OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Question On Scott Bonnar Cylinder Mowers Bonmow???

Hello All,
Not expecting too much of a response to this one, however if anyone can share any knowledge about Scott Bonnar 'Bonmow' mowers it would be greatly appreciated. The mower shops I've been to here in Perth so far know little beyond the numbers 33 and 45. I'm not trying to source parts, just curious about how and why this SB off-shoot came to be

Cheers all,

Craig

Mark_x11 I will contact the supplier that bought Scott Bonnar many years back and see if they have any information in the archives but a lot of them are hard to get information from these days.

Hi Craig,Welcome back to the forum. How's the resto coming along on your Bonmow?
Back in the late 70's, I bought an old Model 17 Scotty with a large Villiers petrol engine from a scrap metal dealer.It was missing some parts so I contacted Scott Bonnar in Adelaide which was their head office. The bloke in the workshops was very helpful; I got my bits and pieces free of charge, and he gave me a little bit of SB history.
He said that in the early days SB only made mowers primarily for golf and bowling green and of course gang mowers to drag behind a tractor for fairways, parks and grass airstrips.
They were all branded Scott Bonnar. My thoughts are that "Bonmow" might have been the company's first attempt at a "domestic" mower, purely for home use.....and cheaper as well.....as a Model 17 would have set you back an arm and a leg.
Hope this may help

Hey Darryl, thanks very much for shedding a little light on all things Bonmow. Being a complete newby I think I may have picked a slightly obscure machine to be my initial restore. I mean, mechanically it's pretty simple but trying to work out little things like, missing starting mechanisms, original paintwork and catcher decals etc is very difficult. My sole source so far has been a full page add printed in Gardening Australia magazine (1956) heheheh..

Anyway, the restore is charging along at full steam.......although I do have to leave the shed some nights in order to eat, sleep, stay married etc...
At the moment I'm just winding up the painting leg of things and moving on to engine detail while all the paint cures.
I'm quite certain now (after MUCH confusion) my litle Villiers is a '3G'. It definitely has a 43mm bore and fortunately I was able to get a set of new piston rings for her from a shop here in Perth the other week....talk about a compression upgrade...heheheh On the flip side of that this has now highlighted every weak point in the sealing of the crankcase, which I'm still working through at the moment, but overall she's running a lot crisper and I'm able to get a much lower idle which was definitely needed.

Keep on truckin'

Craig

Hey Bruce, many thanks to you.
There's just nothing out there regarding these little mowers...guess they didn't work too well.....heheh

Cheers,

Craig