Reviving the old ways

We were clearing the house of a relative who died and I decided to try and renovate an old Qualcast E1 push mower that they had that had seen better times. I have a small lawn and liked the idea of not having use the noisy electric one in favour of the classic sound of a push mower.

I had tried to use it occasionally when helping to maintain their small garden; but it was really hard to push and almost rusted up from living outdoors in all weathers. I typically resorted to an electric strimmer instead!

So eventually I took it home with me. Here’s the baby, minus the handle:

There were a few things missing.

It lacked the curved plate that slots in between the back roller and the blades which throws the cut grass forward into the box. And the grass box was also missing.

The blades were sound, but the whole cutting mechanism needed a really good sharpen and adjustment. The adjustment screws for the bottom blade were rusted in and would not budge. Did I mention it was really hard to push too?

Where to start?
An internet search on the model name found a free PDF of the original instruction leaflet (here). This was very useful, and explained the whole mechanism and adjustment methods. Interesting it also explained the ‘lapping’ method to resharpen blunted blades! This was starting to make sense!

Missing parts?
I looked on ebay for matching mowers hoping to find some spare parts. I ended up bidding on a whole old mower that seemed to have the grass delivery plate, but no box. Bids started at £5. Nobody else bid. When I drove there to collect it I saw he had some more old mowers for sale and one of them (a B1 model though) had a box! The box fitted the E1 perfectly so I offered to take the second mower for another £5 and so I came home with both! They were also even more rusty and neglected. Here’s what I bought:


So, I now had all the parts I needed, and a few spares!

Workers’ playtime
The first problem was getting the adjustment screws to move at all. Even WD-40 didn’t help. So I left it soaking in and went to a local car parts shop to see about lapping paste. It’s a mix of emery powder in a thick oil used to grind engine valves - I had no idea people still did that sort of thing. He had some on the shelf, we chatted and I explained my project and the problem of the rusty screws and he pulled up a can of ‘Forte Rust Penetrant’ and said this never fails, so I bought that too.

After using the new spray and leaving it for a bit the screws started to release. I could now wiggle them a bit. Add more stray and leave another day. Repeat. Eventually the screws came loose. They were in terrible condition:

I replaced them with similar ones from one of the spares I had bought. So now I had finally got the adjustment mechanism working.

Now to start with the sharpening. Basically the method is to smear a bit of the lapping paste onto the blade edges and hand-crank the blades around – but in reverse. Normally the wheels ‘free wheel’ in reverse and only drive the blades when going forward. The PDF explained that to make the opposite happen you have to take off the wheels and move the small drive pinion (connecting the wheel cogs to the blade axle) from the right hand wheel over to replace the left hand one. Replace the left hand wheel and now when you spin the wheel it drives the blades backwards. Obviously you do all this with it up on a bench, not on the lawn! Seems fairly straightforward, but I was careful to keep track of all the bits, and which side they belonged to.

Sharpening went slowly, every stiff to start with, but gradually getting easier as the high points got worn down and more of the blades took on a sharpened edge. Eventually over several sessions the blades would cut brown paper cleanly (this was the test advised in the original PDF).

While this was happening I also cleaned off all the gunk I could find in wheel cogs, and took off as much loose rust and grease as I could from all the other parts in readiness for painting.

Painting was done with Hammerite. I used green for grass cutting and collection parts, blue for the main body parts and red for the handle and wheel caps (pretty close to the original). A couple of coats later and it was looking smart again.

The wooden roller seemed sound but it got a bit of attention to some worm-holes and a surface oiling.

The final result – ready to mow:

P.S. It was still quite an effort to push, granted there was quite a growth of early cut grass, but I suspect I need to develop technique and some more core strength!