IT was almost inevitable Gordon McDougall would end up in the manufacturing game.
Call it a transfer of gene technology from father to son.
His father Vic wrote a book called “Life, how it is” and in it is a clue to the 50-year career of Gordon as a prolific self-taught manufacturer owning a business called McDougall Weldments, Cuballing.
Referring to a city company involved in fixing a truck motor for him, Vic lamented that on arriving to pick up said repaired motor, it had not been re-assembled.
In his book, he wrote: “the crank shaft was in one place, the piston valves and other parts were scattered about”.
“So I said put the bits in my car boot and I headed for home (Wagin).
“I had no real experience with mechanics but I tackled the job of putting it together.
“I was successful and it worked OK.
“I’ve never taken any of my cars or tractors to a garage since then.
“I don’t like the modern cars with their computers, because you need another computer to tell you what’s wrong with the computers.
“I reckon if I can’t fix it with a hammer and chisel, it’s no good to me.”
That attitude rubbed off on Gordon, who started his business in 1968 after a short career on the family farm at Wagin, then as a shearing contractor and farm worker.
It was a can-do approach to life, magnified when he was 15, when he applied to join a shearing school at Robbs Jetty, after leaving school at 14.
“I put my age up to 19 to get in,” Gordon recalled.
“It was a good school and it taught me a lot.”
During that year he also applied for a truck driver’s licence and as many country people can attest, the local “copper”’ had almost no hesitation in signing off to register Gordon.
“He said he had seen me driving on the farm so he knew I could drive and all he wanted was to see me reverse in the lane outside,” Gordon said.
“I used to cart cattle to Midland in the truck when I was 15 and by 17 I went for my car licence, which you couldn’t get in those days unless you were 21 or over.
“The copper said I didn’t need a test to get the licence because I had a truck licence.
“I got it on the Wednesday and by Saturday I had driven to South Australia.”
At this juncture you may already feel it is inevitable Gordon will write a book like his dad.
But that’s another subject for another time.
Gordon’s first involvement in manufacturing was building a cattle feeder “because a farmer requested one and he knew my dad was a successful cattle breeder”.
“At that stage I was just the local fix-it man in the district, after I moved here with my wife Yvonne because we could afford to live in Cuballing and I was working on a local farm at the time,” Gordon said.
“But the farmer couldn’t stop raving about the feeder to his friends and I went from no staff except me to 12 staff in a flash when I started getting orders for cattle feeders.
“Farmers came from New Norcia to Esperance to tow them home and that became my first production line.”
Gordon was involved as a welder (self-taught) and it became his trademark when he designed his McDougall Transportable Sheepyards, for which he won the then Dowerin Inventor Award in 1974 at the machinery field days.
Comprising 22 millimetre diameter tube steel, the yards also feature a race for stock-handling, which is designed to carry the yards when folded for transport.
Gordon’s invention captured an Australian-wide market after exposure at the annual national machinery days in Orange, New South Wales.
It became known as the Orange Field Days.
“There was a State government-initiative started by premier Charles Court to promote WA manufacturing in the agricultural industry and we went to Orange for 22 years under a government subsidy,” Gordon said.
He estimates he has sold about 4000 yards over the past 44 years and during the “hey days” was making seven models a week with a semi-trailer load leaving the factory every 10 days loaded with six units, bound for the Eastern States.
“That’s how we built up clientele in the Eastern States and it became a very successful event in getting known,” he said.
It’s still his flagship product and used models are hotly contested at clearing sales in an environment of high sheep prices – last month one sold for $20,000 plus GST.
“You can get a new one for $28,000 GST included,” Gordon said.
There’s also constant demand for his other products which range from augers, mobile feeders and loading races to a Seed and Super Bin, chaser bins, comb trailers and Three Minute Legs (bin legs).
He remembers building his first auger in 1975 at the request of a local farmer.
“It was 20 foot (6 metres) long and had a 12 inch (30 centimetre) barrel and it could fill a three tonne Bedford truck in minutes,” he said.
That farmer turned out to be the grandfather of Olympian hockey player Bevan George, who hails from Narrogin.
McDougall self-propelled augers are still in demand today with the most popular model being 15.4 metres (51 feet) in length with a 25cm (10 inch) barrel and a 78 tonnes an hour capacity.
“Farmers like these ones for filling road trains,” Gordon said.
While his product line keeps him busy year-round, he still makes time for local farmers wanting odd jobs done, such as replacing rusted seed and fertiliser augers, restoring bent augers, making trailers, dust-proofing a horse float (adding a rear enclosure on top of the gate), straightening hitches and fronts and improving products, such as adding another auger to a dual axle mobile sheep feeder to extend auger height to service bigger round feeders.
He also is an active member of the Cuballing Men’s Shed and any spare time is reserved for his biggest passion – restoring Jeeps.
Pride of place is reserved for a 1959 Willy Jeep which was built for farmers, hence the bigger engine (56kW, 75hp) and the higher bonnet (to house the engine).
He also has a 1942 Willys Jeep built by the Ford Motor Co.
Gordon has also built a two-wheel drive tractor from the chassis of a Chamberlain Meadows tractor chassis.
The Holden-powered conversion tractor had been used in the forestry industry for 20 years before Gordon secured it.
Gordon built for his own backyard use a garden tractor, which was powered by a V-twin Honda engine developing 10kW (14hp) with a hydraulic transmission (offered by a mate) which provided a continuous drive up to 20 kilometres an hour.
He also used hydraulics from the tractor to connect to a PTO on a slasher mower he built.
The distinctive look is courtesy of a Jeep-style grille.
In between drinks he made what at first glance looks like an amphibious Army DucW.
Gordon calls it a SEEP because it is actually a Jeep with a boat hull.
“I built it from scratch because I could,” he said.
“It gets used now and again by the family.”
In 1990 Gordon and Yvonne built a roadhouse on the main highway in Cuballing and had it for five years before selling it.
It was called Mac’s Place.
Now it’s known as the Cuballing Roadhouse.
Gordon also won the John Lynne Memorial Award in 1995 and 2012 for outstanding contribution to the machinery industry.
But all good stories must come to an end and for Gordon and Yvonne, it’s time to enjoy an “after-life” from ag.
McDougall Weldments is officially for sale and Gordon is happy for a flexible transition.
“It can be a walk-in, walk-out, rent and buy or a lease arrangement,” he said.
“We’ve enjoyed a great time in the business and hopefully it can carry on with new people at the helm.”
