"If they were big business after the war, any idea what were they used for? Was it for hay cutting?"
Hi
NormI guess the answer would have to be 'yes' to cutting hay, but that wasn't the major use.
Prior to the
rotary revolution, it was only the motorised sickle mower that
could cut high grass. Post war, there was an influx of ex-soldiers that
settled on smaller farm lots.
The sickle mower was a good land clearer - "long grass, bracken, weeds, brambles,
rough matted and tangled growth, besides ... cultivated crops."
These machines were bought by councils for verge work, and cutting steeper embankments.
The heritage of the sickle-bar mower is, of course, agriculture.
'Hay mowers' were just larger versions, powered by horses, and then tractors.
Hay mowers were heavily advertised and were on most farms in Australia.
Yep, CJ has it nailed there. Tractor-powered rotary hay mowers first came on to the Oz market in the late 1960's-early 1970's. Before that, it was all sickle bar units.
So these mowers were an adaptation of existing, proven technology, which had ready service backup in rural areas. BTW, grain headers still use the sickle bar system.
The downside of the design was maintenance. Sharpening a set of fingers on
a special grinder took hours. The other problem was the tendency to clog
or jam in some applications.
Not quite true - it wasn't the pointed fingers that need to be sharpened [tho' they could break, and need replacement], it was the edges of the blade knife segments on the sickle bar.
Which had to be pulled out of the mower to do it. A workshop, not paddock, job. But with the dedicated grinders that were made for the job, about half an hour to do one. Of course, keeping a few spare sharp sickle bars on hand, to change out in the paddock, 'kept the mowing going' pretty well. They were still high-maintenance compared to rotaries though, as knife segments would break, and replacements have to be fitted by cold riveting. These mowers didn't handle stones, star pickets or other 'non-cuttable' items at all well. As headers don't, even now.
Sickle bar mowers were still being sold in the 1960s and '70s, but
the reality is - their popularity was ended by the rotary slasher mowers.
The smaller machines, like the Allan, were sold on the basis of cheapness
and versatility (attachments). They were a crossbreed between the agric-
ultural hay mowers and the horticultural lawnmowers.
Yes, they lost out to the likes of the Whirlwind [which used sickle bar knife segments for blades!] and Mobilco Heavycut
rotary slashers. Deckson, Cox and Masport also made this type of slasher in the 1970's.
