The Old Lawnmower Club
Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers
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Follows & Bate Speedwell

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Tursdalelad Sun, 14/05/2017

having just acquired a damaged Speedwell as part of a job lot bought on e-Bay, what are my options?repairable? Sell parts to other members? If it is a rare machine I suspect that I will not be able to find the parts I need to restore my machine.  My parts may however help another member to restore their machine.  Any advice? My machine is fairly badly damaged.

Paul

 

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hillsider Sun, 14/05/2017

Whatever the damage is to the Speedwell mower it would help us to form an opinion on which direction to take if we could see the extent of the damage, Any chance of a few pictures, if nothing else it would allow other members to see if there are usable spares on the mower that may indeed help them out and solve your problem.  

Seb Sun, 14/05/2017

Hi Paul, well done with your acquisitions

The speedwell is certainly a desirable mower, however yours needs major work, I saw it when on eBay.

If you wish to restore you will need to replace both side frames and the sole plate, which probably means having all three cast new.
not cheap, but it is possible.
If you were able to find the broken off bits you could get them welded back on, a much more feasible job.

Members may indeed want parts, although most of your parts are specific to the 9" cutting width:, e.g. cutting cylinder etc, and while my 7" speedwell has a slightly damaged wheel, I think the wheel diameter is smaller on the 7". Having said this, If someone is restoring an incomplete speedwell, your parts could well be very useful to them.
someone will almost certainly want the name badge as they often went missing.

If it was mine, I would probably just keep it as a display piece and accept that it wasn't functional.

Hope this helps

Seb

Big Mower Man Mon, 26/06/2017

Hi Paul and Seb,

 

Does your Speedwell look like this? I recently bought this Follows & Bate model "S" at an estate sale on Long Island, New York. I can't find any information about this model online, but I have seen a decent about about the Speedwell... I am wondering if they are the same. 

Paul, you say that yours is in bad condition and you're considering selling parts? I am in need of one roller adjuster nut (see pics). Do you have one that looks like this that you are willing to sell?

 

Best regards,
Zach

Follows & Bate model "S"Follows & Bate model "S"