Rural Heritage June/July 2025

The old ledger plate is removed using a chisel on the bottom of the plate to drive the rivets up and out. These new parts are ready to be installed. Maggie Smith Photo

It is particularly important the outer shoe ledger plates are new, tight, and at the correct height. Maggie Smith Photo

Working together as a large group, we placed the newly refurbished cutter bar in each mower and worked to establish the proper mower timing.Timing is when the knife sections line up directly above the center of each guard at the beginning and end of each stroke. We used a carpenter’s framing square against the pitman stick and flywheel to place the cutter bar in the same place each time we adjusted it and slowly worked the threaded end of the coupling bar in and out until the timing was perfect. Then we added the timing bar (the adjustable bar in front of the pitman stick) to seal the deal. And then we checked everything several more times! While all this was going, on Carpenter horse farmer Maggie Smith was fashioning a new short tongue to replace a rotted one that would run from the mower to a dolly wheel. The draft rod is an important part of New parts installed, small allen keys allow the bolts to replace these challenging rivets. Maggie Smith Photo

Again, with an allen key and a locknut, these outer shoe ledger parts are easy to install. Maggie Smith Photo

Rural Heritage

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