Working on the IH #9 Mower - Paint!

I haven't done much with the horses since the tractor show, but I did start working more on the mower.

The first thing I needed was some parts.  I searched online, and found a place in Pennsylvania.  They are B.W. Macknair & Son.  Link Here  They were great.  They answered my emails and got me the stuff I needed.  I ordered the entire clamp end of the pitman bar (mine was almost all rotted away from sitting in dirt for years and years), I also ordered some springs for the wheel hubs, and two new bolts to hold on the sickle bar.  I would recommend the Macknairs to anyone.  They were great to deal with.  I also ordered a new pitman bar from Jeff at www.bigblackhorse.com.  He is also great to deal with.

New Pitman bar clamps on a new pitman.  60 dollars well spent!

I've reached a point in the restoration where you have to decide a) do I just get it back together in usable shape? or b) do I take the time to take it apart and paint it so it looks nice?  There are pro's and con's to both these choices.  On one side, you have a piece of working machinery faster, with less effort, but on the other hand, with a little more effort, you have more than a working machine, but a pretty piece of farm equipment.  Ultimately I decided that since the wheels are already off, I am going to paint it and make it look nice.

Now, the painting of a #9 mower is an odd thing.  It is VERY hard to find what the original's looked like.  All the ones I see are fence-row rust colored.  :)  On the back of the Lynn Miller horse drawn mower book, there is a color picture of one of the mowers.  I have never seen one in real life painted like this.  Most the ones I see are just all red, with white or yellow wheels.  After looking all over the internet, I found a forum that was discussing this, and a memo was listed with the original paint decision.  Link here.  After more reading, it just sounds like most people today just paint them whatever color they want.  I decided to try to stick to the memo linked above.

(I have tried very hard to find a picture to post of the back of the Lynn Miller book so you can see what I'm shooting for, but I cannot find one.  I will have to take a picture of the book with my camera and post the picture)

Found this paint at Tractor Supply.  Ford Blue, IH Red, and IH White.

What I plan to do is paint the wheel hubs, sickle bar, and seat spring Ford Blue,  paint the wheels and metal pitman parts IH White (team pole is already white as well),  paint the outer grassboard and sticks Caterpillar Yellow, and then paint the main body (including lifting assembly and everything) IH Red.  I should note that I'm also going to keep the pitman bar with the natural wood grain it has now.

So last night, I got started with some of the easier stuff.  I prepped and painted the wheel hubs and metal pitman parts (except the clamps which came from Macknair and sons with a nice powdercoated black paint job).

Wheel hubs and pitman parts painted with 1st coat.

To prep the parts, I'm just using a wire wheel on a drill and scrubbing the old parts really good down to the bare metal.  I am then scrubbing them with mineral spirits and letting them dry.  As soon as they dry, I apply the first coat of paint.  I'm gonna let that dry for a day, then add a second coat.  I'll then let this dry for a few days to make sure the paint is fully dried so I can bolt things back together without the damaging the paint.

After I prepped and painted these parts, I turned my attention to the sickle bar.  The pins holding it on the mower, were eaten away and stuck in place.  Since I got new pins from Macknair & Sons, I used a sawzall to cut the old pins and remove the sickle bar.  Those pins were stuck solid.  I tried tapping them out after it was cut free, and they wouldn't budge.  That's what happens when two metal pieces sit still in the dirt for 50 years.

With this view, you can see the 3 cuts necessary to free the bar.  2 on the right, and one on the left.

If you look close, you can see the pins still stuck in the mower.

After freeing the bar, It's now time to clean it up, paint it, and make it usable.  The blade itself looks pretty good.  There are a few ledger plates on the guards that I don't like though.  One is lifted, and another looks bent.  I'm going to have to fix these before I can get it back together.  The following pictures will show you exactly what I'm seeing.  I should note ... the Lynn Miller book pointed out that you shouldn't worry about guard tips that may be bent.  They do not need to be bent straight and should be used as is.  This does not affect the mower functionality.  Some of the guard tips on my bar are slightly bent.

Sickle Blade:  To my eyes, this looks pretty good.  Nice and straight, and teeth are not bent or chipped.

Sickle bar: looks alright, with a few exceptions

Lifted ledger plate.  If you look at the plate behind the first in the pic, you'll see how they should be seated.  This one plate is raised up.  A rivit is supposed to hold it down.

This ledger plate is slightly bent up.  I believe this would cause problems if I was trying to use the mower.  I'll need to replace this.

There is a part of me that thinks I should just replace all the ledger plates.  However, I currently don't have a sickle anvil which is used to remove them.  Also, I'd have to find and buy the legder plates.  This costs money.  I suppose if I really wanted to spend money, I could just buy all new guards and just bolt them on.  Decisions decisions!  :)

That's it for now.  Who thought a blog post about restoring parts of a mower could be so long.  :)  If anyone has any tips or tricks, or anything they would like to share on this topic, please comment on the blog!  I'd love to hear opinions!


IH #9 Mower Page