Harkness single furrow plough home at last
- Thread starter The Fife Plooman
- Start date
Hi the worn one is one inch smaller than it should , the size was taken of known measurements from a template,We will know better when we fit it
Hi First rally of the season 4 th of June
are you doing any practicing before that to get the plow shinned up and adjusted
At the moment all the ground that can be ploughed is not available until September but we can only hope a bit of ground ia available sooner
Hi John Harness was a blacksmith from Dumfries area of Scotland the smiddy made Harkness horse ploughs Single furrow ploughs I have 1 of 3 that I know of they made 2 furrow ploughs for tractors there is one ,3 furrow plough in existence and they made 2 furrow drag ploughs all the boards were the same.John Harkness had an apprentice who took over the smiddy died in 2022.The smiddy still stands today with all the moulds for the plough parts .The ploughmen in the area are keeping their eyes on things .All over Scotland there were smiddies that made ploughs to suit the the soil in their area .some names Fisker ,Star ,Newlands, Low to name but a few.I am waiting on someone giving the history and number of Harkness ploughs made and how many ploughmen use them today. PS they were made from the 1940 s until 1960
Hi File thanks for that informative posting very interesting when you get more history let us know, blacksmiths are all but gone here in the Midwest US I remember several of the guys the we had here in my small town was a very voluble asset to our area I still have and use several things he made for me
Another puzzle today .When you took off the skimmer for high cut ploughing you put on this spacer to keep the disc tight and to stop the spindle from wearing .Who would have thought this out ,a very clever man Mr John Harkness was such a man .I have heard there used to be 6 men working full time in the smiddy .The men worked 24 hours a day keeping the furnaces going to pour the moulds as everything was made in the smiddy .It was said that they made 136 ploughs a year not bad for a village smiddy.
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Great discovery today.Started to clean up knife skimmer ,discovered the words J Harkness Ruthwell and H L stamped on the parts thi makes it original with makers stamp ,great find.J harkness was the Scottish plough maker and Ruthwell was where the smiddy was ,more history
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Some done to my Harkness single furrow plough some surprises Knife skimmer is stanmped H L could be Harkness Lea skimmer ,Disc skimmer is stamped H D could be Harkness disc skimmer .Some painting done .When I dismantled the disc skimmer I found the twine bearings still intact ,Now that is one for the books If it is original it is from the 1940 era ? not bad for a piece of string
