Garwood Scrapers

As an earthmoving equipment supplier, Garwood disappeared in the mid-1960s. However, readers may associate the name Garwood with a range of premium heavy haulage winches commonly found on low loader transport trucks.

Garwood’s history is very interesting.

The Garwood Company’s founder, Garfield Arthur Wood (1880-1971), was a very famous inventor and speedboat racer of the 1920s & 30s who held many racing titles and also manufactured high quality speedboats and yachts.

Examples of his surviving speedboats fetch very high prices in the USA.

Another of his exceptionally useful inventions was the World’s first practical hydraulic hoist for dump truck bodies, an item taken for granted these days.

During the 1930s, following the Great Depression, there was an explosion of public works and an equal number of companies eager and willing to build and supply equipment for use in these works.

Garwood was one of these companies and were fortunate in securing an agreement with equipment supplier Allis-Chalmers to build and supply rippers, bulldozer blades, and the subject of this article, scrapers.

Garwood had substantial manufacturing facilities in Detroit, Michigan and had its earthmoving equipment manufacturing base located in Findlay, Ohio.

This was a good deal for Allis-Chalmers, already a respected brand within the earthmoving industry, who could offer both cable or hydraulically operated equipment depending on customer preference.

Garwood’s first scraper was based on a design acquired from the Continental Wagon Scraper Company (a company Garwood bought in 1936).

It was a 2-axle design known at the time as a “trailer scraper’.

These were quite popular for small jobs and almost every equipment supplier of the time that manufactured scrapers had at least one or more of this type of scraper in its product range.

Garwood engineers tweaked Continental’s design here and there to improve its performance and the end result was one of the best of this type of scraper available at the time.

Garwood also acquired the Buckeye Chain Trencher Company in 1942 and produced it as the Garwood-Buckeye trencher up until 1955 when it was discontinued.

As mentioned previously, Garwood built both cable and hydraulically operated scrapers in a variety of capacities.

The hydraulic scrapers were available as two-axle, or four-axle units while the cable controlled scrapers were all of the four axle variety.

All the 2-axle scrapers were derived from the original Continental Wagon Scraper design and identified by a number which indicated the unit’s heaped capacity prefixed by a “2”.

These scrapers ranged in size from the tiny model 23 (3 cubic yards) up to the 285 (8.5 cubic yards) and were manufactured up until 1951 when the entire 2-axle range was discontinued due to falling sales.

Garwood had less success with its 4-axle hydraulic scrapers as these were not very popular due to their unreliability.

One must remember that hydraulics, as applied to larger earthmoving equipment in the 1930s and 1940s, were still in their infancy and suffered more than their fair share of teething problems, particularly with sealing and hose failures..

Examples of Garwood 4-axle hydraulic scrapers included the 8.5 cubic yard model L-10, 9.5 cubic yard L-12 and the 11.5 cubic yard L-15.

All had been withdrawn from sale by 1949.

While operating examples of Garwood’s 2-axle scrapers can still be found, survivors of the 4-axle “L” series are as rare as the proverbial rocking horse teeth!

The cable scrapers.

Garwood’s 4-axle cable operated scrapers on the other hand, were very good designs and were frequently seen behind Allis-Chalmers tractors.

During the period when Garwood manufactured cable operated scrapers (1931 thru 1955), the company produced nine different models, ranging in size from the 7 cubic yard model 508-S through to the 25 cubic yard model 625.

These were all ruggedly built and well regarded by users.

Its later model scrapers had a distinctive spotting feature in the form of a large, tunnel enclosed sheave tower that was placed on top of the gooseneck.

This kept a lot of cable out of the dirt, prolonging cable life, but also made them a bit more difficult to reeve.

There are a lot of survivors of this range, many now converted to hydraulic operation.

Garwood never ventured into the motor scraper market.

Troubling times.

Around 1956, Allis-Chalmers terminated the agreement with Garwood for the supply of attachments.

While this was a severe blow to the company, but Garwood management were able to secure a new supplier deal with the Euclid Road Machinery Company, manufacturing bulldozer blades and cable controls that were fitted to the then new Euclid TC-12 and C-6 track type tractors.

This arrangement was in place for around 10 years until Euclid (later known as Terex) began building its own allied equipment in 1965.

By this stage of the game, most of the Garwood earthmoving equipment range was in dire need of a serious revamp, and the market for cable operated equipment had  fallen off rapidly as hydraulics became much more reliable.

Because of the enormous amount of capital required to redesign and retool, the Garwood Construction Equipment Division decided to call it quits.

The factory in Findlay, Ohio was closed down permanently in 1966 and its products consigned to history.

GarWood Industries still exist however, manufacturing truck equipment, pleasure craft and the United States Air Force’s latest airborne gatling gun!

Garwood in New Zealand.

A great number of cable control equipped Allis-Chalmers tractors imported into New Zealand were fitted with Garwood blades and cable control units (PCU’s), the Garwood model 241 being well regarded and a common sight on the rear of HD-19 and HD-20 track type tractors.

Garwood cable controlled scrapers were also imported including the models 615, 620 and 625.

For the model collector.

Remarkably, there is a very well detailed 1:50 scale replica of a Garwood 625 cable controlled 4-axle scraper manufactured by EMD Models, and available through Buffalo Road Imports in the USA.

As an added bonus, it comes with its own, pre-reeved double drum Garwood 241 cable control!

Not an inexpensive item, it was a limited edition and can be hard to find.

However, if 1950s earthmoving gear is your passion it is well worth acquiring.