Budding's Patent Mower - Iron Castings

Budding's Patent Lawnmower was predominantly cast iron in its construction. The word "iron" being generic in material description as like all metals, castings included, the carbon content would dictate the strengths and properties of the material.

Skilled carpenters known as pattern makers at the foundry would make "templates" - master copies of individual components - out of wood. These were beautifully shaped and smoothly finished by the pattern maker to include strengthening ribs, lettering, fixing brackets, and other features integral to the finished item.

The patterns are used to make a mould for the cast iron. In the most simple castings the pattern is pressed into a bed of sand and removed to create the mould. The molten iron is then poured in and allowed to cool and solidify. This technique leaves the open face exposed to the air and results in a rough finish to exposed face of the final casting. 

For more complex designs the mould is made using sand supported in two separate iron frames, an upper half known as the cope and a lower half known as the drag (the technique therefore known as "cope and drag" casting). A pattern is used to make a mould in each frame and the flat faces of the two sides are then brought together to create a cavity for the molten iron. Patterns typically include sections which create small channels in the sand/mould, known as risers and sinkers, so that the molten iron can be poured in and air to escape thereby allowing the mould to fill uniformly and completely. 

After the molten metal has solidified, the cope and drag are split, the sand is knocked out and the cast iron component is brushed off and "fettled" to remove the unwanted metal and rough edges. If required the casting is then "machined" to fit with its attached components.

One of the many advantages of casting iron in this way was that a single pattern could be used to produce multiple copies which were in essence identical, quickly and relatively cheaply. Combining these castings allowed manufactures to produce machines with increasing complexity and sophistication. Part of the skill of the engineers and pattern makers of the day was working working out the design of each component and how they would be combined in the final product. 

John Ferrabee's Phoenix Ironworks at Thrupp was highly skilled in making precision castings, and being millwrights, also understood and had the ability to cast the gears that were vital for producing Budding's Patent Lawnmower.   

For example, on the Budding Patent Lawnmower machine numbers 1623 and 3157 the side frames, rear roller, gearing, and cutting blade trunnions are all manufactured using the traditional foundry casting process. The rear roller is cast in one piece and on the two surviving Budding's Patent machines there is a distinct casting line inside the drum around the circumference where the afore mentioned "cope and drag" met when the part was being cast.  

Each Budding Patent Lawnmower had its own unique serial number - the oldest currently known example is Budding's Patent Serial No. 1623 - cast into the side frames. This number could be changed quickly and easily when a new mould was being made by using different wooden patterns for the number. 

A few years later Thomas Green adopted the same practice to number his machines such as the Silens Messor and Multum in Parvo in the same way. This incidentally helps collectors and researches to put any given machine with a number into sequence against others of the same model and often allows at least an approximate estimation of its date.

Some of the components in these first Budding Patent Lawnmowers used a combination of iron materials. The cutting cylinders, apart from the spur gearing, are the most precise components on the mower, with the spiral blades forged or rolled to profile then secured into the cast trunnion discs by soldering (this was prior to electric welding). The complete assembly would then presumably have been sharpened on a lathe with a moving grindstone - James Ferrabee advertised a sharpening apparatus in the 1850s.

The front pull handle "wish-bone" on the Budding's Patent was never cast as would be heavy and awkward in use and was always manufactured from forged iron by skilled blacksmiths. In the 1850s, the "Budding Improved" or more correctly "Ferrabee's Improved" used handles that were forged rather than cast. These can be seen on James Ferrabee & Co.'s Improved mowers No. 7508 & No. 7638 of c1858. It is likely that forged (or wrought) iron was used for these components because cast iron in tension can be brittle and tends to fracture.

It was not until the late 19th century that electric arc or gas braising welding became available and even then this new technology was in its infancy with lawnmower manufacturers not adopting this technology for almost 100 years. In reality, lawnmowers were still routinely made of cast iron well into the second quarter of the 20th century - there are many examples of hand mowers in particular made from castings. It was almost 100 years after Budding's Patent, that steel or iron plate construction became more widely employed, for example by companies such as Dennis Brothers and Keynsham. The first Atco motor mowers from the early 1920s had frames made from ordinary cast iron but these were soon replaced by more durable "malleable" castings. It was only in the 1930s that the company adopted steel plates. Most manufacturers used bolts and rivets to fixing components together, rather than with welding which became more common only after the Second World War.

The image shows a typical 19th century iron foundry smelters that is similar to those at John Ferrabee's Phoenix Ironworks.