Originally Posted by Adaptor
GREAT Pick Up Noel, you'll soon need to take over the Winning View room or next door for this harness museum that you are passionately getting together
I will see you next week, 100% if you get my drift....hope it is a great night
Spotted gum is very dense/hard wood and rather oily - makes a fantastic floor. Noel, do you know if it had characteristics suited to sulkies and thus its selection?
ps Might ask TC to role these into a Sulkies thread
per un PUGNO di DOLLARI
Kevin..
I have no idea. I know that spotted gum splintered and hickory was less likely to. We are trying to find an intact Hammill for our collection.
Lots of partial ones !
Spotted gum was nearly as strong as Hickory and could be readily steam-bent to shape. It was the best Australian timber for sulky shafts. The only other one I recall was Mountain Ash, which was significantly weaker than spotted gum. One major draw-back of spotted gum shafts was their tendency to break into a long lance-like point that was both very sharp and very strong. Just the thing for penetrating horses and drivers.
After hickory, Spotted Gum was the best available wood shaft material. But even Spotted Gum was hard to get in sufficient quantities (wood shafted sulkies broke a LOT of shafts) by the early 1970s, which was when R.J. Walsh & Son started hunting around for a substitute. That hunt ended with hard-drawn type 304 stainless steel tube.
Another Victorian regional sulky maker was Tasman in Echuca. Like Wes Hammill, they were timber craftsmen..to be politically correct persons, who bent their own timber. Not sure of the timeline but I think Tasman were still going when we went to chrome backed sulkies where the Hammill's were all timber.
G'day Jenny,
How slack to have missed you guys in the Elmore thread.
Thanks for that, the Royal Speeds. I'd got my B's mixed up. I remembered they were in S.A and the Brewer's, would admire them when guys like Wayne Honan came down. I think B Gath had a hickory Brewer made especially for Markovina. I bet you'd love to yoke one up to the Royal Speed and give these new carts what for even though your mum's one would be precious.
Royal Speeds and Brewers, just like Maori's Idol and True Roman.
Last edited by arlington; 02-11-2015 at 10:18 AM.
Thanks for that info Jim. I had a double thickness of Spotted for a floor, when it had to be redone due to shrinking (first lot not kiln dried) - they lay the second over the first. It was so solid you would swear you were walking on a concrete slab. The off cuts were great for the open fire so I can imagine how that floor fueled the fire when that house went up in smoke.
per un PUGNO di DOLLARI
Hi people, I am doing a bit of research and I have so far been unable to track down the first production date or year of the Brewer Racing sulky, which was ubiquitous at Harold Park and many other tracks in the period 1950 - 1970. Kevin Newman, Vin Knight and many others used the Brewer and it was - I believe - the first sulky fitted with a tubular steel back bow. It was designed by the late (died 1959?) Harold Brewer and the ones I used to see for repairs were beautifully made. They were typically fitted with Freebairn Singles (possibly the most efficient sulky race wheels ever made?).
I have checked the patent office, but there are no sulky patents of any description in Harold Brewer's name, which is odd, because the word around the traps in the early 1960s was that the tubular back bow was patented and Harold was said to be ready to defend his patent.
Anyhow, anyone know anything?
Not too sure I can help Jim, Dad's first race bike was an fully timber "Egan type" that had seen a few lives before he got it in the mid/late 60's, his next was a second hand ( and only second hand) all Hickory timber round back sulky that "Flash Adios" had won a bucket load of country and City races with Bob Austin in the bike. I drove my first dozen or so winners in that cart and to this day reckon it is the best cart I'v sat in. I'm also pretty sure it was a Regal, you would probably know better than me.
The Freebairn wheel you mention were truly the bees knees weren't they? In loose or heavy going they made a massive difference to how horses got to the line.
The Brewer bike had a big reputation as you would know without my saying< I have no idea why, but I always thought the Brewer was made and sold in Victoria.
You have also enlightened me on Steel tube backs, always thought it was a Regal "advancement".
Hope you get plenty of answers on this forum, but bikes are not often discussed.
Cheers,
Dan
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