward position; this gives the plough a nose up attitude so that if it is pulled forwards it will break surface. The driver then lifts the plough off the ground, turns the tractor to line up with the next furrow, unlatches the lever to return the plough to it’s normal attitude and then drops the plough on the ground to begin the next furrow. Simple, only somebody had broken the lever off and the whole top half was missing.

Off to Metal Supermarket with my shopping list, then weld up the new bar to form the top section. It only took a few moments with the oxy-acetelene to put two bends into it, drill a hole and make a lever to work the latch. That’s the beauty of a lot of “our” machinery- when you look at it you can generally tell how it’s made and you can reproduce it using a few tools that you can find in the garage.

The actuating bar was attached at the bottom of the new lever and adjusted for length, the latches adjusted on the levers and a well-earned bottle of beer to celebrate.

I had a spare mouldboard in the workshop so I put this on as well. This is where I started to struggle, because the bolts are special. Some have a reverse cone with one key and the others that fit the point and the board have a reverse cone with a square at the base.

I modified some coachbolts to give me a countersunk square head, and found some Kverneland plough bolts for the conical head with one key (they come with two keys, but I filed one off). If anyone knows of a source of these highly specialised bolts I would be grateful to know.

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[trusty220]

This is exactly the kind of paperwork that goes in the skip, so it’s quite a rare thing to see these days. These old letterheadings are a collector’s piece in their own right.

You look a little surprised on the photo, Charlie. Are you worried that someone may put a witty caption to it, or has someone just shouted over that it’s your round at the bar???

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