Allen Scythes stopped being made in 1973. I think this one was made (near Oxford, England) in the late 1950s – it could be 70 years old but it still works extraordinarily well. They stopped making them because they are very dangerous – the blades are running all the time, it jumps forward without notice and it’s default clutch setting is drive – yes, you have to actively stop it moving! But it trundles through thick mud like a tank and it cuts wet grass and rushes with ease. We bought it for just this job – to control weeds in our fields. It was advertised on Donedeal here in Ireland and there seem to be others on there regularly. If you’d like to take on repairing the second machine – get in touch!
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Wow. I Remember as a kid our local council grounds man using these. In winter they fitted a blade for clearing snow from the pavements
There are times I could put a modern version to use.
🙂
ideal for the wet conditions , it light enough to do the job with out bogging in , reminds me of those DR. mowers,
I have the same type, but we are in Australia and villiers are hard to come by/repair – so I got an adapter to replace the motor with a honda gx100
I'd like to have the seat and cart and ride it on the highway.
In the United States at a campground cleanup nigh 40 years ago one very similar to this was donated to be used, I do not remember the brand or model but I was the only one who could get it running and keep it running, even though I was about 13 years old, so over 3 days I used this to clear many acres. It was much easier to control the direction of travel and speed. It was only a few years later that I realized the importance of keeping track of these machines and who made them. I have dreamed of finding that machine ever since.
started rite up speaks volumes.
A madly dangerous machine but brilliant! Common sense must prevail when using it. 😊👍
I like the way the sheep is thinking: don't get any ideas I want to keep my fleece!
So this is how you spend your money.
A good place to start with the points would be 0.030" (0.75 to 0.8 mm).
Fascinating and rather temperamental old machine 😀
If you're going to run it on wetlands, it might perhaps be an idea to make some larger diameter paddle wheels like the ones on rice farmers tractors.
All the best machines start on the second pull.
I had a scythe attachment for my merry tiller rotorvator with some scavenged steel wheels I found, was brilliant machine
I used to use one of these when I was an Assistant Groundsman, aged 15. Didn't really like it much!
All you need now is a Howard Gem
https://youtu.be/A9Wb86nRhhc
i clicked thinking you found a cool alien scythe but its just some allen scythe
Amazing tool seen two guys just strip one for the brass to use on a different project so sad
When I was a young boy, around the late 60s or early 70s, I lived opposite some common land.
Twice a year, once in high Summer and again in late Autumn, a workman would appear with exactly one of these machines and cut the 2 ft high grass on the common. I remember them so clearly. It took a day to cut our piece which my father reckoned was about 4 acres.
I remember following the man around for much of the day and being fascinated by the way the grass just fell in front of the cutters.
Thanks for the memory! 🙂
The groundsman had one at my school in late 50,s remember him walking behind it.
Blimey I wasn't expecting a worm drive in there!
Tim was hanging on for dear life then lol
I spent many hours mowing paddocks with an Allen Scythe as a kid, brilliant bits of kit.
I love the diff! As to the smoothness, I hope this isn't terrible "guy on the internet" advice, especially since I know nothing about combustion engines…. But would some hydrocarbon additive help? I gather the oil does the job of lead in leaded fuel, but I'd have thought the instructions from that era would have assumed that the gasoline you're adding is leaded?
You’ll get a bad back using one of these 🤷♂️
Ooh, BCS has some mowers and walk behind tractors just like that! Given the size of your farm, I thought it was a perfect use case for them, but I just thought you had some kind of objection to them.
Oh well. The second R is reuse, so as long as it still runs it's way better for the earth to run a two stroke than scrapping the poor things!
I wonder if it's possible for their mower attachments to fit?
That fuel looked like 10 to 1 !
I used to watch your videos regularly but it has stopped showing up on my feed not sure what YouTube is doing.
I Remember this machine from when i a young person in the Uk the council used to used them, think about trying to get insurance to use one these days, you mean unprotected blades ready to cut your foot off.
As a kid my dad had a caravan site and one of these to mow it, used to take him two days and used to shake his arms exhaust him so he bought a little grey fergie and a Hayter three rotor mower to go on the back, the job could be done in an afternoon and even at the age of 12 I used to enjoy cutting the grass.
Because it's a plain bearing old piston port two stroke, run mineral oil at least at 20:1. They are designed to use a lot of oil and it's used to float the bearings. Definitely don't use modern synthetic oils at 50:1 – they were never designed for that. When in doubt, swap the plug, they foul easily.
As a teenager, I used one of these for a couple of years or so, cutting an orchard and meadow for an older lady. It was a bit tough to start (didn't know enough back then to improve this!) but that thing was a real handful! An absolute, almost unstoppable, beast. Wish I had one now.
on the clutch issue: if the clutch fingers or dogs inside the worm wheel are undercut from decades of vibration in use, then the clutch will be difficult to disengage under load, because you would need to pull the movable clutch piece out from the undercut it sits in, against the power of the engine. I´m struggling to find an analogy for this condition, so I´m sorry if the explanation doesn´t help. But next time you can´t disengage the clutch, try giving the mowing machine a strong shove forward while trying to disengage the clutch. This is basically the same as shifting a motorcycle transmission upwards by preloading the gear lever and taking back the throttle. This sudden change in load direction takes any forces off the gear teeth and lets you shift as if you disengaged the clutch of the motorcycle.
'The ankle biter' 😂
i love these guys ! thanks for the video !
I walked many miles behind an Allen scythe in my youth.
I have used one in the 70s used cut around graves in cemetery powerful machines
Well now it appears you're going to be on the path towards building one of those trailer w/ seat contraptions that was shown in one of the still photos you inserted mid-video. Riding sure would be more interesting than walking behind.
I have two of these machines and I think I’ve got the handbook somewhere..
I can't believe it starts, from memory it never would
That's not a differential, but it is like a locker.