Originally Posted by Deejay
Hi to all ODK members,
I had a very interesting chat with the proprietor of a Western Australian mower repair shop this morning, and found out some interesting information on the solid deck Series 1 Model 45 Scott Bonnar.

It has been a long held belief here at ODK that the solid deck Scotty's were far superior to the Series 2, twin rail models, due to the cracking problems of the rails adjacent to the engine mounting holes. wink

Well, it turns out that the solid deck was not all it's cracked up to be (no pun intended, grin).

The fact is that this gentleman has had to repair many, many solid decks due to serious cracks adjacent to the mounting holes to right through to the front of the deck.
The cracking problem is just as prevalent in the solid deck as the twin railer. frown
So it appears that engine vibration is the cause and has been inherent in the Scotty design since its inception.
As I've said before, you learn something new in the Scott Bonnar story every day. wink
cheers2

Hi Deejay,

Seems like you had a interesting talk. I agree with you that Engine vibration is the main cause for cracked frames. Does not matter wether you own a solid deck or twin rails frame.

From you talk did you have any numbers on the breakdown on cracked frames repaired; Solid decks vs twin rails?

Also the repairs made to cracked frames are your comparing 20" single deck against 17" twin rails?

When I was looking to purchase my scott bonnars, just about every 17" twin rail had cracks around the bolt holes. So my conception being that both forms of frames do crack, but there is more examples of twin rails than single decks. This may be due to the mass volumes of twin rails produced over the single deck.

p.s Out of interest, what are the thickness of the single deck and the twin rail decks?