powerrabbit

Equal wheels I believe. I've been told that they are going to do several more classic models with cabs in the future.

'Blue Box' was the Chinese toy Company that produced plastic copies of Corgi toys. They also did a red and silver Major with a front loader and fork and I have seen a blue and silver Major by them as well.

Also try, if they still exist, places like Tandy or other radio electrical shops where the likes of ammature radio operators and builders source their components. May pay to do an internet search for hobbies and modellers supplies.

Britain's red front linkage, muledozer type, with red and yellow buckrake for £1. 2 of the outside tines were broken off about 1/2 their length but repaired now by shaping and cutting to length, drilling and pinning one of those very versatile little sausage sticks. Local boot sale.

You are probably looking for a seeder that will cover a fair area of ground if you are seeding out large fields but I have an ideal little machine for my farm as the biggest field I have is 11 acres. It's a Thomas grass-seeder, 3 point linkage mounted and is basically a square frame with 2 folding wooden boxes that fold out to a working position to a width of 10 feet, it is ground driven by two solid tyred wheels on a fixed axle bar with a cog and flat-link chain to another wheel with 2 L shaped bits of metal that contact the right-angled ends of the bars that go through the boxes with the brushes on. It's surprising how quick you can seed out a field with it. My father bought it from a neighbour who was retiring back in th mid 1970's for £9 and it's seeded out more acres than I care to remember. Very simple machine but very effective.

No drawbars on either of the Super 4's, just the frame.

On the Perry loader and the 'copy' from McConnell, the front arms worked like scissors with a cross-wise ram at the rear of the arms with the pipe plumbed to an oil feed from the tractor with a shut-off in line, drop the loader via the tractors hydraulic lever, open the valve in the oil pipe to the bale squeezer and the arms would open, drive into the stack of bales, switch over the valve to feed the oil to the sqeezer, arms close on the bales, then raise the tractor hydraulic lever and up you go with the 6 or 8 bales. Heres the ones I made, first one is the Lawrence Edwards 'Perry Loader' and the second is the McConnell version, the 'Bale Slave'.

Terrific loader! If you want to see how to make a Perry loader for it, the one I made is posted up somewhere. Search 'some of Powerrabbits scratchbuilds' and it might come up, if not, just ask and I'll post up another picture. Try 'bale loaders' in the search as well.

Last October at Toytrac Martin Smits was selling these with the magazine for 17 Euro's. He had a huge cardboard box full and they were selling like hot cakes.

That is a good description of my house!

The Ferguson earth scoop is quite easy to operate although it looks a bit complicated. No special attachments are needed to hitch it to the tractor. To load the scoop, simply lower to the ground or to the loose material and slowly drive the tractor forward to load it. To tip, pull the hand lever toward you from the tractor seat and the scoop will tip. The scoop has a load capacity of 0.2 cubic yards. When new the scoop cost £14. 10 shillings. (£14.50).

Three more Britain's limited edition Series 1 60th Anniversary Landrovers, numbers 1939, 1940 and 1941 of 2500. Cleared the chap out of the last he had. Would have been nice if one had been numbered 1949, someone has it!

The MF595 with metal linkage was the first issue type , 1976 to 1979 after that the linkage was black plastic.

Three more front loaders for mods. Thank you Nathan. Another Britain's limited edition 60th anniversary Series 1 Land Rover for a mate. Issue one (Fergie T20) Tractors and The World of Farming in the post. About time to!

Yes, these loaders are from the Universal Hobbies Renault Ergos. I better be careful though in showing these loader 'conversions' as everyone will be after loaders and I won't be able to get any. Still, that's what this is for, sharing.

Just been playing around with the second of these loaders and came out with this. These loaders were fitted to Renault tractors so I thought I would dig out my spare Britain's Renault 145-14 from 1987 and see if it would fit. It does. Same as on the MF, no cutting, no drilling, no glueing. Mate of mine just out the road from me has a real Renault 103.34 from the mid 90's with one of these loaders. I think myself that this probably looks better than the MF 6280. Only downside is that I had to remove the exhaust unit from the tractor to fit the loader but with a little more thought I reckon I can modify an exhaust and replace it.

I will offer the loader up to other tractors as well to see what they will fit and how they look on them. I will do this on other Britain's tractors only as I don't want to spoil any of my others. It looks the part on a New Holland TS135A as well but the tractor will need very slight alteration to accept the loader. Freind of mine has the real tractor with this type of grey loader on it so I think it would be 'in keeping'. Thanks chaps for the comments on it, it's always nice to have a bit of feedback and as they say, the best inventions seem to be the simplest ideas.

Think I'll leave it as it is. You see a lot of tractors with different make loaders on them so it will be something just that little different.

Well, it surprised me to find that if you just slide it down over the bonnet and slide it back, the rear lugs slide under the cab and the front underneath where the 'horns' are on the frame will sit reasonably tight on top of the front axle and the whole loader is fairly firm. Whalla!

No drilling, no cutting, no glueing.

A very good day I thought. A few empty tables but a huge amount of punters. A fair amount of farm related stuff that seemed to be selling very well despite the 'recession', I know that Ed had a very good day selling all the Super 4's he had there, everyone that bought any had the pair. I thought that the new organisers did a good job although it's the stallholders that make it what it is. Nice to meet up with a few of the FTF members, attending both as punters and stallholders.

Westpoint toy fair today. UH Fella front mower. 2X Faucheux front loaders from the Renault Ergos tractors. Both these and the above from Nathan. 2x UH 1:32 MF135. One for a mate that collects that sort of period Fergie models. Britain's boxed Autoway Land Rover with worker carrying a jerry can. Britain's boxed Land Rover Defender. 1997 metalic blue one. Britain's boxed (duck egg) 136F farm tractor roller. Corgi limited JCB Ford Anglia service van. Corgi limited JCB LWB Land Rover Defender. A very rare small 1948 Mettoy clockwork tractor. Diecast with plastic wheels and tin mudguards.

The picture on the box of the blue Super 4 shows the driveshaft to the front axle on the wrong way round but on the actual model it is right.

The odd couple. Had a phone call yesterday from Farmer Ed who will be there with a lot of the new stuff, he told me that everyone may be warned that prices have increased. We knew this as it's been reported in the model sections of the various mags but Ed said that Universal Hobbies stuff has gone up by as much as 22% on all their models. Siku an average of £2 per model. Wiking have not as yet put up theirs. Ed will however be keeping his prices competitive on his existing stock. The new stuff which he had a delivery of last week, he had to pay the new prices. He asked me to pass this information on to fellow collectors to say don't rush to buy anything before you compare prices of stallholders as some of them may have hiked the increase of prices onto their older stock. He's a really good guy and likes to help and certainly keeps me informed.

Westpoint Exhibition Centre, Clyst St Mary, Exeter. EX5. 1DJ. Just off the M5 J29.