I remember the factory at Sunshine (now part of suburban Melbourne) as a small boy in the late 1960's, my aunt and uncle lived at nearby Albion and their next door neighbours were Maltese immigrants and three of the family worked at Sunshine Harvesters factory, they road push bikes to and from work each day. Great documentary, much enjoyed, thank you.
thanks for your comment mate, much appreciated. during my research for this video i read that sunshine was nicknamed "little Malta" with how many Maltese lived there at the time... im sure you'll like my next video dave, iv got some good unseen 1964 steam train footage of the Maryborough-Donald line
@@Reds_engineering I grew up there in the 1950's, left the area for work elsewhere in the early 1960's. North Sunshine, as it was known then, had an influx of Maltese and Polish immigrants. The owner of the Delicatessen in McIntyre road was Polish and many of his family worked there. Some of my friends did apprenticeships there, but it was by then (1961/1962) a waning business. From memory there was a rail line directly into the factory, which I think originated from a siding almost at the Albion station.
A property I knew had a horse drawn Sunshine harvester near the front gate and then the property was sold to become a dairy farm. The harvester was rusty, the wood was in rough shape but you could easily see the Sunshine name on it. Imagine how I felt when I found out that the new owners had a dozer come in and dig a huge pit and every old machine on the place went into it including the harvester, I just about cried!
@@JohnWilliams-iw6oq as you would I am sick of people sneaking into my place at night so they can treat my place as a supermarket for spare parts and not pay on the way out
That is also what the new owners of the Sunshine Harvester Company did when the took over. The very first Sunshine Harvester that was kept and displayed was quickly scrapped.
Both of my grandfathers worked there, i can remember the factory winding down. I still feel very disappointed at the loss of our manufacturing capabilities. And the H.V. McKay trade wing that was part of Sunshine Tech was demolished, and the site now a retirement home.
My high school I went to is now a retirement home. The old primary school is a retirement village, the knitting mill we had is now a Cole’s/kmart. Tis sad to see these type of things happen
Typical of Australia that company had the potential to dominate the world in harvestors but we have never had a government in the history of Australia that has been patriotic to any of our companies and look where we are now
@@bradleamon4466 your dead right there mate, would be nice seeing modern sunshine headers dominate the landscape during harvest instead of the case IH or New Holland.. it’s the same story with chamberlain tractors, a great Aussie tractor company brought out by the big overseas competitors
@@Reds_engineering very much so what about when we had quite a successful little industry building broad acre tractors for our grain farmers the tax laws at the time and probably still do favour the imported machines which forced our blokes out of business
Theres an interesting doco by the ABC regarding the Aussies who invented the first combine and sold the idea to H.V . He was hired by H.V to do r&d on the machines at sunshine.
Headlie Shipard Taylor. The Sunshine Header was known as a HST, he developed it. It revolutionised the wheat harvest and they were exported by the train load.
If you want to believe it or not my great grandfather John andrew gardner robertson was an accountant with H.V. McKay (Sunshine Harvester Factory) that's how my love of agricultural machinery became a great Passion of my. Believe it or not it's the truth.
@johnd8892 no just on railway parade There is an engineering shop on the corner it has a plaque saying that it's the original factory of sunshine Harvester company seen it many times
Gone of the days when Big Factories gave Australia its Manufacturing muscle. But not all is lost ?? Now Australia's Manufacturing is growing again with small to medium Manufacturers taking up the lack. You could say it's a fair way to share the wealth of Manufacturing rather than being controlled by a few big players.
Excellent back ground on how the grain harvesting began, very informative. Just wondering why you started at the harvesting end of the grain life ? Would you be able to gather a story together on the Sunshine Suntyne Combine and the development of it. We had an old 12 run Sunshine Combine, steel wheels and was a mustard colour and our neighbours had the red model. Cheers, Andy in Adelaide.
@@gashy1000 started at the end of grain grain life? As in why didn’t I start with the plough ? … mainly coz I had some great footage to make the harvest style videos, and I think plough videos would be a bit boring. I do have a video of the stump jump plough though, And what year is the suntyne combine you’re talking about?
@@Reds_engineering thanks for the reply mate, no idea, would not be surprised if it was from the 50's. I assume you know when I say combine, I probably should be saying seed drill, someone else on here will know what years the two different colours where from. Later down the track I did have a 20 row red model with tubber tyres. Cheers, all interesting stuff about farm machinery we used to just use and not know the history behind it.
Suntyne was a take on spring tynes used on mcKay and many other spring tyne combines.e.g. not spring release. Suntynes went back ti the thirties. Before that there was the bridal type Sunlee combine which was a bridal draught machine. My father had one didnt like it.
Yes I am aware, iv spent many hours sittin on a binder cutting sheaf hay. Anyone who wants more of the story watch my other video “ The Unknown Story of The Australian Harvester Invention”
HV Mackay built everything you would need on a farm to grow and harvest crops except a tractor. They sold Massey Harris tractors to fill that one and only gap.
@@annpeerkat2020 The video imply that harvesting was done with a scythe When HV Mkay invented his harvester. The method at the time was a stripper and winnower. Open the door on the back of the stripper and shovel the grain/chaff in to the winnower to remove the chaff.
A great Australian company destroyed by the Australian government. Apparently government bureaucrats were better able to determine the value of the employee's labor to the company than the company staff. What had been a rapidly growing and successful company was never the same after the government intervention in its operations and so a fantastic enterprise was eventually sold off to a foreign competitor.
Our market is small and labour is expensive and as a result anything we build here will be too expensive to compete on the world market. Not to mention the cost of electricity. That is why our domestic manufacturing industry has largely gone. It is a shame but people won’t spend the extra money to support local manufacturers. Sometimes I wonder how small countries like Sweden can have such a large and successful manufacturing presence on the world stage.
I think you might be surprised what we still Manufacture in Australia. I'm only a small gear in a big machine. But from my customer base alone I see many Manufacturers still keeping it. Made in Australia 👍
Your mindset is of modern times, back then there was no multinational companies that had a foothold in AU. Every country had its own manufacturing. globalisation has destroyed all of that.
@@mattjoy Also it was too expensive to move new machinery here in those times. Cheap shipping these days and everything else has conspired to make it too expensive to make much here. A lot of machinery etc was made locally in the early days. Transport wasn’t what it is today. Import duties were designed to encourage local manufacturers. Leftie governments have put paid to that.
factually incorrect information...in 1834 McCormick patented the horse drawn reaper-binder that replaced the hand cutting of grain...it cut and tied sheaves that were carried to convient position to be stacked for later machine threshing or directly threshed with steam,then later kerosine/petrol powered tractors...the combine harvester eliminated the need to tie and carry the crop so the need for manual labour.
Which part are you saying is incorrect, mate? I get what you’re saying. Are you Australian? I get the whole sheaf hay threshing machine subject but a lot of the header harvester story in Australia doesn’t revolve around the threshing machine like America did.
@@Reds_engineeringthe yanks can't handle the fact that we might be better at something than they are look at how much they cheated in the Americas cup and we still beat them imagine how bad they had the shits about that
sorry guys my focus was on the sunshine factory, not the binder. the binder needs its own video, did you know there is 56 grease nipples on a sunshine 8ft pto binder?.... how do i know? because i own and use a binder and iv greased them nipples many a time
The first 90 seconds is total BS ai written and INACCURATE. Its called a combine because it combined 3 different operations. There were machines prior horse drawn that each independently cut, bundled and threshed. This is a giant mistake. McKay did build the first commercially sold combines but he wasnt the first to build one. He was also an absolute asshole to his employees and there was a lot of conflict in his factory, Far from innovative copying Case/IH, Shearer and Bagshaw equipment for many items.
We call them Headers. Headlie Taylor invented the means of cutting and gathering the crop and laid the machine out as you see. Our machine, our name. No US machines here then, we invented and built our own.
gawd... and here's me thinking there was something called WW2, where production priority everywhere switched to military requirements. Incidentally, I thought pre WW2 german farming was very primitive. Was I wrong?
![SAFEPLANET - ดาวเคราะห์ [ THE PLANET ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4X1XL3I_k3c/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember the factory at Sunshine (now part of suburban Melbourne) as a small boy in the late 1960's, my aunt and uncle lived at nearby Albion and their next door neighbours were Maltese immigrants and three of the family worked at Sunshine Harvesters factory, they road push bikes to and from work each day. Great documentary, much enjoyed, thank you.
thanks for your comment mate, much appreciated. during my research for this video i read that sunshine was nicknamed "little Malta" with how many Maltese lived there at the time... im sure you'll like my next video dave, iv got some good unseen 1964 steam train footage of the Maryborough-Donald line
@@Reds_engineering I grew up there in the 1950's, left the area for work elsewhere in the early 1960's. North Sunshine, as it was known then, had an influx of Maltese and Polish immigrants. The owner of the Delicatessen in McIntyre road was Polish and many of his family worked there. Some of my friends did apprenticeships there, but it was by then (1961/1962) a waning business.
From memory there was a rail line directly into the factory, which I think originated from a siding almost at the Albion station.
A property I knew had a horse drawn Sunshine harvester near the front gate and then the property was sold to become a dairy farm. The harvester was rusty, the wood was in rough shape but you could easily see the Sunshine name on it. Imagine how I felt when I found out that the new owners had a dozer come in and dig a huge pit and every old machine on the place went into it including the harvester, I just about cried!
@@JohnWilliams-iw6oq as you would I am sick of people sneaking into my place at night so they can treat my place as a supermarket for spare parts and not pay on the way out
That is also what the new owners of the Sunshine Harvester Company did when the took over.
The very first Sunshine Harvester that was kept and displayed was quickly scrapped.
My friends are direct descendants of H.V McKay still living on the original farm
Both of my grandfathers worked there, i can remember the factory winding down.
I still feel very disappointed at the loss of our manufacturing capabilities.
And the H.V. McKay trade wing that was part of Sunshine Tech was demolished, and the site now a retirement home.
My high school I went to is now a retirement home. The old primary school is a retirement village, the knitting mill we had is now a Cole’s/kmart. Tis sad to see these type of things happen
My grandfather was the town engineer of sunshine. The family was friends with the Mckays.
Typical of Australia that company had the potential to dominate the world in harvestors but we have never had a government in the history of Australia that has been patriotic to any of our companies and look where we are now
@@bradleamon4466 your dead right there mate, would be nice seeing modern sunshine headers dominate the landscape during harvest instead of the case IH or New Holland.. it’s the same story with chamberlain tractors, a great Aussie tractor company brought out by the big overseas competitors
@@Reds_engineering very much so what about when we had quite a successful little industry building broad acre tractors for our grain farmers the tax laws at the time and probably still do favour the imported machines which forced our blokes out of business
we even invented the lawnmower sold it out to nz along with the forklift stolen from Australia .
We sell everthing to the USA including our energy resources
@@bradleamon4466everywhere had high tax. They just had more people to take money from.
And the creation of the basic wage. Most significant workers advance since the eight hour day.
Sunshine 🌞 is the perfect harvest
Theres an interesting doco by the ABC regarding the Aussies who invented the first combine and sold the idea to H.V . He was hired by H.V to do r&d on the machines at sunshine.
@@LouKodge yep the Headlie Taylor story, I have a video about that aswell.
Headlie Shipard Taylor. The Sunshine Header was known as a HST, he developed it. It revolutionised the wheat harvest and they were exported by the train load.
If you want to believe it or not my great grandfather John andrew gardner robertson was an accountant with H.V. McKay (Sunshine Harvester Factory) that's how my love of agricultural machinery became a great Passion of my. Believe it or not it's the truth.
dunno.... anyone with 4 names sounds a bit sketchy.....
I remember seeing the factory in Dandenong opposite the railway
Sounds like the unrelated International Harvester truck factory to me.
@johnd8892 no just on railway parade There is an engineering shop on the corner it has a plaque saying that it's the original factory of sunshine Harvester company seen it many times
@johnd8892 I will try to do a Google Earth search and find it
Gone of the days when Big Factories gave Australia its Manufacturing muscle.
But not all is lost ??
Now Australia's Manufacturing is growing again with small to medium Manufacturers taking up the lack.
You could say it's a fair way to share the wealth of Manufacturing rather than being controlled by a few big players.
Excellent back ground on how the grain harvesting began, very informative. Just wondering why you started at the harvesting end of the grain life ? Would you be able to gather a story together on the Sunshine Suntyne Combine and the development of it.
We had an old 12 run Sunshine Combine, steel wheels and was a mustard colour and our neighbours had the red model.
Cheers, Andy in Adelaide.
@@gashy1000 started at the end of grain grain life? As in why didn’t I start with the plough ? … mainly coz I had some great footage to make the harvest style videos, and I think plough videos would be a bit boring. I do have a video of the stump jump plough though,
And what year is the suntyne combine you’re talking about?
@@Reds_engineering thanks for the reply mate, no idea, would not be surprised if it was from the 50's. I assume you know when I say combine, I probably should be saying seed drill, someone else on here will know what years the two different colours where from. Later down the track I did have a 20 row red model with tubber tyres.
Cheers, all interesting stuff about farm machinery we used to just use and not know the history behind it.
Suntyne was a take on spring tynes used on mcKay and many other spring tyne combines.e.g. not spring release. Suntynes went back ti the thirties. Before that there was the bridal type Sunlee combine which was a bridal draught machine. My father had one didnt like it.
I toured the factory in the 1950s I was very interesting
how about the factory?
How far we've fallen...
They had the mower, binder, threshing machine, winnower and stripper before the sunshine harvester. Its wasn't just scythe to sunshine harvester.
Yes I am aware, iv spent many hours sittin on a binder cutting sheaf hay. Anyone who wants more of the story watch my other video “ The Unknown Story of The Australian Harvester Invention”
HV Mackay built everything you would need on a farm to grow and harvest crops except a tractor. They sold Massey Harris tractors to fill that one and only gap.
I know what you were saying :)
@@annpeerkat2020 The video imply that harvesting was done with a scythe When HV Mkay invented his harvester. The method at the time was a stripper and winnower. Open the door on the back of the stripper and shovel the grain/chaff in to the winnower to remove the chaff.
@@lukey6534 I know.... that's why I said "I know what you were saying".
A great Australian company destroyed by the Australian government.
Apparently government bureaucrats were better able to determine the value of the employee's labor to the company than the company staff.
What had been a rapidly growing and successful company was never the same after the government intervention in its operations and so a fantastic enterprise was eventually sold off to a foreign competitor.
Our market is small and labour is expensive and as a result anything we build here will be too expensive to compete on the world market. Not to mention the cost of electricity. That is why our domestic manufacturing industry has largely gone. It is a shame but people won’t spend the extra money to support local manufacturers. Sometimes I wonder how small countries like Sweden can have such a large and successful manufacturing presence on the world stage.
I think you might be surprised what we still Manufacture in Australia.
I'm only a small gear in a big machine.
But from my customer base alone I see many Manufacturers still keeping it.
Made in Australia 👍
Your mindset is of modern times, back then there was no multinational companies that had a foothold in AU. Every country had its own manufacturing. globalisation has destroyed all of that.
@@mattjoy Also it was too expensive to move new machinery here in those times. Cheap shipping these days and everything else has conspired to make it too expensive to make much here. A lot of machinery etc was made locally in the early days. Transport wasn’t what it is today. Import duties were designed to encourage local manufacturers. Leftie governments have put paid to that.
by specialisation, rather than trying to do a bit of everything?
They still have the Sunshine Harvester primary school in 2024
factually incorrect information...in 1834 McCormick patented the horse drawn reaper-binder that replaced the hand cutting of grain...it cut and tied sheaves that were carried to convient position to be stacked for later machine threshing or directly threshed with steam,then later kerosine/petrol powered tractors...the combine harvester eliminated the need to tie and carry the crop so the need for manual labour.
Which part are you saying is incorrect, mate? I get what you’re saying. Are you Australian? I get the whole sheaf hay threshing machine subject but a lot of the header harvester story in Australia doesn’t revolve around the threshing machine like America did.
manual labour using a sythe was replaced by the reaper/ binder... which was in turn replaced by the horse-drawn combine
Why don't you mention that McCormick invented the automatic knotter and new Holland pinched the idea
@@Reds_engineeringthe yanks can't handle the fact that we might be better at something than they are look at how much they cheated in the Americas cup and we still beat them imagine how bad they had the shits about that
sorry guys my focus was on the sunshine factory, not the binder. the binder needs its own video, did you know there is 56 grease nipples on a sunshine 8ft pto binder?.... how do i know? because i own and use a binder and iv greased them nipples many a time
The first 90 seconds is total BS ai written and INACCURATE. Its called a combine because it combined 3 different operations. There were machines prior horse drawn that each independently cut, bundled and threshed. This is a giant mistake.
McKay did build the first commercially sold combines but he wasnt the first to build one.
He was also an absolute asshole to his employees and there was a lot of conflict in his factory, Far from innovative copying Case/IH, Shearer and Bagshaw equipment for many items.
We call them Headers. Headlie Taylor invented the means of cutting and gathering the crop and laid the machine out as you see. Our machine, our name. No US machines here then, we invented and built our own.
@@jefftheaussie2225 My mistake im not a farm equipment guy only going by what my father has mentioned over the years. H had over 40 with IH Australia.
@@dazaspc why is mckay an asshole
And now it’s full of junkies
Honestly, it’s not for off being like Detroit ay, besides the muslims
Germans were 20 years a head in the forties made the rest look dumb and pathetic
Typical German comment very arrogant
gawd... and here's me thinking there was something called WW2, where production priority everywhere switched to military requirements.
Incidentally, I thought pre WW2 german farming was very primitive. Was I wrong?
cool story, adolph