Rural Heritage June/July 2025

a one-horse mower that was at the first Mower Rendezvous I ever held about 10 years ago (this might be the fourth). It has mostly sat since then and we hoped it would just need some new wood parts and a little loosening up. And Julia Ramsey and I pushed in a hedge row mower I have had here so long I can’t remember exactly where it came from. At some point years ago, I bought several mowers from Bill West, so maybe this was one of those. We also had an equal number of draft powered farmers without mowers there to help, learn and enjoy the company. Ivy Pagliari came down from the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont to see if we had suggestions for an oxen-drawn mower with some small issues. Of course, our local farmers, Becky Frye and Corey McNaughton, were there. Erik Vandenberg and Natasha Klemek rounded out the cast. After a nice meet up on Friday night, we started early the next morning to get all the mowers (only one of Dave’s!) pushed inside and some rented heaters turned on. Who knew it would be so cold on the first weekend in March? The first order of business was to carefully survey each machine as a group and discuss what could be done for each one. This is an important step and not to be rushed. We picked the best rebuild candidate from Dave's trailer, but it had wheel and pawl issues and on at least one side there was a broken spoke. Thankfully, his gearbox seemed good, but after that he would need timing and lead work and cutter bar parts. (Proper lead has the cutter bar running a little ahead of a straight-line continuation of the pitman stick and is critical to the timing of the machine.) Next up was Maggie's one-horse mower. At the first Mower Rendezvous we had set up a McCormick Deering No. 7 with a dolly wheel and shafts and a 5-foot bar for my friend Liz Brown. Now it would be Maggie's turn to replace the rotted short tongue and pitman stick. Then she could use this with one or two horses in her farm business at Liz’s place. We hoped and suspected this mower would not need much else besides loosening some of the cutting parts, which all appeared to be in good shape. Finally, there was the No. 7 Julia and I had pushed in a few weeks in advance. Years ago, I had a welder here who put new lugs on a bunch of mowers for me. Of course, some of them sat after getting that treatment. A couple years ago I had it in the shop

briefly, and I fixed the pitman bushing and placed an experimental steel tongue in it, but went no further. Its gearbox also seemed good, but we would be rummaging through shelves of old parts to find the rest of it. Julia is hoping to take this mower with her on her move to Vermont later this year. First, I should note the things we would not have to do this weekend. Thankfully, all the gear boxes and axle bearings were good. These are important parts to check and fix before moving on to other easier parts of a mower to rebuild, but they can be difficult and really hold up a weekend build. Pitman shaft bushings are another part that we have spent a lot of time and energy on in earlier Rendezvous, but again this year, we wouldn’t have to. I had put a new bushing in Julia’s mower when it was in the shop at some point, and Maggie’s was done before as well. Then we broke up into teams and went to work. I have a homemade wheel puller just for No. 9s and it worked a charm. Some No. 9 wheels that have been on close to 100 years can be very hard to get off, but Dave and Erik made it look easy (or got lucky) as they took wheels off different mowers to get the best ones swapped around to the best mower. Often the hardest part is driving a pin out before you pull anything. The homemade puller is heavier than an ordinary gear puller and has only two arms (best for fitting a five-spoke wheel). Donn's No. 7 mower sported lugs that were welded in place a few years earlier. Maggie Smith Photo

June/July 2025

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