Just recently while walking around the farm with my wife, I discovered a VERY old, but seemingly complete tractor drawn grader. The operator stands at the very rear of the machine and controls the blade while his/her partner operates the tractor. It has two large hand-wheels with friction brakes on foot pedals for manipulating the moldboards up and down travel, a rack and pinion/hand crank combination for drawbar circle travel and a pedal-lock/lever combo for drawbar side-shift. It is to be pulled by a small tractor, which supports it's front, while it appears that someone has fabricated or incorrectly replaced the rear axle that wears a pair of trailer tires. The ONLY markings that I can find on the entire machine say "AUSTIN" followed by some undiscernable numbers, this casting is located on the frame directly above the circle at the point where the control rods for the moldboard pivot downwards. I will post pictures as soon as possible. I would like to gather as much information about this as possible as my wife and I would like to make an attempt at our first restoration. Thanks in advance. Shane.
I can't tell you anything about your grader, F-1.08-F.G., but a couple of weeks ago I was at a farm here and they had a little tractor (probably originally horse) drawn grader parked in their yard. It also was an "AUSTIN" with the name cast in the frame above the circle. I had never seen or heard of them before, but it would have to be one of the first ones they ever made and although it is very worn, the farmer still uses it occasionally. If I am back that way, I will try and get some pictures of it, but it is quite a coincidence that you should post this, because like I said, it was only a couple of weeks ago I saw this grader and it quite intrigued me. Rn'R.
Its probably a grader from before the time Austin Western was formed. Western was from the Western wheeled scraper fame I think. They combined and went on to make motor graders.
Pulled grader . I have some old fotocopies from Austin-Western and Ryan graders . Austin is started in 1890 until 1920 then it was Austin-Western and in the thertys se the took over Ryan and from 1960 it was BLH ( Baldwin Lima Hamilton ) .