Hello ODK history lovers The Hornet Lawnmower Manufacturing Company of 175 King Street, Mascot, Sydney, ‘made’ reel and rotary mowers in the 1950s and maybe early 1960s.
I say ‘made’ because Hornet never appears to have had much manufacturing capacity. Instead, they engaged in, originally, powering second-hand reel mowers; later powering new side- wheel and roller mowers not of their manufacture [but sold under their brand names].
Maybe they followed a similar approach with the rotaries but I don’t feel they did. The Hornet rotaries present as original designs.
Hornet deserves credit and being remembered!
This record is for their 18” rotary, the Rota Chief. It has a cast alloy, shallow skirted ‘toe-cutter’ base that I date to about 1956. I first became aware of Hornet mowers through old spark plug guides and a 1960s Trade-In price listing …
PART TWO – Advertising The Rota-Chief was made by a small mower maker and any advertising for it is as rare as the mower itself is today.
Note that the trade-in price [from the Trade-in Booklet extract in PART 1] lists the Rota-Chief as the mower with the lowest re-sale value. Maybe that helps explain why the mower is so rare today …
In any case, so far, only a handful of advertisements have come to light, and none show illustrated Rota-Chiefs.
PART THEE - Gallery A sincere thank you to member Kye T for sending me the image below.
This was the same mower I had seen on the Vintage Mowers website many years’ ago. It’s an un-restored Rota-Chief in poor condition. But it’s mostly there!
Note the cast alloy base. It makes no sense to me why the name casting would face the operator …?
This appears to be a rear-discharge shallow- skirted mower. The front wheels could be placed outrigged or inboard rigged.
![[Linked Image]](https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/images/jack/icon_related_reading.jpg){kind=icon}
![[Linked Image]](https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/images/jack/icon_comment.jpg){kind=icon}
