Old Pond publishing days

Looking at Logging Part 2 DVD advance information

Looking at Logging Part 2, Pete Connock and Martin Phippard (CP Productions). DVD, 120 minutes. ISBN 978-1-906853-98-3. Available now from Old Pond at £16.95 inc VAT.

This two-hour programme kicks off in Sweden where the CP Productions team spends a day in the company of Michael Kwarforth and his stunning Scania R620 truck-trailer combination. Many of Sweden’s logging trucks are well turned out but the Kwarforth Scania is simply stunning to look at and listen to!

The transport of long logs in Sweden is not a common event but we see just such an operation in the north of the country during the coldest part of winter. Lots of snow and some spectacular winter scenery act as a backdrop to this unique logging process.

Hayes trucks are legendary for their rugged longevity and are popular with log truck operators in the forests of British Columbia. So a twin-steer Hayes with a self-loader working in the Port Alberni area of Vancouver Island is obviously something very special. Join owner-driver Trevor Bennett on a typical day out in his 1975 Mack-powered Hayes HD four-axle tractor and extendable trailer.

Only a dozen or so Challenger trucks were built with most entering service in the 1990s with Canadian logging companies located in the Pacific North-West. Pete Connock and Martin Phippard found one working example driven by a young and enthusiastic company driver who considers his 600hp Challenger to be ‘the best log truck ever built.’

Finland, like Sweden, has long, snow-filled winters. But that doesn’t stop log truck operators facing up to the challenges presented by rough roads, steep gradients and big loads. The film-makers found a Sisu powered by an 18-litre Caterpillar rated at 630hp and marvelled as its driver overcame all the obstacles nature could throw at him.

Although Sweden allows some of the biggest trucks in Europe, operators and shippers alike are always seeking new ways in which to improve productivity. One combination doing just that is a unique 30-metre-long truck plus B-train combination working in northern Sweden at weights of 90-tonnes gross.

Mention the name Steve Drybrough or the Hayes truck known as H17 and you can be assured that these will be instantly recognised anywhere in the world. A log truck driver all his life, Steve is acknowledged as ‘the authority’ in the heavy-duty log truck business. And H17, the Hayes HDX Steve has driven since 1975, is no less famous having featured on a postage stamp and in several trucking publications. In the spring of 2011 CPP captured this inseparable team still hauling gigantic loads of timber from the mountains to the Sarita sort on Vancouver Island.

Some logs are sawn into planks for building material and some go to pulp-mills where they eventually become paper. Inevitable by-products of these processes are sawdust and wood chips but these materials are not wasted. Known as wood residuals, the bulky products are transported in carefully engineered, high-capacity bodies. In this DVD we see a superbly crafted Scania discharging a load at a mill in southern Sweden.

The companion to this programme, Looking at Logging Part 1, has been enthusiastically received: ‘It is an absolute belter filled with great moving images of logging lorries from around the world and there are some real treats in it too … logging truck videos don’t come much better.’ BigLorryBlog.

Parts 1 and 2 are available together as a money-saving set on the Offers page of the Old Pond website

Pete Connock and Martin Phippard have been making trucking programmes for nearly twenty years. Their DVDs are fully researched and narrated and aimed squarely at fellow trucking enthusiasts. More of their programmes can by found in their dedicated section of the Old Pond website.

Old Pond at the LAMMA 2012 show

For several years at the LAMMA show our sales stand has been in the Newark pavilion with the vintage exhibition. At the forthcoming event, 18-19 January, the Newark Pavilion will be given over to catering.

The Vintage Tractors and Machinery Area, including our stand and Martyn's Farm Models, will be in the livestock sheds on the east of the showground near the green gate. We understand that Ford Force will be close by.

Chris Lockwood will be joining us on the stand both days.

For a plan of the reorganised show see here.

Special Transport new DVD in stock

Special Transport, Gertjan Houtman's new DVD on heavy loads, including moves by Mammoet, Sarens and Saan is now in stock at Old Pond at £16.95 inc. VAT.

New Jones Balers book available

The Jones Baler Story, Gwynfor Williams. Hardback, 290 x 210 mm, 196 pages inc. approx 250 photographs and 20 diagrams. £24.95 from Japonica Press.

From 1942 to 1961Jones produced over 13,000 balers in seven main models from stationary hand-tied machines to self-propelled pick-up versions. Their ‘Minor’ was an outstanding success. Among their other products were tedders and hay conditioners, manure spreaders and combines.

Based in Rhosesmor, near Mold in north Wales, they had by 1950 grown from a modest threshing contracting company to have over 160 employees and were recipients of a Gold Medal from the RASE for their Invicta. In 1961, when they sold out to Allis-Chalmers, they were up to 400 staff.

This became a fiercely competitive market in which the economies of scale available to IH and Massey Ferguson in the end proved dominant. After A-C, Jones passed to Bamfords and in 1981 to liquidation.

Gwynfor Williams’ account deals in detail with all the machines, illustrated with a wealth of photographs, copies of advertisements, price lists and instructive cut-aways. He draws on his background as a former lecturer in agricultural machinery at the Lancashire College of Agriculture (Myerscough) and a long-time association with Jones Balers.

He includes information on the company management and its social activities. Useful Appendices include a time line, specifications and estimated production totals. He has enjoyed access to archive material retained by the Jones family. There is a first-hand account of what it was like to work at Jones and an assessment by a baling contractor. Finally, Gwynfor Williams deals with the enthusiasts’ movement for the preservation of Jones machinery and includes some points of contact.

Agriculture in Germany four DVDs by Jörn and Tammo Gläser now in stock

Agriculture in Germany by Jörn and Tammo Gläser, a four-DVD boxed set, includes 120 examples of farm work involving over 250 modern tractors, crawlers, combines, forage harvesters and specialist vehicles. These are all contemporary, filmed throughout Germany in recent months. The total running time is 370 minutes. The handsome boxed set is now available from Old Pond at £74.95 inc VAT.

Alternatively you can buy individual DVDs. They run through the seasons beginning with late winter. More information and a link to purchase is shown in the farm machinery page of the Old Pond website. Each DVD costs £19.95 inc. VAT. Parts 1-3 each run for 90 minutes; Part 4 is approx 100 minutes.

The programmes are narrated in English.

The new DVD guide to honey-making now in stock

Honey a beekeeper's guide, a new DVD  produced by William Smith of Great Takes Television, has now come into stock and is available at Old Pond. The programme, which runs for just under two hours, is beautifully narrated by Radio 4's Susan Rae. The DVD costs £19.95 inc. VAT.

Old Pond has also included this programme as part of a 2-DVD set in which it is paired with A New Introduction to Beekeeping, also produced by William Smith. The set is available on the offers page of the Old Pond website at £34.95 inc VAT.

Classic Tractor Review DVD now in stock

The latest DVD from Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam of Tractor Barn is 'The Classic Tractor Review'. It is now in stock at Old Pond at £16.95 including VAT.

Archive footage online for free viewing

We all know that various institutions hold a wealth of archive film. Some of the more 'commercial' range has been issued on DVD, but this is only a fraction of what is held in collections throughout Britain.

If you haven't yet discovered it, have a look at the website of the East Anglian Film Archive. Their new approach is to put footage online for free viewing. So far they have loaded 200 hours. Presumably this is just the start and as time goes on they will be adding even more. You can search by browsing or by using criteria such as date, place, genre, people and subject.

I have picked one film more or less at at random: The Market Gardener 1949 Layham, Suffolk, a joy for garden machinery enthusiasts.

Agriculture in Germany DVDs from Jörn and Tammo Gläser advance information

Agriculture in Germany Volumes 1-4, Jörn and Tammo Gläser . DVDs: Volumes 1,2 & 3 run for 90 minutes; Volume 4 is 100 minutes. Each DVD has a full English commentary. You can buy individual Volumes at £19.95 (inc. VAT) each or the four together in a handsome boxed set for £74.95. Now in stock at Old Pond.

Agricultural film-makers Jörn and Tammo Gläser have travelled widely through Germany to make four new programmes to document the work of farmers and contractors using the latest agricultural machinery. In total there are 120 examples of farm work including over 250 modern tractors, crawlers, combines, forage harvesters and specialist vehicles. Enthusiasts of their previous documentaries on farming in North America and Russia will need no introduction to their highly popular productions.

Volume 1 starts in early in a wet spring when soft ground makes cultivation difficult. Agricultural contractors are drilling beet and planting potastoes. Soil preparation for spring cereals is in full swing.

Volume 2 moves into early summer with New Holland and Claas forage harvesters taking first cuts of grass. Large-scale Krone combines are at work, and the highlights of the programme include the 524 hp Claas Xerion 5000 and the Agco Challenger.

In Volume 3, combines with cutterbars up to 12 metres are busy harvesting, followed by balers and large John Deere articulated tractors dealing with the stubble.  Film from Bavaria deals with grassland and we see forestry machines at work in Hesse.

Machines at work in Volume 4 – the autumn – include the Krone BigX 1100 and Fendt’s new Kantana 65 forage harvester as well as the Claas Lexion 770 and Case IH Quadtrac. Winter cereals are being drilled, while sugar beet is harvested and loaded.

The programmes are narrated in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

New Threshing Machines book published

Threshing Machines, Trevor Gregory. Hardback 290 x 208 mm, 256 pages inc. approx 245 photographs and 132 line illustrations. Published by Japonica Press and available from them at £27.95.

If you are going to pay twenty-eight pounds for a book you expect something substantial. Here you get it. Threshing Machines is large-format, wide-ranging and packed full of illustrations.

The contents are: Before the machine • crops • schematic design • construction • variations • accessories, variants and exports • operation • adjustment • surveying the makers • ancillary equipment • historical context • early attempts • developments after 1840 • motive power: before steam; steam; oil • governors • preservation and restoration • combine harvester metamorphosis. There is a list of illustrations, glossary and bibliography, but no index.