OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum OutdoorKing Showcase qualcast model H resto

Hi Guys just a few picks of latest resto rgds Peter

I recall when those things were new, and I never saw one look any where near that good.

Hi Grumpy, what year would you say this model h was first manufactured, also do you know what came first with the h models , i.e. the solid wheel or the spoked model rgds Peter

Hi Peter, when I was a kid at the beginning of the fifties, most of the push mowers were branded Ogden though they looked just like yours. I don't recall mowers branded Qualcast until I moved to Melbourne at the end of the fifties, and they were a much later type with tubular handles and no cast iron. The part that looks mysterious to me is whether all of those Ogden mowers were the same as Qualcasts but with a different brand cast onto them? In general, the Ogdens were very rusty and beaten up in about 1950, but I'd have guessed the parts were interchangeable with yours.

Hi Peter and grumpy, the Ogden that my old man had during the fifties was made in Australia by Ogden Industries(an Australian company)which went on to make "Neta" brass hose fittings. It had tubular metal handles, was a sky blue colour, rubber tyred, and had alloy hubcaps with the word Ogden in an oval border.....it was very similar in design to the Pope push mower; which was very popular at the time.

Peter on an excellent restoration of the Qualcast. Well done!

Deejay, the company Ogden Industries was registered in 1944, whereas the Australian subsidiary of Qualcast wasn't registered until 1956. I suspect that in the early postwar years Ogden did the bulk of the business here, because of import and currency restrictions. What I'm wondering is whether the Ogden push-mower of the period was a copy of the English Qualcast - it looks the same to me, fifty or sixty years later.

Hi Grumpy/deejay, according to powerhouse museum clyde engineering victoria were manufacturing the qualcast from the 30's "The Australian branch of the firm Qualcast (Australia), West Footscray, Melbourne, was established in the early 1930s and closed in the 1960s, with the specfic aim of producing lawn mowers in Australia to stem the tide of increasing American imports of similar products.


Read more: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=350569#ixzz176LFBb3U
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial

rgds Peter

Hi Peter, thank you for doing the research on the matter, I think that has put to bed any notion that Ogden was manufactured by Qualcast, as I suspected. Unfortunately info on Ogden Industries is pretty scant on the ground, I would like to know more about the company.