The Mantis rototiller, part two
Yep, back to the Mantis rototiller, or should it now be plural, smiling. Yep, got the unit assembled. Had the old Mantis in for a tuneup. A new carb kit, cleaned up, and ready to go. The lifetime warranty on the tines on the machine is just so wonderful. After years and years of working so hard, the old fellow had tine issues. The tines were no longer sharp and pointy, and a piece of a tine had broken on each side. I remembered there was a lifetime warranty on the tines, so I phoned Vesey’s and spoke with a fellow in the service department. Not a question asked, he got the model number from me and he sent me out two new tines. The old Mantis will be happy and will be darn near as good as he was, the day he came to our home in 2005. Ya, I talked to the girl at the reception phone and she looked up my account. I had purchased the unit in 2005. I thought it was before then, but then, sometimes memory does not really serve me all that well, too many cobwebs hangin’ round in there. Ya, so the new tines came in a few days. I was amazed actually at how different the tines looked, guess cause they are new and not been worn down with the time of ages. I picture the thousands of rocks, back in the old life when we were clearing garden areas, that were bumped out of the earth. Got a rock pile that I had gathered that would prove all that, and I will show a picture. This machine is nothing short of a workhorse. So quiet, so lightweight and so full of vim and vigour. I seriously cannot say enough about this brand of rototiller. There was much talk about different versions of this machine in former posts in this thread and most interesting too. It seems Echo makes an engine for the Mantis, as does Honda. As said, there is information in the prior posts.
Ya, so getting back to where I was, and almost forgot where I was, so have to take a moment to reflect and read and recompose my thoughts. Oh for goodness sakes, I should really not ramble on so.
Right. My awesome Husband assembled the new Mantis, it was a nice day, so he was in the mood for doing some work on our porch, assembling, oh how he loves to put things together. Not me. It never would have been put together if it was in my hands. Dislike that stuff immensely, no patience, and well, I just don’t get the written instruction, the unit would probably have been all upside down or inside out, smiling.
Ya, so the unit assembled, the old unit picked up and sitting side by side. I have a surprise for my youngest Sister when we go down to the coast. I am giving her my old Mantis, so she can rototill her brains out. She wants to plant many vegetable gardens for her big family of a Husband and six children. All in their teen years and early 20s, still all living at home, one Daughter, almost a teen, coming to 12 years this year. So she will have that little dude to help her in her travels as she makes gardens and food. I remember back in our old life, oh so long ago now (coming up three years in our new life), she worked that farm with me. She really worked that farm. She probably made for garden food than I ever did, and in different ways. Her gig one summer was to make vegetable salt. She spent that entire summer growing all the goods, dehydrating for days and weeks on end, grinding weeks on end and had for our tables the most delicious vegetable salt you could ever imagine. I still have some, nigh onto 6 years later, and it honestly still tastes as good as it was the day it was born. Those days of leaves, dehydrator and grinder, the aromas that came from her home were amazing. In that vegetable salt, I will try to recall and remember....I may have posted this a very long time ago, probably a lost post, but these were some of the ingredients, I did have them written down somewhere, but forget....garlic leaves, chives, broccoli leaves, carrot tops, celery leaves, garlic chive leaves, parsley leaves, turnip leaves, collard greens, her many different spices she grew, and there must have been more. I believe that we had counted 13 types of greens and such that went into the dehydrator, all at different times of course, as plants matured, and of course some ground pepper, along with sea salt. Oh ya, some of the batches had beet leaves, but that was not as good, it made a slight colouration to stuff that looked well, rather pink, only a little bit of the vegetable salt batches had that. Rats....this was about the rototiller.....man oh man alive, how I ramble, smiling.
Yes, so this was all about showing the two brothers, we shall call them that, cause in a sense, they are, one much more older than the other. Enjoy the pictures and have a most awesome day, CynthiaM.
This picture shows the old Mantis in the forefront the old Mantis in the back. When we purchased the new model, the decision was made to go for the four stroke, because it appeared it may have more power, and the gas is straight, there is no mixed 50:1 with oil. The old Mantis requires the mixed gas to work properly. The designs of the two are very, very different, and the new one is a little bit more heavy. I have not started the new one up yet, but I do know how quiet the old unit was, I imagine the new unit is a little more noisey, but time will tell that tale. The tines in this picture on the older unit are the worn out tines. The tines can be moved to the opposite side, to go from deep tilling to cultivating. The new unit in the back has the tines set to cultivate. That was changed around after the pictures were taken, as I will certainly be firstly tilling, not just cultivating the top layer of earth when I get going on it.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This picture shows the two side by side again, but with the new tines on the old machine
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The difference in design of the two units, years between each other is really quite an amazing thing. So many improvements in the design that will make the garden work so much more easy. I can’t wait to get down and dirty in the earth.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]A good view of how the handle grips have changed, that was the biggest thing that I was very struck with.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Get a gander at this...this is a picture that I have placed in a thread before. But this is the mountain of rocks, well except for the really, really big ones, man removed from earth and moved, that the original old Mantis had bumped out of the earth. I threw most of the rocks onto that pile, I am a very good pitch of rocks. Watch out. This was back on the coast, in the old life we lived.
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