My new/old single horse mower

[Ed Thayer]

Had a chance to try the new single horse McCormick Deering mower today. I spent several hours cleaning, lubricating and setting the knife section up so it had the proper lead and register. Even removed the knives and gave them a good sharpening.

This mower has a little more vibration than I was expecting, however I was very happy with the results. Lyn Miller described operating a fine tuned mower as almost euphoric, I would have to agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IUS7efFhkM&feature=youtu.be

Ed

[Tim Harrigan]

Nice mower, Ed. I just brought one home today, McCormick Deering New Ideal, G-302 stamped on the gear cover. About the same drive system that you have, 5 ft bar, needs some work before I can use it. Do you just give the gears a few squirts of oil every few rounds? I don’t have any experience with these mowers, guess I will now.

[Ed Thayer]

Tim,

I have not received the manual I ordered for this mower yet. I used 10 weight oil for the oil ports with flip up covers. I put oil in every 30 minutes or so. That may be more than necessary but i want to make sure I get it well oiled. There is a grease cup on the end of the pitman stick on the crank end. I filled this with grease gun grease and screwed the copper cap on. Will have to see how that works.

My mower is in great shape. Been parked in a barn for decades. But completely functional. What a joy to work with today. From what I understand, it might be hard to find guards for these mowers, but time will tell.

Good luck with your mower,

Ed

[mitchmaine]

Hi ed,
nice mower. Looks and sounds great. Tuned , oiled and sharp, they are supposed to run like a sewing machine. Not sure I ever got that close, but this spring I chose to adjust my lead, cause its always been behind. It’s a job, separating the whole cutter bar from the mower so you can screw out on the coupling bar, pushing the cutter bar ahead. After I did that, the knife was out of time or register, so I had to unscrew the lead bar, but the threads were rusted and pitted and no spare so in the end I had to tighten it up, improving the lead but way off register, so then I had to break the law and shorten up the pitman stick, and after that was fixed, it made the tilt adjustment too short, so I have to bend a new rod for that. Whew, didn’t know what I was biting off there. Hope it will be worth the effort.

Tim, my grand dads mower was a deering stamped with the same part number. still have it. It also was stamped giant at the base of the seatpost. I believe it was new around the first world war. May be the same as yours. I think the gears ran in an oil bath, and you oiled the outside gears as liberal as you could, and the axle caps, too. And a shot on the knife under the holddown clips. But that’s taking my memory back along way.

[Ed Thayer]

Mitch,

I hitched the horse again yesterday and clipped a paddock about a 1/4 acre in size. The mower worked great. When I push the foot pedal to lift the bar is it supposed to latch in that half way position? I may need some adjustment there. And when I do get it to latch in the halfway position it sometimes falls to the ground without warning.

Ed

[mitchmaine]

hi ed,
is there a pawl on the lifting arm that holds the cutter bar off the ground? if so, you can rotate it up and out of the way so that your pedal lifts and drops the cutter bar without the pawl catching. and when you want to carry it up, turn the pawl back down and it catches in one of two positions, just off, and higher off the ground. the pawl itself is adjustable, threaded with two nuts on two sides of a clamp. if you lengthen it out it should seat in those slots better and shouldn’t fall on its own. hope that isn’t too confusing. watch out for the lifting arm. if it falls to the ground on its own, it could give you knee a good whack on the way by.

[Famousfury]

hey ed,

I’m getting started in harness driving, I like the mower, Where is a good place to find one or are they hard to find. im hoping to get my equipment by next season and just do some small hay crops for fun. How heavy is that mower i see you have a nice size draft for the work, Im planning on being able to use a my paint cross next year, he just got broke to ride last month and is getting broke to drive this fall and will be three, id like to start him out on something like that. Any advice would be great thanks and hope to hear from ya

Justin
Pekin,Indiana

[Ed Thayer]

Justin,

Finding a one horse mower might take a little time but they are available. Look on your local Craigslist and farm magazines, publications. One will eventually pop up.
This mower is a good pull for a large single draft. It takes some time to get them started and usd to the noise. Search; Single Horse mowers on this forum for some more good information on this.

Good luck,

Ed

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