OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum Machine Histories VICTA PROTOTYPE - the "Peach Tin" - 1952

Hello ODK History Lovers
There was only ever one, first, Victa prototype - the 'Peach Tin' as
it was nicknamed.

I don't know who first coined the nickname, but I guess it was Mervyn
Victor Richardson himself.

I do have evidence that Merv had a sense of history - that he did
something different to other lawnmower makers of the day.

The Peach Tin sat in the Victa Boardroom for many years, before it was
donated by Victa to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences [MAAS].
We are lucky it has survived.



HAVE A LOOK
The Powerhouse Museum has done a great job with studio images of the
Victa Peach Tin. Note the primitive and skeleton frame, the 'billy cart'
wheels, the twin-outlet exhaust, the fuel tank ['peach tin'?] and the
swing-back blades mounted on a bar blade holder.


There is a great selection of images at the Powerhouse ...
Source: https://collection.maas.museum/object/158738

I guess it is a National Treasure of sorts, and Victa - a once
Australian icon - did make an appearance in a memorable 'Tin Symphony'
sequence at the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000. Brilliant! So much has
changed in Victa history since then. Alas ...

TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART TWO - The John Mason Account
A primary source of information must be John Mason's 2003 self-published
book The Victa Story: Turning Grass into Lawn.

That book's Forward said this:

John Mason commenced with Victa in 1955 as their General Sales Manager.
Over the coming years he held a variety of titles including Group Marketing
Manager as well as serving as one of a team of three on the General
Management Committee. When he retired in 1969 he held the position of
Associate Director of Marketing.

It should be pointed out that Mason wrote his book at 84 years
of age - some considerable time after these events. The second point is
that Mason was never a first-hand witness to the Peach Tin. Nonetheless,
he was a senior Victa employee in the company's infancy, joining the
firm just a couple of years after Merv weaved his backyard magic.



The extract from Mason's book is telling ...

THE PEACH TIN MOWER

So - on this momentous Saturday afternoon he made a 'skeleton' frame of
flat wrought iron bar material to which he assembled two mild steel round
rods as axles, front and rear, and to which he attached four cast iron
billy-cart wheels. A piece of flat steel bar was bent like an inverted 'U' and
attached to the skeleton frame to serve as a handle.

On the skeleton frame he mounted one of his Villiers mower engines in a
vertical position - the crankshaft was vertical with the flywheel magneto
and pulley (for the starting cord) uppermost. But it was the lower end of
the crankshaft which was to be the 'business' end of the experimental machine.
Here he attached a flat steel bar sharpened on the leading edges and fixed by
a heavy nut and washer to the lower end of the crankshaft.

To provide the engine with a fuel supply of the petrol/oil 2-stroke
mixture he mounted a peach tin to which he fitted a small tap and a piece
of plastic tubing which connected to the carburettor. It was this peach
tin which gave the experimental model its name.

Having filled the peach tin with fuel he wound the cord onto the pulley
and gave it a pull and the engine burst into life under control from the
throttle lever mounted on the handle.

Merv pushed the mower into some long grass and it disappeared - the grass
not the mower, and after a few minutes doing the same thing he saw that
with some modifications here was the basis of a new style mower/grass cutter.

He was ecstatic and called his wife to watch his demonstration - the first
demonstration of countless thousands by a Victa Rotary Mower.

Amongst other things which Merv Richardson saw was that, in its present
skeletal form, the mower was potentially dangerous; because stones and
other objects could be thrown out at speed and likely to injure the
operator or bystanders. So it was back to the drawing board, though I
suspect the plans for the Peach Tin mower were just a few rough sketches.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART THREE - Analysis & Commentary
It appears to me that a basic question has been forgotten by History ...
What was the Peach Tin a prototype for? What was its purpose?

At no stage do I believe the Peach Tin was a prototype for a lawnmower!
As Mason said, in its present skeletal form, the mower was potentially
dangerous.

Mason recognises that Merv saw this too; but at no stage does Mason
ask the basic question - what was the Peach Tin in tended to prove!

The Peach Tin was not a prototype lawnmower, but a prototype for Merv's
manifolding of the horizontal shaft Villiers engine he had been using on his
Victa 14 reel lawnmower.

I have every reason to believe that Merv had cast a manifold to convert his
Villiers to a vertical shaft configuration. The Peach Tin was a prototype
for engine development. It was a proof-of-concept prototype for the motor =
with Merv's muffler and manifold designs.

Note that the intake manifold sat towards the ground, and that the sparking
plug did likewise. This design appeared on the first production lawnmower -
the Billy Cart of late 1952. It wasn't a great idea, and the next models -
the Fan Mowers - would correct this.

Something needs to be said about other anomalies in Mason's recount of the
Peach Tin. The most obvious is the 'business end' of the prototype...

Here he attached a flat steel bar sharpened on the leading edges and fixed
by a heavy nut and washer to the lower end of the crankshaft.

It's pretty clear that this is not how the Powerhouse Museum has recorded
the prototype. It has swing-back blades! Does this mean Mason was wrong?

Not necessarily. Prototypes, by definition, are the workhorses of design.
They are not static, but may change as the design is improved.

It is very possible that Merv first used a primitive sharpened blade as used
in many North American designs, but changed this as the design developed.
Who knows?

I do know Merv did not invent the swing-back blade design, but he was one
of the first users of it.

There is inconsistency in the Powerhouse image record of the Peach Tin.
Note how some images have been reversed, showing the muffler and carby
on different sides. Not that professional a record it would appear ...



I guess something should be said about the 'peach tin' - a metaphor that
has been adopted to describe the Victa rotary prototype.

The Powerhouse images don't show a peach tin at all. I wouldn't think peaches
would be poured through such a small can lid! It may be, like the blade holder
issue, that Merv did originally use a jury-rig peach tin. But that is not what
I see in the Powerhouse images.

The first production Victa rotary - the Billy Cart - did take some of its
design from the Peach Tin. The engine configuration, muffler, wheels, flat steel
handle bar (pre-tubular) and swing-back blades, all seem to have been taken from
Merv's original experiments in rotary design with the Peach Tin.

The rest is history.
-----------------------------------
Jack

Lawrence Hall and His Mohall:-
https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/u...NCE_HALL_&_His_MOHALL.html#Post86900


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