powerrabbit

It came like it Bill so I'll leave it alone, the old addage, 'if it aint busted, don't fix it'. There was a chap on a stall at the toy fair yesterday that was selling the Fergie T20 study 'Ealy Start', priced at £250. I did not take that much money with me so I didn't bother to ask or to haggle but it was not sold come the end so if he's there again at the next fair I might have a go at it. I very often do see BFA tractor studies at the local toy fair, there was an old couple 'downsizing' their collection 18 months ago and had several to offer there but most had slight damage, the only one that was perfect with all paperwork and packaging was the MF35 study 'Loading Up', I think I mentioned this before, think I paid £100 for it.

Considering that the tractor and equipment is not supposed to be 'new' then a bit of wear and tear is perfectly acceptable and expected and I would say that it actually shows the finer detail has not been missed out which tells me that in the process from reality to finished study those concerned were very good with their observations.

Actually Bill there are quite a lot still in existence and more being found as time goes on. There were many different variants of the D.B. Tracklayer and they were produced from around 1941 right up to the early 1960's, the 50TD being the rarest with most of the 1200 odd produced being exported mainly to Australia, South Africa and a few to South America, one went to Greenland but was 'lost' when it went through the ice on a frozen lake but I believe it was later recovered, repaired and shipped on again. The most common type you will see here are the 4 cylinder 30TD and 40TD models and a few yellow industrial ITD's.

Farmer Ed was selling the UH models, he just had the new stuff come in on Friday and was doing a hell of a trade today. When the doors opened there seemed to be hundreds of punters but come mid-day most had dissapeared and by 2.00pm a lot of the traders started packing up. Prices were a little more favourable to the buyers today and there were some reasonable bargains to be had and a fair amount of earlier Britains stuff there, mind you, there was some pretty pricey stuff as well, one thing I noticed in particular was a sleeved boxed square mudguard with cab Britains 5000, box was virtually mint but the rear wheels had melted so bad that even the tyres were melting and running down over in black streaks, wouldn't surprise me if it was stuck to the box, it was priced at £345.

Forgot to mention that I think my best buy today was a large early Britains papier machae, if that's how you spell it, corn rick, in mint condition. They seem to be made exacly like the way egg boxes are made. Cost me a 10 pound note.

Westpoint toy fair Exeter today. UH Ford 7810. UH New Holland T6020 with 750TL loader. UH Field Marshall 1:43. (this was a gift) UH Nuffield 1:16. (Not the 'tricycle' one) Container of Britains garden bits. Britains Jersey bull and cow. Britains Herald man with sack on his back and two more later ones. Britains Herald farmer with pipe and shotgun. An early 1950's tinplate crawler tractor with glazed cab battery cable operated mint and boxed. Made in China. the most interesting bit is what's printed on the artwork on the box, 'The East is red'. Very commy. Not farm related but might as well post whilst here, A large scale plastic red AEC double deck bus with 'Buy British Toys' decals rach side. A Britains complete and mint police motorcycle and its rider. A Britains female in white boilersuit with a fuel hose in her hand, petrol pump attendant I believe but would look good beside a diesel tank filling up a tractor on a diorama. An old mid 60's gyroscope boxed with its string. A 1930's GWR railway lantern.

Back in the late 1980's down these parts 'Cornish Calcified Seaweed' was all the rage, basically it was the dredgings from the likes of the Fal estuary and and just off-shore around Falmouth, worm casts and small shells in one cwt plastic bags. It was said to 'sweeten the pasture' and have a slow release effect which contained trace elements such as salts and calcium. Some farmers used to swear by it and on recommendation from a farming relation we dressed our pastures with it, by means of the old Twose fert spinner, but it was the biggest con of the time and produced no effective results whatsoever, I think it was all psycological and another ploy to make money for those who supplied it as it was only taken further out to sea and dumped previously but this ploy did not seem to last very long, I think untill farmers realised that it was useless and never bought it again. I seem to remember that it's 'trade' name was Mer-Min.

If you do like some 'numpty' farmers and lime before the plough the lime will never work if you bury it. The reason you also never lime directly on ploughed ground is because when traversing ploughed furrows you'd never stay in the tractor seat. The lime only has to be incorporated into the first 2 inches of soil is so that the roots of the seedlings can take it up and as rain pushes it deeper the roots still take it up as they develop and go deeper into the soil. That's the basics of it.

Lime can be applied in several ways. The most popular is post ploughing for new crops, best done in the last stages of cultivation, the last pass prior to drilling or seeding and then incorporated within the top two inches of the seedbed with drag harrows and then dragged again to cover the seed, roll in and that's it. The next most popular way is to spread direct onto the crop, arable when the seedlings are, in the case of grain crops, just ptoducing the first stem node. Ground limestone is the most common and the rate of application will depend on the acidity of the soil, the higher the acidity the heavier the application, for very acidic soil a rate of 10T per acre (in old money). You can get a soil testing lit or get your seed merchant rep to come and do it, most will do this for free, and use a PH chart to determine the acidity of the soil, a white powder (foget what it is now) mixed with distilled water and some soil samples from different parts of the field put in a test tube, shaken to mix and then left upright to settle. the soil drops to the bottom and the liquid comes to the top. The liquid will be from orange through to green depwnding on the PH of the soil, orange being very acid, green being alkali, which is what you want to see. The colour will be compared to the colours on the chart which indicates the PH value and the rate of application is calculated from that. Lime in powder form or ground limestone can be spread with a fertaliser spreader providing that you have the agitator fitted in the bottom otherwise it won't go through, just go solid. Nowadays you can get a prilled lime which is like granulated fertaliser and comes in the same sort of big bags, in this form you only need to apply half the volume per acre of that of powdered lime. Your seed merchant will supply the lime and if you have powdered lime they will also supply their own contracted spreaders, the ones that used to do ours was Lime Distributors, 10T bulker lorries with the lime, a chap with an MF188 towing the lorry ramps with the ground-drive spreader on top for the lorry to back onto or sometimes there would be a backactor arm with a clamshell bucket on it for self loading on the front of the spreader and the lorry would just tip the lime in a heap in the field.

The Britains milking parlour was a really good bit of kit but you don't seem to find them much now complete and boxed, one of those items that has to be complete and boxed to be appreciated. Same goes for the sheep dip set. Neither of these lasted very long in production I think.

Waiting for the water to go down to be able to irrigate the field!

I am sure that Mr Originals wouldn't mind me informing all about the new model they have recently produced and he has sent me a few pictures of the built prototype example. Another truly cracking and perfectly correct model of the David Brown 50TD Tracklayer. Again in 1:16 scale limited to 150. This will be the first D.B. crawler tractor produced in model form since the Shackleton clockwork one in the mid 1950's so it's going to go very quick I would think, probably a far better investment than any white MF model and half the recent price of one that sold recently!

The Dinky Toys Feild Marshall was made from 1958 to 1962 and were orange with silver wheels. The first ones up to 1960 all had cast wheels and tyres cast in one but the last ones had green cast rear wheels with green plastic front wheels and all the tyres were rubber. These last ones are harder to find and can cost a fair bit at toy fairs and the like but there are still plenty of earlier ones about at relatively cheap prices. They all had a pressed steel type rear hitch and posable front axle. The scale of these, as with all the other Dinky tractors were roughly 1:48 scale. The driver was the same mustard colour cast one that was also on their cranes and some lorries, a few of the very late ones were blue plasic drivers as on the Massey Harris rubber tyred Massey Ferguson decalled tractor and the Leylands. The ones with the plastic driver are quite rare. (Marshalls that is).

I think they came in around the mid 1980's, the stabaliser legs were on all of them and on the platform behind the cab there is the representation of a coil of wire rope painted silver in the moulding. I believe that the initial intention was that it would have been released with a winch which would explain the legs and rope but the winch never went as far as production.

There's a couple of posers for the experts! Could be an idea to email Joplin himself and ask. I did read somewhere that Hamblys did sell toys that were made for their London store exclusively and therefore would not have been retailed by any other stores.

Plenty enough postage on it though, that made it not quite as cheap.

Been too wet today to be doing much outside, rained so hard here this morning for about 1/2 an hour you could hardly look through it. Been on the computer to-ing and fro-ing emails with the Time Team Director sorting out and discussing things to come.

Sorry, keeping them all but if I see any at the next fair in August I'll look out for any.

I seem to remember they were a fiver.

Aren't they still making them? Usually see herds of them in boxes of loose stuff under the stalls at the local toy fair, last year I picked up about 40 pink pigs and saddlebacks and about 30 ponk piglets and half a dozen black ones so there's still plenty out there.

No Sean. outside bog went years ago, Mother used to complain in the winter coming back indoors with the seat stuck to her a$$ . Don't have a bathroom either, a shower room. On the other matter I mentioned they are doing an investigation/dig just out the road from me and all the stuff I have collected/picked up over the years is very revalent to it. It's going to be very interesting being involved with it.

Finishing of the final tweaks and fitting another support bracket on the flue for the AGA ouside the house all morning, helping the thatcher and tidying up this afternoon and later had a very long and interesting phone conversation with the Director of Channel 4's archalogical programme 'Time Team'. More on this later.

Tidy looking little Fergie that, well done. Headlamps are Vapormatic ones, that's why their red, would recognise them from 500 yards. I have always had a softspot for the 'little grey', have had a few slip through my hands over the years, one day I might even keep one.

That's what I thought, a straight petrol model that has in its very early life been converted to TVO, that would explain it. Vapormatic supplied a very similar conversion kit for the T20, consisted of the vaporising manifold, exhaust bend, small petrol tank, all the fuel pipes, carbourettor spacer and some other bits. Converting this engine, and other straight petol engines, required the fitting of two head gaskets to lower the compression. I'll ask my Nephew if he can get me a copy of the exploded parts and list of the Vap conversion kit they supplied and if so I'll post it up, I know they have it in their archive, I've seen it. Would be of interest to Marky too I reckon.

A bit unusual with the single main fuel tank and the small petrol tank one side of the battery, is it a small battery or does the battery sit on a tray behind your heel? The vaporising manifold is a little unusual as well, I should like to know what it says in the casting on the sideplate.