Mower storage ,I've quickly made a mower rack for a shed to store 24 mowers ,all the metal I got for free as it was a kids play equipment (monkey bars) so all up cost to build is under $10. for welding rods.
I like to store old mowers with the wheels off the ground so the tyres don't get flat spots and the old plastic wheels won't crack.The mowers at the bottom I will store the mowers with the stronger wheels or I could use some bricks or wood under the bases of the lowest mowers.
There's a little more welding to do but just shows how easily you can recycle old metal for mower storage that won't take up a lot of room down one side of a shed.
Hi maxwestern, I used old metal shelving found on hard rubbish to allow three mowers on top of each other. Triples the capacity of one mower footprint. I've made up three of these so far.
That is on another level -excuse pun haha -can literally hold tonnes -well two anyway - of mowers with very little precious space taken up for the number of mowers you can fit. It looks safe too.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
That's all you need a few of those metal shelves if you don't have too many mowers.
I think I have scrapped most of my rear discharge Victa mowers from the seventies up ,good mowers but people are always giving them away just have to say no now :lol:.
On Gumtree there are a few Victa mowers for free in Wollongong, NSW.
Here I made most of my storage shelves out of those angle iron bed rails and reclaimed 3/4" plywood. I cut and welded mine but they probably can be bolted to together but require cross bracing as they would rack without it.
Welding will be at fix distance between shelves so some intermediate shelve might be add that just bolted in place so their distance can change by drilling new holes.
My shelving is on a 2' x 4' format with the height around 6'.
The only problem now is getting more rails as the scrapers are snatching up anything metal to sell.
Luckily I made the rack to be topless for maneuverability as it's quite heavy when complete ,I was thinking of bolting it all together so it would be easily moved but it's ok to move when the top is removed.
Added a few cross bracing to strengthen the shelves and fitted some lower legs to stop the rack from tipping over.
I don't think the rack is too heavy as it's got to hold half a ton on the 3 shelves and it's 11 foot long., the top shelf is probably stronger than it needed to be but I already had that part to start with just had to shorten the width of the monkey bars and the top shelf was done.
It may take a little while until I fill the rack as I have to fix the shed now ,the front door hinges need to be unseized and a few small leaks in the roof will be patched.
I set up a rack a few days ago in a shed up the back and then I carried 30 Victa motors all with cowlings on them and put them in the rack. I can't get a pic because my camera has failed to work anymore and I can't use the one on my phone
[quote=Mowerfreak]Hi maxwestern, so the top shelf is readily detachable for moving? Show us when you load it with mowers.[/quote]
Are you planning on storing complete mowers on your racks Max? I find manhandling mowers to be somewhat of a struggle even just lifting them on and off a trailer without using a ramp, mainly because they aren't grab-friendly items. Doubt I could get mowers up and down off your top two shelves on my own, at least not safely.
I know I'm blessed being able to store all of my fleet at ground level thanks to the surfeit of sheds that were on my rural property when I moved in.
I'd like to make an engine rack Norm but have too many motors.
Yes MowingManiac I will fill the shelves with complete mowers ,the top shelf is only 150 cm high .
A mower is about a bag and a half of cement (30kg) .I been lifting mowers over my head to carry into a shed for years so not an issue . The worst mowers I had to lift were 2 self propelled Honda mowers that I lifted onto the roof rack on the car ,also probably sounds strange but I've lifted about 4 ride on mowers onto the boot on my car ,only 2 ride on mowers had the engines in them ,one was an old Deutscher ride on ,then there was the 3 complete quad bikes I lifted into the boot .I just tied them down to the boot lid ,gas tank bracket and the tow bar.
To optimize the health of your body, you should be able to squat and deadlift ~1.5x your bodyweight, bench press ~1.25x your bodyweight, and overhead press ~0.75x your bodyweight.
I mostly don't wear gloves Mf then when I get home with the mower I see all the red backs under the mowers.Gloves are a good idea.
When I built up my wooden shelves, I deliberately made the first shelf just the right height that the front wheels reach the shelf while the rears are on the ground.
The only mowers I can lift above waist height is the little 16inch ones. Can lift a regular mower into the boot of a car easily enough. Problem in my case is due to a severe hereditary bone spur condition, I can't even squat lift anymore - a pointy spur (bone tumour) goes through the muscle about 3 inches above the left knee. I literally ran 5 steps 2 months ago, pierced it and fell down - couldn't walk for days. Pair that with the one under my left armpit (also pointy - can't lift my arm over my head if holding any weight) and it makes moving things around a real issue.
Whenever I squat or kneel down or get up, I am forever careful because it will just grab - fell over getting up from cleaning out a sprinkler head on sunday. I am starting to know how Norm felt before the hip replacement a few years back.
I see guys lifting 17in sb45 mowers in and I just cringe
Max, I would have well in excess of a hundred Victa motors here, which does include a pile of straight fueled ones I will never get to repair but who knows what the future holds. Once upon a time I could buy 2 FJ Holdens for $50 in the Trading Post with the heading "Build one out of the 2" Not suggesting the 2 stroke Victa will ever be that sought after but the world is a strange place
Yes that would be a problem if you can't lift the mowers Tyler ,if I couldn't lift the mowers I'd get a manual forklift ,I've seen second hand ones for $150. In a larger shed you could make an over head crane or possibly use a scissor lift table jack.
I haven't counted all the motors Norm but would not surprise me if they were over 200. Yes there were lots of bargains years ago if you held onto old cars ,I had a Holden subframe in the shed that I paid $50. for and sold for $2500.
The straight fueled motors you can bolt them to a face plate on the lathe and rebore them if demand for them goes up.
[quote=Mowerfreak]They will become a quaint artefact once they become scarce enough. They'll be like a Lister is now.[/quote]
Who knows Mf ,if everyone is using electric garden equipment in the future the vintage equipment may just end up as scrap metal.
Fixed the door hinges by drilling a hole and putting a 6 mm hose in the hinge then filled the hose with WD40.
I've put 23 Mowers on this rack so far ,I think I need to make another rack on the other side of the shed , one good thing about using the round steel for the rack was it cost nothing to cut (no grinding discs required) just used a pipe cutter.
If I make another I will probably use something completely different for the other rack only because I think I have some lengths of RHS to use up.
Yes didn't take long to fill up Mf , most of these mowers were stored for years in the backyard under corrugated iron so it's good to clear them out , now I can get to them ,I think there are about 4 mowers left in the back yard.
I needed to get the mowers into a shed as the Foxes were leaving dead animals on my mowers and crapping on them.
I still have a lot of mowers in other sheds so I may have to make some more racks.
Yep wasn't much wrong with that 24 Norm ,I used to go to a country area and I would pick up a 24 Mower for free , all it needed was a carby clean,there is still another 24 here to put in the shed.
People just throw them in the trash if you look in the non metro areas.
The reuse of old pallets is a good idea Norm ,I will have to sort the motors out eventually ,mine are just in a huge pile.
Max, I chase all over Vic looking for Victa 24's Deutschers and Ariens, I got a 24 from Port Arlington a Deutscher R36 from Wangaratta, often the round trip costs me nearly a day
Max, obviously a LOT of mowers have come your way over the years. Just curious what criteria you have for particular mowers to go to the "Pool Room"?
At my place anything that can be coaxed to start and make headway through overgrown grass and weeds without belching too much smoke gets a spot under cover.
SupaSwift industrial with echo 2 stroke ,SupaSwift under the Industrial mower it's deck is an end cap off a hot water tank A HG palmer 4 stroke ,a couple of 4 stroke Ambassador mowers , Victa Sheerline .a few sixties Corvette and Cortina mowers, Granberg Parksman 4 stroke stainless base mower,a couple of sixties 4 stroke Turner mowers,Victa 24,a couple Victa 18 mowers, a Wolf Garden with Kawasaki 2 stroke ,Masport with 2 stroke motor.
Norm, I bought a ride on mower from a guy that went to scrap yards buying complete ride on mowers for $50. each, then he would sell them as non runners for min $150. ,he also had tons of push mowers that he fixed and sold , he paid $5. each for them.
A long time ago I would buy V8 motors from importers for $240. and just clean the outside and sell for $500. and they sold quick. I kept one of those engines that I sold recently for $2500. and it needed a full rebuild.
If I spend 4 hours driving I would normally come back with at least 20 mowers.When I was in Melton I saw tons of good mowers in hard rubbish but I wasn't looking to collect anything.
MowingManiac , sometimes I will give away a good running repaired mower or sell one for $10. or $20. just because I don't want to see a rare perfectly good working mower thrown out but usually any thing that's not rare and I can't sell for $50. even if I'd given the mower a service I would rather get rid of the mower straight away by scrapping the alloy base and scrap steel .The mowers I can't get $50. for are good mowers with no damage but a lot of people I've sold mowers to aren't interested in mowers that are more than 5 years old. At one stage I could buy a new ex demo GMC mower with a Briggs from a shop for $100.
I don't really cut grass using a catcher unless testing a mower then I would tip the cut grass back on the ground so I don't really need any rear discharge mowers ,when I started collecting mowers I would just collect side discharge mowers but over the years I've kept a few of the harder to find rear discharge mowers mostly from the sixties and have kept some seventies rear discharge mowers, so I don't have the spare time to fix and sell mowers for $50. or less better to scrap them , I also started off collecting 2 stroke mowers only but have kept some older 4 strokes.
Pool room mowers I'd say are first model mowers like model 1 Rotomo ,first Turner ,Victa auto,first SupaSwift or can just be an old mower that you don't see many of . I've basically just scrapped all the mowers that I could easily buy as a non runners for $10.
Thanks Max, very interesting. I've not seen that type of quality machines when I was picking mowers off the street even though I plundered the leafy well-to-do Melbourne suburbs of Malvern, Armadale, Toorak, Kew, etc. on Hard Waste days.
My latest rescue was a Honda Buffalo HRU 194, probably the only one of my fleet of 20 runners which could be a Pool Room contender. I thought I had more than enough but the allure of a genuine Honda OHV for free was too much to resist. All it needed was TLC and it is doing an exceptionally good job slashing rough stuff, albeit a bit heavy to push uphill. The governor system works perfectly, something I usually disconnect on other machines.
I've never looked for mowers in those types of areas MM ,the Median House price in Toorak is $5,190,000 ,I always find those areas the people will mostly pay someone to take the rubbish away or pay someone to cut the grass.
When I picked up hard rubbish mowers I would find a lot of late model mowers some 3 years old that just needed a spark plug or an air filter clean , all the mowers on the rack I paid for them, except the Victa 24. I would sell the later model mowers and buy / keep the vintage harder to find mowers.
I guess I've never searched areas like Norm gets mowers from as I've never heard of so many straight fueled 2 strokes ,I've picked up a few hundred over the years and only had about 5 straight fueled 2 strokes.
A lot of the time I didn't bother looking for mowers for free as there were a lot of tip shops selling mowers for $10 each.Even when mower shops closed down they would sell old mowers dirt cheap.
I've got the next load of scrap metal to make another mower rack. Last time I bought arc welding rods they were $10 to $15 (pre covid) a box at a shop but as everything has gone up lately I think online they are about $25 now but still around a third of a shop price.
I think this rack will have a few bolts to hold it all together otherwise it's going to get to heavy to move ,if I get rid of a few more mowers this rack would make a good engine rack as the crack shaft on the motors would fit in the square mesh.
I'm going to have to get rods soon Max and during covid my source in Bayswater closed down. I have never had any joy looking for rods on ebay. but my son found 3 brand new never used GIG welding helmets on hard rubbish at the bottom of our street a couple of weeks ago
Yes all the arc rods I've used lately Norm were the Swec in a 2 kg box for $12.98.
If you buy rods in a lot of 1000 boxes they are $4 to $6 a box.
I bought some stainless arc rods on eBay probably 1 KG and they worked well and were cheap but no idea of the brand as they were wrapped in a plastic bag.
I see cheap rods on eBay but I would normally look for a brand that I know is ok.
All the cheap places I knew of for rods have closed ,i think I will just go to Bunnings and get the 2kg of Bossweld rods for $22.98. Maybe I could check a few places that I've been to before but usually find they are no longer there when I haven't shopped there for a few years.
The new CIG welding helmets was a good find.
Just found Sydney Tools has Gigweld 2.5 mm 2.5 kg rods for $24. If any one knows a good brand that's cheap let me know.
I think you'd like West Gosford near where I live maxwestern and NormK. There's a road full of industrial supply sellers like Total Tools, Sydney Tools and at least a couple of independent retailers of welding equipment and supplies who also sell tools. There are two mower shops on opposite corners of a T intersection and a bearing supplies shop opposite them. They are abit dear wanting $7.00 a bearing for ones that fit a Victa wheel. They probably want closer to a tenner now. One mower shop is primarily a Stihl dealer and the other Husqvarna. The guy I've dealt with at Stihl is not very friendly and the Husky dealers were better.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
It all comes down to cost MF. Last time I went to the local Stihl shop it cost me over $70 for chainsaw sharpening stones from my Cranberg sharpener. Luckily I don't have to go there often
Yep some of the bearing shops are a little dear Mf ,20 years ago it cost me $35, for 3 bearings to fix a drill back then I could have bought a new cheap drill for that.
$70 for chainsaw sharpening stones is expensive Norm as the whole sharpener is only about $140 .
I've heard lots of stories of shops just doubling the price if they sell to someone they don't know that walks in the door.
I was told some mower shops if some one walked in they didn't know and asked for a new briggs motor and they had no stock of engines they just made up a price that was very close to a complete new mower and if the customer said he would buy at that price the shop just removed the engine off a new mower out the back and sold that engine, then later made more profit selling the rest of the mower in parts than they could have made selling a new mower.
If you go to some of the wreckers and tip shops ,the people behind the counter look the buyer up and down and then make up a price that they think you can afford ,so if you wear crappy old clothes you will get a cheaper price.
So I went to Sydney Tools to get some Gigweld 2.5 mm 2.5 kg rods for $24. but they had no stock on the shelf which is normal for trying to get consumables around here at most of the shops , ended up buying italco 2.5 mm 5 kg for $35.
I don't think these rods are as good as the Swec rods but they work ,next time I'll probably go back to Gigweld or Austark, may try Bossweld one day ,after buying the italco rods I found I still had one new box of 2mm x 2 kg of Swec .
I've tested the italco rods on some scrap galvanised steel below.
5kg for $35 is probably not too bad, I think from Bayswater they were $13 for 2kg packs. Doubt I could afford the Cigweld ones they have always been expensive, but they are good rods, I have problems getting the Chinese rods to start, they won't arc up easily but once running they are fine
The italco 2.5 mm 5 kg are E6013 and they only had 2 boxes on the shelf at Sydney tools so probably next time I may not be able to get them Norm.
If the Chinese rods were hard to start I would strike them on the earth lead bolt and start them that way ,once warm they are fine.
The italco rods are DCEP and DCEN , the test yesterday I was using DCEP but today tried DCEN and I seem to be getting a better weld and flow with DCEN (electrode goes to negative)
I think these rods are just as good or better than the Swec rods you got from FJ's Norm ,I just seem to be getting better results with DCEN when welding 2 hardened axles together but I didn't clean the metal first just welded over rusty metal.
I have heard DCEN can work better on Galvanized pipe.
I've been trying to find the 4 uprights needed for the next rack ,found 3 round upright poles to use but have to use one RHS upright ,all I could find was 3 scrap bits of RHS that needed welding together to make a 5 foot length.
The green parts of the 5 foot Upright is 1/4 inch thick and the blue part of the RHS is 1/8 of an inch thick, not sure if I should put the green part down on the ground or the blue part of the pole on the ground , I guess it would depend how strong the welds are to which end of the pole will be stronger ,I'll probably go with the green end on the ground.
Lucky I have an old train line the clamp the metal to for welding otherwise it would distort too much to use.
The second rack is getting there a little slower to build than the first one as everything on this one is built from scratch.
I was going to use the trailer cage as the shelves and have poles to make it all slide together so the cage was not damaged but it all would have weighed too much so have found enough metal to make it like the first rack with the top that will slot in.
The rack is about 11 foot 4 inches long and each shelf is 50 cm high , the width of the shelves is 30 cm.
No MM, the rack is freestanding , the 4 vertical poles only have to hold up around 135 kg each so so need for any extra work like gussets etc. Just using up some scrap metal so I can get the mowers out of 10 sheds and into one shed.
This is very permissible to keeping many more mowers you may not want to let go of. I wish I had a way to keep all the mowers I ever collected in my life without the hassle.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
I don't want to collect too many mowers Mf , If I kept every mower it would probably be over 1000 by now. One way to tell if you have too many mowers is when you start storing them out in the yard in my opinion.
The mowers are fairly light Speedy ,I made a rack 25 years ago for car engines ,gearboxes and cylinder heads ,the top shelf is for Autos and manual gearboxes , that top shelf is not too easy for lifting up the V8 gearboxes and autos now.
Copy and paste the link below as the link won't work in this part of the forum. It's a 14 second Vid of lifting a mower off the ground but only using a little finger .
The second Rack is fully loaded now with 28 mowers .That gets rid of a lot of the mowers I had all over the place .
Only problem I still have too many mowers in another shed that are difficult to get to ,looks like I may have to make another rack for at least another 28 mowers and put the third rack in the middle of the other two racks.
Lifting the 7 onto the top shelf wasn't too difficult.
Good set up. It looks like the top bars are bending under the weight. It still looks cluttered but very efficient on space if you're going to have so many mowers and it's not taking up a living area. It allows you to warehouse them properly. I appreciate the before and after pics. Sure beats having them lying around everywhere.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
The top bars aren't bent from the weight ,the top is 40 mm diameter tube and when I put my full weight on each one there was barely any movement and my weight was in the centre of each metal tube.
You can never trust what you see though ,seeing straight horizontal lines, they can look on an angle sometimes giving an optical illusion.
Yes it beats having the mowers lying around in the back yard under 25 sheets of corrugated iron , it was a lot of work just pushing the mowers up from the back yard .
I've seen other people fill up a single car garage with mowers on the floor and you have to move too many mowers to get one out and you still can't fit many in that way but at least if I get 3 racks, about 80 mowers ,I can get to any mower easily and there is still room at the back of the shed.
Just trying to get the mowers to a more manageable level as I've never counted all the mowers but knew there were hundreds so hopefully I can end up with under 100 and sort them out later.
Yes AVB , I managed to use up some left over blue paint on the welds ,this rack took while to find all the metal and I thought it may be left in the rain for while until it was ready for the shed ,the patchy blue rack used up 3 kg of arc welding rods but the first rack only used about one and a half kg of rods.
The image illusions look more interesting Mf than the lines.
I was thinking one more rack might be enough but I looked in another shed today with mowers scattered all over the place and counted 55 old mowers ,looks like a few more to get rid of.
Finally got some spare time to finish the 3rd mower storage rack ,this one completely bolts together (6 parts) used up some more scrap metal and over 4 kg of welding rods .
A lot of welding but only $50. in materials ,it's made for Victa 18 mowers so the blade plate sits below the horizontal rack.
I think the two 1/4 inch bolts per corner on each shelf should be strong enough.
Hi Max, looks great, massive amount of work but unless you can sort things it all gets too hard and just piles of mowers. I admire your determination, I think it would break me.
Yes I'm sick of crawling under the house and climbing over mowers to drag one mower out , it's also annoying moving a lot of mowers to get to the furthest mowers then having to put them all back again.
It looks like I won't have a problem finding 30 Victa 18 mowers to fill this rack ,already put 13 mower on the shelf and dragged out another 11 that I will lift onto the rack tomorrow.
I think I could get 4 racks into this shed but the 2 centre racks would need to roll sideways to have enough room to get mowers off different racks. I doubt I will put another rack in this shed though.
My only problem now is after this rack is full it looks like I have another 30 mowers ,I've already scrapped over 200 mowers and 200 catchers.
Not sure what the next rack will look like ,I saw some wood under the house from an old carport so not sure at this stage if to make the next rack from wood or steel.
