PAGE 12. The Teagle Cycle Attachment & Hedgecutter

Though I’ve had many different clip-ons over the years, I’ve never owned a Teagle cycle attachment engine. However, a few years ago while browsing around Kempton Park Autojumble I was chatting to Alan Hummerstone and with my attention elsewhere I tripped over something protruding from beneath his stall. His son Robert made some vague excuses about it belonging to one of their friends. Yes, I suppose I could have reported them to the health and safety commission; instead I bought the protruding item. It was a 1950’s Teagle Hedgecutter. And thanks to that incident I have whiled away many happy hours cutting hedges ever since.

Well, I tell a lie. I did get it started up when I returned home with it, and I did threaten to attend a local vintage club meeting with it, but actually this giant vibrating saw seemed so dangerous that I’ve not used it again since. It just shows how safety standards have changed over the past 50 years, and what we are used to now, comfortably wrapped up in our British ‘nanny state.’ I wonder if that attitude also indirectly comments on the use of our old cyclemotors on 21st. century roads?

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The following article was first published in 1984; It was reproduced from the Moped Archive. I like pictures, so I’ve added my Teagle brochure to brighten up the story.

The Teagle engine by Kenneth Crago

Although now retired for quite a while, I was Designer at Teagle at the time when we used to make petrol engines, approximately 1952 to 1964. Previously I was on the design staff of D Napier and Son, Acton, London on aero engine design, a bit too large for your interest.

The firm of Teagle was started by Mr W T Teagle, originally a farmer, and still very energetically concerned with the firm as managing director and also very concerned with the design of new implements. The firm progressed from very humble surroundings to now three factories embodying some of the most modern machine tools and equipment.

We produced two basic engines: a two-stroke 50cc and a four-stroke 126cc; both being produced due to necessity, which is the usual reason. The 50cc was designed as part of a manually carried and operated hedge cutter. The unusual feature of having the belt pulley central was for a variety of reasons. It provided the correct balance of the engine in the machine, it enabled an on/off clutch by tightening the belt and it enabled the use of an overhung crankshaft. It also widely spread the crankshaft bearings, a desirable factor. The overhung crankshaft enabled a case-hardened crankpin, the use of a needle roller big end and a lower standard of lubrication, a very necessary feature where farmers were concerned! The crankshaft was made in three parts: the main shaft, web (a stamping home-produced) and a high nickel case-hardened pin. The shaft was welded with the pin under water, thus retaining its hardness. The crankcase & cylinder, cylinder head and cover & cowling were pressure die-cast in high silicon aluminium alloy by an outside firm to our design.

The manufacture of this engine was tooled up in a responsible way. For example: the cylinder & crankcase unit was mounted in a machine; all machining, boring, drilling, facing, etc being carried out completely automatically and simultaneously. An unskilled operator loaded and unloaded the casting, going in as a casting and coming out ready for building into an engine in about 30 seconds. This machine was designed and partially made by us.

Many thousands of these engines were made, in fact the normal daily output was just over 100 engines. Although originally designed for a hedge cutter, it eventually got used in a motor scyth, lawn mower, motor cultivator and a power pack on a bicycle. They were exported to most countries. The engine, like the four-stroke, was built up to a standard rather than down to a price.

When treated properly, these engines have an excellent life, in fact I am constantly using a two-stroke made in 1955; the whole of the engine is original (not like the Irishman’s shovel). As production of the 2-stroke finished in about 1959, we no longer have any spares.