British Anzani…My first one !

I have visited Ireland’s National Ploughing Championships, every year, with my son James , now aged 13, since he was a baby. We usually visited on Wednesday, the mid day of this 3 day annual event. However, as the 2019 event was being held within just a few miles of our home, I visited for 2 days, Tuesday and Thursday. When we visited each year, we would always take the long trek away from the trade and commercial areas to have a look at the ploughing. On this last occasion when we visited the ploughing area the ” Vintage Pedestrian Tractor ” event was underway. I had never seen these machines and was fascinated with them. Noting that our county was not represented, I thought it should be investigated further,

After some Googling to learn a bit more , I thought I might get my hands on a scrapper and do it up, but then I saw this one on eBay, on offer by David Sheard in Scotland. A month later it was on a pallet and en route to Ireland. The end of year is our mad busy time at work, so the first opportunity I got to start it up and give it a try was Dec 26th, ….a bit of ploughing on a garden patch.

This is the video clip I saw of the tractor being demonstrated by David Sheard before I purchased it. Many thanks to David for rescuing this tractor from a ditch and then stripping it down and rebuilding it. https://youtu.be/jmuhzS45ZX0

Secured to a pallet for transport from Scotland to Carlow , Ireland

Loading pallet in Scotland

Being loaded onto a truck in Scotland, as it starts its journey to Ireland. The weight of the tractor with plough attached , all secured onto a pallet is unevenly distributed, so moving the loaded pallet truck is not easy. It’s also challenging getting it into the truck as the overall length is slightly longer than the internal width of the truck. This truck has a good level deep tail lift attached, but the truck delivering it at the Carlow end had a much shallower, slightly sloped tail lift, so it was quite difficult and more than a little dodgy unloading it. https://youtu.be/FvQ0yxiCrVw

On Dec 26th, we got our first opportunity of giving her a run on a small garden plot. With no disc or coulter and still a good coat of paint on the board, coupled with the fact that I didn’t really know what I was doing meant that the ploughing result wasn’t great.  But it was good to give her a run. Got good advice here from Jim re necessity of getting the board completely clean and polished. I used some paint stripper to remove most of the paint, then some work with a sander wheel. Due to the age of the board, it is quite heavily pitted , but after many sessions with wet emery paper and keeping the board well oiled between outings, the surface of the board is now well improved. Initially, soil just built up on the board, but now, most of the board stays clean……..still some more polishing required.

From this number stamped on the top of the engine, the year of manufacture is “R”….which tells me that it was manufactured some time between September 1954 and September 1955

The Rebuild by David Sheard

David rescued this British Anzani Iron Horse from the back of a farmer’s ditch near Frazerborgh and proceeded to strip it down and rebuild it. It didn’t have a plough attached, but he did manage to get one later. The photo galleries below show the original condition and the rebuild , in progress.

A selection of photos taken before the real work began.

A selection of photos showing the strip down and rebuild in progress.

A Selection of Photos showing the completed job……almost ready to plough.