|
Hello Everyone, My book The Rototiller in America is complete. I wanted to repeat that from the last Newsletter in October. It is available online at Infinity Publishing Website www.BBOTW.com or you can order a copy from me. I have been making some changes to my Website. I have deleted the Want Ads and For Sales ads for you the visitors of my Website. I really didn't get that many to put in and Darin Van Ausdal, and Charlie Zuck Websites are getting more action anyway. My own items are now the only material listed. I am also starting to put links for each brand or country on those pages. A lot of first timers did not look at the Link page, when they email me all they were looking for was other contacts. So this will save me some time on emails, not that I mind, they can just get the information quicker that way. I can then reply to other question faster. One mistake I made was not to send Michiel Hooijberg (The Netherlands), Charlie R. Moore (UK), Alain Charles (France), and Charlie Zuck (USA) draft copies of my book before I sent it to the publisher. They could have picked out any contradictions or erroneous facts and saved me embarrassment of these errors. Not that the other better known author books are error free. My work is designed to be used in conjunction with my website because new facts are discovered all of the time. I don't want you to think my book is full of erroneous information but a few minor corrections have been pointed out or new information was found after the manuscript was sent to the publisher. On page 278, von Meyenburg Patent No. 1,018,843 the patent issue date is incorrect. It should be February 27, 1912; this is the patent that was filed in 1910. This was pointed out to the publisher for correction but was not done. The 1905 date is his European Patent date that I came across one time but I can't lay my hands on that reference material right now. Michiel Hooijberg spotted this, so I had to say something. Michiel also pointed out on page 190, the next to last paragraph, I have SIMAR instead of Motorkultur AG listed as having a ride-on tractor-tiller by 1914. Early in my research I believed SIMAR and Motorkultur were the same company but they are not. Gründer contributions to rototillers was not found in reference material from the USA, and he had no American patents to make his name known. Michiel, who speaks four languages that I know of, also pointed out in my attempt to be worldly, my chapter 'The Suisse' is grammatically incorrect and should be 'la Suisse' or 'The Swiss'. In fact Michiel show me how to say it in French, German, and Dutch. I have been told English is one of the hardest languages to learn, but in French sometimes you capitalize a name and sometimes you don't. Then, there is German, were you just take the description of something and compound the words and that's the word. Charlie R. Moore, after receiving his copy, mentioned that SIMAR was imported into the UK by the Swiss automobile manufacturer Piccard & Pictet before 1930. Michiel Hooijberg who was answering some questions of mine referred to his website's SIMAR history page, noting in 1918 the Piccard & Pictet vacant factory was being used by the forerunner of SIMAR, La Precision, to make three-wheeled prototypes of a Bodenfrasen using von Meyenburg patents. See his Website for the details. I did not want to steal his material for the book, he has the advantage of understanding the French, German, English, and Dutch material; and being in proximity of libraries and museums in the SIMAR factory region helps also. Online I could not find much material myself. Alain Charles and Michiel have helped me find European Websites. 
|
Alain also pointed out the picture of the 1919 SIMAR was in the december 1999/january 2000 (see not capitalized) issue of "l'officiel Jardin Motoculture", not in a 1919 issue. Charlie Zuck answered one question I had in the book about the "roto-buster" option for the Roto-Ette one-wheel Home Gardener model. He sent me a picture of the roto-buster from a 1946 Roto-Ette manual. I have since found a copy of this 60 page manual, it has not arrived yet but it is in the mail.  This Roto-Buster is the off-spring of C.W. Kelsey's Patent 2,366,626 for a "Material Working Apparatus". Another item I questioned was von Meyenburg salutation of Doctor as used by C.W. Kelsey. He was not a Doctor or Professor that any of us has ever found evidents of. As stated in the "Ground Rules" page iii, Hannes Meyer calls von Meyenburg an engineer. Alain Charles told me that honorific university academic titles were given to people working in industrial and others fields in Germany and probably in Switzerland, I guess in the US also. Michiel Hooijberg has in his website von Meyenburg was an mechanical engineer having attened ETH (Electro-Technical High School). Here we have a cultural difference, you don't get a engineer degree from a high school in America. Maybe a license or journeymen certificate in a trade. I have a journeyman certificate as a aircraft electrician after going through a four-year apprenticeship program post high school. One thing to note is that some manuals cover multiple models and picture does not always match the model, one example is on page 199 were the owner had a SIMAR Model 66DDH, powered by a Hatz 12 h.p. 4-cycle diesel engine, but the picture is a 66DDS, powered by a Sachs 12 h.p. 2-cycle engine. The same is true for the manuals for the Ariens TA20A - TA28B Trans-A-Matic were only a the TA28B is shown in the manual. Graham-Paige/Frazer used latest model on it's manual even though they covered all models made up to that time. I will correct these to make the caption correct. Alain Charles also informed me the French website where I got the information on the SIMAR T100A tractor may have the engine listed as a 4-cycle but it may actually be a 2-cycle engine, we will investigate this. I will contact Bernard Gautheron, the owner, again and ask him. Michiel Hooijberg then mentioned that the T100B had the 2-cycle engine during late production or as an option. You noticed most of these problems are about SIMAR's and von Meyenburg. I must have done a fair job in the rest of the book. So if you do come across some contradicting material or have material to add I will address them in future Newsletters and changes in my website. If I can ever negotiate a book deal for a hardback color version I will publish a second and more complete edition, but I'm working on the next edition as we speak just incase. A German language edition would be interesting. And Don't Forget To Keep in Touch |