OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Collectors Corner Cylinder QUALCAST MODEL H

Was given this last Friday .
As I was about to put in shed ,I thought why not spend a few hours on it first , looks OK to me , and works !!!!

Oh my Lord.It seems like everything you touch turns to gold.Once again [Censored] find job.I might have to drop a mower off to you and see what it ends up like.Well done again.

Hi Blumbly , Thanks for the comment... Gold !!!! , that was one of the things that led to this resto , I had a bit left over after the previous job , and have had a tin of brushable green half empty waiting to be used , you certainly don't use much when brush painting .

What can I say Al....just brilliant....museum quality restoration...Well done mate!!

Looks good.

Makes me wanna get mine in the shed and give it some love.

Mines not as old at that one i dont think. I love the wooden handle.

I remember those (or actually the Ogden equivalent of them) being extremely common when I was a kid in Perth, so I can say with some conviction yours could be described as over-restored. They looked like blacksmith's tools when they were new, by comparison with what you've achieved with that one. It looks like it's intended for indoor use - keeping the carpet pile even perhaps.

Beautiful work as usual, al. It's always a pleasure to look at your products, even if I don't always understand the motivation for a particular colour scheme.

Hi grumpy, I remember using a Qualcast at Grandma's house when I was a kid...that was in the 50's and it looked in the condition just like it was in Al,s first pic....

I doubt if anyone could remember the original paint scheme and all photos from the period were black and white...though I do know that they were painted...I did see one that had some of the original paint on it at an exhibit at the Henty Field Days some years ago...

Deejay some of the ones I remember were dark green, not hammertone or metallic, and I think some were black. Some of them had the wheels painted with silver-frost. The varnish on the wooden bits didn't last long out in the weather - I only ever saw residual bits of it, and it wasn't as dark as al's varnish. Because there were both Qualcast and Ogden mowers involved, I don't really recall which colours went with which brand. They were regarded as rock-bottom mowing: those with pretensions to grandeur had an ATCO-man come and do the job, or used little electric mowers (English ones with vertical motors: they didn't seem very effective to me). At this late date I don't recall engine-driven mowers being in private hands in those days.

Hi grumpy, I do remember the electric mowers with the vertical motor and were branded "Technico"...I also remember as a kid my Dad discussing with friends the number of people in Brisbane getting electrocuted by
running over the cord....Bloody dangerous...!!
Here's some info...Click HERE

Even though that mower looked in very bad condition it still had paint on it in out of the way places , especially inside the wheels and the rear of the side plates and the ends of the cutting blades ,you can actually see the gold on the side plates in the pic , and I used the same colours .
I did a little research on this and the few I found were painted the same colours as I used .

Update , I just read grumpy's comment on timber colour , sorry but only gave it a light sanding and three coats of Estapol satin , the reason I did not rub it right back is it still has the stencilled Qualcast -- MADE IN AUSTRALIA on the handle and I wanted to save this , hence the weathered colour.

My green is not hammertone , that look is from the very badly rusted , pitted steel .

It is a credit to you Al, just brilliant....
Now....I wonder if I could turn one into a coffee table??

Deejay, I believe the vertical motor electrics I was talking about were older than that, about 1950-51, and probably English. I ended up thinking they may have been branded Sunbeam, but I haven't been able to substantiate that.

al, I am happy to retract my comments, I don't recall seeing a gold one, but it was a long time ago. Not rubbing the wood right down makes a lot of sense when there was labelling to be preserved.

Deejay, the coffee table model presents a few challenges. You'd have to preserve the long push-handle, and that means you'd need a towed roller-seat to provide a support in the right place to keep it from overbalancing. For all we know, they may have used towed roller-seats with those mowers in Britain: plenty of servants available to push the master around when he wanted to mow the lawn himself. You might consider also providing a built-in umbrella over the seat.

Yes mate, balance would be a problem...I wonder if the handle was made of steel (painted in a woodgrain finish) actually passing through the glass (supported, of course) in a cantilever design, to assist in balance.
The plot thickens...

Hey ! thats me with my mower !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi,I

forgot about these colourful pics .