435 Farm Road, Newville, PA 17241
Jim May, 808 Elm St., Sandwich, Illinois 60548 built the above
1/5 scale model of a 10 HP Sandwich engine in 1989. The model has a
1?’ bore, 2′ stroke, and 9?’ flywheels. It is ignitor
fired and has a fuel pump and overflow carburetor. Jim, who made
the patterns and did the machining for this model, has been
restoring engines since 1965 and modeling since 1970 (see GEM
May/June 1973, page 49).
At the 1990 Arcadia Show my dad and I were looking around, and
at Bill Starkey’s stand was a United 1? HP and an Associated 1?
HP, as well as a Moto Mower with a Briggs & Stratton Model WA
sitting on it. My dad said that he would make a deal with me,
saying, ‘Sell the Bolens lawn mower with a Model PB Briggs on
it and we will get this one.’ Well, it didn’t take long to
decide what I was going to do.
That day we took the old girl home. This machine was somewhat
heavy to load on the truck (approx. 250 lbs.). The engine was in
good shape and had 90% original paint, but the mower was somewhat
in tough shape. The man I bought it from said it was used in a
quarry.
It is a Super Detroit Model, 27 inch cut; the serial number of
the engine is 764, which dates it to November 1931. I had a number
of things to fix on the mower. I needed to make new sheet metal and
also fix the safety clutch and make a drive shaft sprocket. The
easy part was cleaning the mower and disassembling it, but the hard
part was putting it back together. The whole restoration period
took all winter, but now that it is fixed up and working I feel I
have accomplished something.
