Vintage treasures put on show at Crank Up

East Otago Vintage Machinery Club secretary Gerard Sheat cranks the club’s recently restored 1920...
East Otago Vintage Machinery Club secretary Gerard Sheat cranks the club’s recently restored 1920 concrete mixer. PHOTO: BRENDON MCMAHON
The sight and sounds of pulsing vintage contraptions drew aficionados of things past to the annual East Otago Vintage Machinery Club’s annual Crank Up at Palmerston at the weekend.

Club secretary Gerard Sheat said it was the second two-day Crank Up and it had proved very successful.

It gave the club a chance to bring out its treasures — including tractors and stationary engines — and to give them a run.

It also provided a setting for enthusiasts from across the South Island to bring their vintage machinery, he said.

Much of what was there was once commonly seen around the countryside, with all manner of stationary engines and tractors once regularly used for agricultural, domestic and industrial purposes on display.

Pride of place in the weekend event was the club’s very own rare and recently restored 1920 London (Canada) Concrete Mixer.

It had been completely rebuilt over about 18 months.

"It was found on someone’s property around here, then it was brought to the club", club member Paul Henry said.

It was at the point of disintegration when the club first got it and was something fairly rare.

Initially its Novo "hit and miss" petrol engine was extracted for Timaru man Merv Cloake, who took on the task and "lovingly restored" it.

Meanwhile, club members prised apart what was left, to replicate the original mixer "from the ground up", Mr Henry said.

Mr Cloake said the engine was completely seized and "rusted solidly".

Asked how he dealt with it, he dryly replied, "with difficulty".

However, a combination of a long soak in a bath of engineering solvents, over months, and the brute force of an improvised puller eventually liberated the internal workings.

Mr Sheat said the club’s permanent display, on the northern outskirts of Palmerston, has been under way since about 1987.