PART FOUR - Significance
Australian lawnmowers went down two design trajectories in the 1950s.
The influential Victa skirt-less 'toe-cutter' base influenced a number of
later AUS manufacturers. That base design made it difficult - though not
impossible - for catching. I have written about the Emu grasscatcher that
was designed mid-1950s to suit these skirt-less bases. It was not an elegant
solution for grass catching efficiency (see link below).
The other trajectory was the skirted base, in side and rear discharge
configurations. In fact, our first rotary mower, the 1948 Tecnico, had a
skirted steel base, and this influenced the other half of the manufacturers
in the 1950s. Its primary benefit was safety - a skirted base could better
contain projectiles and direct discharge in a specific direction.
The secondary benefit of the skirted base was that it would permit base
designs that enabled efficient cutting and catching of grass clippings.
This is why the Clyde Minor (and Major) is historically significant: the
model was the first to offer a catcher for a rear discharge rotary mower
made in this country.
The only other historically significant Australian lawnmower from this
period (for grass catching) was our radical Collect-O-Matic. That more
radical mower would appear after the release of the Clyde (see links below).
In terms of design influence, the Clyde clearly took inspiration from
the British Rotoscythe County model that went on sale here in about 1950.
The County, however, could not take a catcher (see links below). The
Collect-O-Matic took inspiration from the similarly radical Rotoscythe
rear catcher machines first produced in the early 1930s, and sold here
from about 1937, before the interruption of that terrible Second World War.
It is for these reasons that the Clyde rotaries - the Minor & Major =
of 1956, should be considered highly desirable and collectible. I hope
more see light of day now that they have been formally recognized here.
The rest is history.
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Jack.
