Unknown Top Bows

[190bear]

Can anyone identify what these top bows are for? The width is 49" at the pivot. The height of the longest or tallest bow is 36" from the pivot to the top or outside of the wood frame. That is the bow lying on the floor. The center bow is 20" from the pivot to the top of the frame. The third bow, which is the tallest in the picture, is 33 1/2" from it's pivot to the top of the bow. The distance from the main pivot to that bow is 6". The middle pivot is 16" from the main pivot. The center bow has an unused pivot hole that is 8 1/2" above where it mounts to the main bow. 

Thanks for any help with so little information

 

 

 

 

[Mark Wetherbee]

I can’t measure one, but it looks like a Ford Model T two-man top from a runabout. Looks a lot like the one I had on a 1915 T which might have gone through 1920. 

[Leif Holmberg]

Very much similar top bows parts to 1925 Buick Touring.

 

[wayne sheldon]

All messed up. They may be parts from a 1910s model T. Some of what is there looks very close to what my 1915 runabout has. I suspect the main bow (the one the other two are connected into) may be the front upright bow and socket from a touring car. Only one of the two other bows should be connected to that main bow. It fits into the upper connector when the top is up, and points forward to the windshield. When the top is folded back and put down, that forward bow gets moved into the lower connector and then folded nearly flat against the main bow socket.

Raising and folding the top with needing to shift into different connectors and carry the front half loose to the rear of the car is tricky for one person to accomplish by oneself! That is why they are called a "two-man top". I have done it by myself numerous times over the years. But most people do not like to try it. Besides, I have rather long arms, which makes it easier for me to do myself.

Without carefully checking some measurements, I don't know which of the two other sockets and bow belong with that main bow. I "think" the longer one is the front bow and sockets for a touring car, while the shorter one may be for a roadster like mine. The body iron's location on the front seat is different for a touring car than a roadster, requiring a longer socket for the touring car.

The main bow socket does not have the lower forging mount required for the fixed main bow of the roadster. Without that forging, the top cannot have the third bow that leans back from the main bow. Hence why I suspect it is the front main upright of a touring car and not a roadster socket and bow.

[sagefinds]

It's really a nice set. The wood bows look like they were just fitted and installed. They went to the trouble of making a spacer for the lower end so they couldn't warp. It seems funny to me that someone would go to that time and expense to do a partial set of touring bows to fit a roadster. Is there any history on the previous owner,what he was into,what cars he,or she,had in their collection,etc? Where the set came from? I personally think it's an original roadster top frame.

[190bear]

I bought a 1914 Saxon roadster from the estate of a farmer in western Nebraska. He had died 15-20 years before and the car had just sat in the corner of a shed. He would drive it through the local parade now and again. It was in real barn find condition. The top was laid down, real ratty, and looked to be homemade. These bows were lying on top of the car so we loaded them up. I have been several years getting the car back on the road. I thought I could just get it running and putt around. I was wrong. It turned into a big project. Both sets of bows just hung in the barn until recently. They are way too wide for the little Saxon. The fellows at the weekly old car breakfast thought Ford was the only one that had the oval brackets so I decided to ask for help here.

 

There was a 1926? Maxwell touring sitting next to the Saxon that was in decent shape but it had a top on it. He also had a T coupe that was lawn ornament material

[wayne sheldon]

Oval sockets were actually quite common on non-Fords well into the 1920s, and in one-man top format. Ford with the model T switched from oval sockets to rectangular shaped top sockets about 1918. USA production didn't switch to one-man tops until the 1923 model year (although Canadian production began one man tops and slanted windshields in 1920, more than two years before USA production).

[nsbrassnut]

Those irons and bows look very much like an partial set of reproduction Ford T ones. Two out of five of the bows for a touring.

 

They also appear to be missing the small locating seats that go between the bows when the top is put down. They help keep the bows from touching and catching the top material when folded.

 

A few years ago I bought a set of older reproduction bows and irons for my  '15 T roadster. And when purchased they looked very much like this set, right down to the wood and nails that are holding the bottom together.

 

One way to tell reproduction from original is to check the material of the forgings at the hinge points on the sockets, especially the ones part way up. If iron/steel, then likely original, if brass/bronze, likely reproduction.

 

With the unmarked wood bows, I suspect they are reproduction.

Here is a picture of a '12 T from Hershey and you can compare the irons.

[nsbrassnut]

Correction, make that 3 out of 4 top bows. Some days I can't count.  :^)