PART THREE - Legacy Technologies

These early power lawnmowers, like their British counterparts, were the leviathans that dominated
the early power mower designs. Why were they so big? That's an interesting question. There is no
single answer, but a seeming combination of engineering legacies and engineers' mindsets.

In this classic photograph - of the Coldwell machine - the most striking feature for me was the
adoption of established stationary engine technology. The Fuller & Johnson engine had its water hopper,
large flywheels, and exposed internals (open crank) that revealed the shortcomings of these designs
for lawnmower applications.

The quaintest features were the wonderful brass lubricators that supply lubrication to the myriad
bearing journals on the engine and chassis. ODK engineers Grumpy and Gadge have told me these are
remnants of a steam-age era that carried over to the early 20th Century.

These large drip-feed oilers and greasers disappear on lawnmowers from the 1920s onwards, because
of improvements in bearing designs, but also to advances in oil sealing, that ended the era of
total-loss lubrication. Small spring-cap oilers and grease/oil nipples would become the norm with the
invention of the pressure grease gun. Later, we would see the almost universal adoption of fully
sealed bearings.

In the photographs below, note the large drip-feed oilers at the front. The unusual twin adjusters
probably lubricated both the reel bearing journals and the rear roller ones as well. The advantage
of these drip-feed oilers is that they could adjust, not just the amount of oil reaching the journals,
but they could be turned off after use - so puddles of oil would not surround the mower when standing
or stored.

[Linked Image]
[Linked Image]
[Linked Image]

The rest is history.
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JACK