Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Equipment Shed => Topic started by: ukmike on May 22, 2012, 00:16
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Came across an old message thread by Growster when I 'Googled' Rolo Cultivator. Tried to post a reply but something went wrong so am trying a new thread. So glad to see that Anthonypaul was still using a Rolo a year ago and hope he still is! It was manufactured by my father back in the 1960s. He set up his own business after the war from our home in St Andrew's Road Malvern - his workshop was at 123 Court Road and his business name was Industrial and Agricultural Improvements. Unfortunately his robustly constructed machine was expensive to produce and his business was ailing by the end of the 1960s. Even more unfortunately, he succumbed to the epidemic of Asian 'flu that hit the country in the winter of 1969/70 and, sadly, died in January 1970. His business was then wound down. As well as the Rolo cultivator, he also developed a hand-held border weeding tool known as the Swift-Ho which was developed further by a Slough company known as Greensleeves, although their version was somewhat lightweight and less effective. He also worked on a tractor-drawn soil crumbler which I believe was trialled by JCB in the late 1960s. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who still has any of his machines - I saw a Rolo at a horticultural implements museum on the Gower a few years ago but know of no others in existence apart from Anthonypaul's.
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Mike, this is very interesting! If you 'Gargle' Rolo, there's a pic on another site, but what you describe has to be the right tool of course!
Also interested to learn about your Malvern address. My dad was very much involved with hop-picking machines, which were supplied by Bruff in Suckley. We always stayed in Malvern so it must have been engineer's heaven, what with the cars etc...
Funnily enough, you mention a border-weeding tool, and I've been trying to figure out exactly that - something with an edging blade, and with a wheel which will roll in the immediate border on the grass/earth bed, and cut the edge while hoiking out the weeds etc.
I've got so far with a wheel and a blade, but still am not generally happy with it, so I continually revert to the 'Growster wheel-hoe', which still does the trick!
Wheel hoes are dead easy to use, and very effective. I can do beds on 'The Patch' with almost as much oomph as the chap next to me does with his big rotovator, and one good thing about it is that you finish up with a rakeable tilth, but still a few lumps, but not the complete granular tilth from a rotovator, which, if the soil doesn't have enough humus, can set like concrete after rain!
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I had a Rolo up until a couple of years ago, and I currently have a Jalo with a furrower attached, and a hand made twin wheel hoe with cultivators on
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I had a Rolo up until a couple of years ago, and I currently have a Jalo with a furrower attached, and a hand made twin wheel hoe with cultivators on
I reckon that's a definite requirement for a photo Flatcat!
A twin wheel machine is high on my manufacturing agenda, but it's still on the drawing board!
Sounds marvellous!
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I found this old photo of my father's workshop where the RoLo was made - will also try to find pictures of Swift-Ho in due course. My father's implements were influenced by Jalo - he didn't think much of their design so set out to improve on them!
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I had a Rolo up until a couple of years ago, and I currently have a Jalo with a furrower attached, and a hand made twin wheel hoe with cultivators on
I reckon that's a definite requirement for a photo Flatcat!
A twin wheel machine is high on my manufacturing agenda, but it's still on the drawing board!
Sounds marvellous!
I will confess that I didn't make it, but I did paint it, as it was completely rusted when I purchased it from an auction a couple of years ago for the sum of £4
(http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2999/chair001.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/402/chair001.jpg/)
The handle and implements are from a Jalo
The wheels and the curved rails are from a Douglas gapper (these are aluminium)
The rear section that holds the impliments is made from various angled steel sections
It really does work well and is a pleasure to use
Here are some 'as found' condition photos, before I painted it. You can see the different sections more clearly
(http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3531/picture143sx.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/picture143sx.jpg/)
(http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/8655/picture144v.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/picture144v.jpg/)
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Marvellous job you've done there Flatcat! I just love it!
I see what you mean about the double wheels now, as I was wondering if they were in tandem, not side by side. I've been considering a principle, where one wheel behind the other could create a 'weeding' effort, or an edge cutting process.
I can see that you can probably arrange the tines in several configurations - is that right?
Thank you for posting this, I'm off back to the drawing board - again!
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Marvellous job you've done there Flatcat! I just love it!
I see what you mean about the double wheels now, as I was wondering if they were in tandem, not side by side. I've been considering a principle, where one wheel behind the other could create a 'weeding' effort, or an edge cutting process.
I can see that you can probably arrange the tines in several configurations - is that right?
Thank you for posting this, I'm off back to the drawing board - again!
Thank you, Growster :)
Yes, the frame allows for any attachments to be bolted on or off anywhere along the two runners
A twin wheel tandem hoe sounds intriging. I guess it would look something like one of those old wheeled seeders that have one wheel in front of the other
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A seeder with a wheel fore and aft would be to keep the seeds sown at a constant depth?
If one applied the same wheel configuration with a weed/cultivator then it may not allow a variable angle/depth of attack by the tines unless the rear wheel was readily adjustable for height.
smud6ie
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Loved Flatcat's pictures. The double wheel was also a feauture of another of my dad's products known as a Roterrier I think. My brother-in-law still has one so next time I visit him I will take some photos. He also has a Swift-Ho. Meanwhile here is a photo of a Rolo looking somewhat neglected at the Park Mill Museum on the Gower.
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Help...I can't seem to upload the picture :( I've checked that the size is right and tried several times - does anyone know how I can get this fixed? I can get the file address in the attachments box but when I press 'post' the address just disappears and nothing happens.
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I'll send you a pm.
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G. Wiz will sort it all out Mike - never fear, he is an expert!
What I continually ponder, is that if one is pushing a wheel hoe - whatever design, why doesn't this soil rearrangement figure as good as a motorised cultivator?
Yes, it doesn't work very deep, and yes, there is a modicum of personal effort, but, the result is pretty good isn't it?
Do veg really need to have that super-cultivated depth to live in? They're veg after all, aren't they...?
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I guess that people think mechanical rotovators are easy and require less effort, but I think hand-held ones might be more versatile and easier to manouevre as well as doing just as good a job!
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Wheel/ push hoes do exactly what they say - hoe
We use both a wheel hoe (to cultivate the ground once dug to keep it looking fresh) and a Howard 400 rotavator in the autumn to turn the soil over
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UKmikes photo....
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Here's a scan of the page from a Marshalls catalogue from 1988 (which started all this off for me...!)
Gwiz, can the pic before this post be embiggered at all please?
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Does it need to be? when I click on it, it en-biggers as if by magic. ;)
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Does it need to be? when I click on it, it en-biggers as if by magic. ;)
Ha ha ha Gwiz - the degree of embiggerement is commensurate with the size of my eyeballs at this time of morning on my aging PC...;0)
It only embiggers a little bit here - perhaps it's the sea air - about 12 miles away...!
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I find I have the same problem with embiggerment with my wallet. I look at a shiny trinket that I want, and then at my wallet, the wallet looks huge.
I go to pay for shiny trinket and wallet has become enshrunken........
Strange. ;)
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I find I have the same problem with embiggerment with my wallet. I look at a shiny trinket that I want, and then at my wallet, the wallet looks huge.
I go to pay for shiny trinket and wallet has become enshrunken........
Strange. ;)
There's another very funny joke about that subject Gwiz, which you would undoubtedly moderate if I sent it in...;0)
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I have no idea what you mean.....
AHEM!!! Anyway, moving back to topic....... ;)