Digger

Kubota U25-3 makes tracks with Steelwrist XO4

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:04:15 +0000

M & L Seddon have recently been working on the construction of the Olympic cross country mountain bike course in Essex in preparation for the 2012 games. The track is being formed at the 550-acre Hadleigh Farm site near Benfleet, this land is currently owned by the Salvation Army. Details are sketchy but we are told that M & L Seddon have a personal interest in the sport of mountain biking, with the machine operator being a former champion apparently. The companies chosen machine for the excavation works is a Kubota U25-3 mini excavator which has been fitted with a Steelwrist XO4 tiltrotator system which is already proving its worth on site, in terms of speeding up the job. The big plus point for these systems is not having to move the base machine so often, so there is less need to keep moving and jacking the machine up with its blade to get the right angle of cut etc. This short montage of photos shows the machine in action on site.

Priestman Cub restored to former glory

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:50:28 +0000

Geoff Burnett has recently completed a two year project to restore his 1965 Priestman Cub Mk 6 dragline excavator. Geoff who lives in Tickton near Beverley East Yorkshire has spent hundreds of hours at work on the restoration and a considerable amount of money too. Geoff said "I am really pleased to see it all finally complete, now I just need to put more hours in learning to drive it properly".

Mega Machine Day, Quebec, Canada

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:03:58 +0000

On Saturday 21st August 2010 keen machinery enthusiast Anthony Chaput attended the first and highly successful Mega Machine Day (Journee Mega Machines) which was held at the Dexsen sand pit in St-Paul-D'Abbostford in Quebec Canada. The event was organized by the owners of Dexsen Excavation and local business's to raise money for children who are affected by heart diseases in co-operation with the "En Coeur" foundation.

At Simpson's civil engineering innovation is the key

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:20:36 +0000

East Yorkshire based Simpson's was established in 1945 by Mr. Keith Simpson, in those days the business was trading as K Simpson Builder and was involved in building contracts for domestic and agricultural clients working out of their premises in the village of Hutton Cranswick nr Driffield. In 1976, Keith's Son, Nick Simpson joined the company and the business was renamed K Simpson and Son and began to add civil engineering works as a major part of its business, which it became well known for. In 1994, Nick became Managing Director, having already worked in the company for 20 years, and re-formed the company into Simpson Civil Engineering Ltd and Simpson Plant Hire Ltd, reinforcing the company's positions as specialists in their fields. True to the company's forward thinking approach in 2009 a third company Simpson Training Ltd was created, aiming to train the next generation of Construction Workers to a higher standard covering CPCS plant tickets and also other fields such as NRSWA Street works, NVQ's and specialist tickets such as the EU Water and Gas Cards.

Volvo #7 for Powell Plant & Contractors

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:35:25 +0000

Will Powell, proprietor of Reigate based Powell Plant & Contractors has taken delivery of a new ECR145CL reduced swing excavator for his hire and contracting business. Established in 1987, Powell Plant & Contractors has built a sound reputation in general groundworks and landscaping contracts, specializing in the construction and maintenance of golf courses and undertaking unique projects on behalf of the National Trust. Since purchasing his first Volvo, an EC140BLC back in May 2004, Will Powell has owned and operated a succession of Volvo excavators and compact excavators and has now opted for Volvo's reduced swing ECR145CL. "Typically for the majority of work we do we need the compactness of the reduced swing machine and whilst the ECR88 has been a good all round performer we needed to go one size larger," explained Mr Powell. "I'm really impressed with the balance and stability of the ECR145 - it certainly exceeds my expectations."

Classic American draglines at rest and play

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:43:13 +0000

As a direct response to the many emails I have received asking for more material on old draglines, it gives me great pleasure to share these photos that have been sent into the Digger blog by our good friend Bob Rocker who lives in Florida. Bob has thousands of archive photographs taken over the last 40 years and he has selected this batch which shows some of the greats of American dragline production. We start with this Bucyrus-Erie 88-B, which Bob captured working in Coral Springs, Florida over 28 years ago. These machines were the largest of the construction sized range from Bucyrus-Erie and typically carried a 4 to 6 cubic yard bucket depending on application. Bob said, "When I first arrived to take photos of this machine the sun was out and it was a blazing 100 degrees, but then the thunderstorm arrived and it had dropped to around 76 degrees". Anyone who has experienced a Florida thunderstorm will understand what Bob means! Note the guy performing maintenance on the side board as the machine continues to work, I don't think current H&S regulations would let anyone get away with that anymore.

Spanish machinery graveyard delights

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:31:24 +0000

Globetrotting machinery enthusiast, facebook and machinery forum friend Allistair Cooke, has recently returned from a fascinating trip to one of Europe's largest used spare parts facilities. T Casquero which has been in the machinery spares and sales business since 1977, is located at Benavente North West of Madrid in Spain. They were visiting primarily to look at used tractor cabs to replace some rusting ones back home in Ireland, obviously in Spain it doesn't rain so much so many items on used equipment remain in excellent condition apart from some paint fading issues from the constant barrage of sunlight. They hold massive stocks of old and newer machines at their purpose built premises which cover an area of some 230,000 square metres. The stock covers agricultural, demolition and earthmoving machinery as well as cars, trucks and motorbikes. As one can imagine there were many gems to be found basking in the scorching Spanish sunshine, some rarer than others, but all in all a great day out for anyone who has hydraulic oil running through their veins!

Kaiser Spyder makes a crash landing

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:11:33 +0000

Here's another climbing excavator video that in this instance didn't go entirely to plan. The operator of this Kaiser S2 "Spyder" excavator has a somewhat heavy landing on the final approach! It really is amazing to see these machines in action, here are some photos I took of an S3 model being put through its paces at Bauma 2010. Find out more about these amazing machines by visiting the Kaiser website.

Unusual sightings at Bauma 2010

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:20:14 +0000

I have received quite a lot of emails from readers asking for more material from the Bauma trade fair which took place earlier this year. So I thought I would put together this collection of some of the more unusual or rare machines that are not seen in the UK market. This machine caught my eye as I had tried to make contact (unsuccessfully) with the manufacturers last year by email to find out more about it. The Raupentransporter CIT 5719 is a 27 ton tracked dumptruck and is powered by a Caterpillar C 6.6 Acert engine. The machine uses many components from Caterpillar and indeed the engine is similar to the ones fitted to Caterpillars 953D and 963D track loaders.

"Diggers dig in" at Desford final part

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:15:17 +0000

During the last couple of hours of my visit to Caterpillars UK manufacturing facility in Leicester, I was invited to try out examples from the companies skid steer and multi terrain loader range. Once again it had been many years since I spent any time in a skid steer loader and it was one of my first drives in a multi terrain loader, or MTL, as Caterpillar like to call them. I started off with the Cat 277C and my first impression when climbing in was how much things have improved for the operator of these machines. The cabin is sealed and pressurised and fully fitted with air conditioning to provide a quiet, pleasant and dust free working environment.

Champion/Volvo make the grade

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:15:45 +0000

Champion Road Machinery Company is without doubt one of the most famous names in grader manufacturing history. The company was based at Goderich, Ontario, Canada and specialized in the manufacture of only one product, graders. The company originally had American roots. The Pennock family entered the road building business in 1875, some years later, around 1889, the company was renamed as the American Road Machinery Company. After one or two further name changes over the years the company became the Dominion Road Machinery company in 1915, this name continued until 1977 when following the success of the Champion grader models, the company finally became the Champion Road Machinery Company Ltd. We have been very lucky to receive these photos from a former employee at the Goderich plant. This first print shows one of the first Champion graders ever built, simply called the "Winner" it was designed to be pulled behind a team of horses.

Sunward mini excavator completes Finnish marathon

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:16:32 +0000

You may recall we reported on Jukka Mutanen's month long attempt to track a Chinese Sunward SWE17B mini excavator for 1000 kilometres from Hanko in the south of Finland to Kuusamo in the north east of Finland. Well at 6pm on the 29th June 2010 Jukka crossed the finnish line in front of a massive crowd and assembled media. Such was the coverage of this event not only in Finland but also internationally Jukka has become something of a celebrity, this fact was further endorsed by many members of the crowd trying to get his autograph! Jukka was greeted on the completion of his record breaking attempt by the president of Sunward, Mr He Qinghua, and many Finnish government officials including member of parliament Mr Tuomo Hanninen and the president of the Kuusamo district committee Mr Matti Heikkila.

Swedes have some fun with their machines

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:45:20 +0000

Swedish plant entrepreneur Conny Kolsjo and his friend Jon Anders Olsson recently got together and decided to have a bit of fun time with their machines. In this series of "David and Goliath" photos we see Conny's classic Akerman H16D excavator which weighs in at around 43 metric tons, and Jon's 950kg New Holland-Kobelco SK009 mini excavator getting up close and personal in a series of stunts. The H16D's smallest 1.75m rock bucket makes an ideal rain canopy for the SK009!

Case excavator tackles silt in Millbay

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:37:36 +0000

Jenkins Marine is currently working on the historic restoration of the Millbay Inner Basin in Plymouth, which is part of a £350 million regeneration project. Built by Brunel in the 1850's for the Great Western Railway Company this historic shipping dock has been virtually abandoned in recent times, despite it being a listed structure and famous local landmark. Two thirds of the material will be disposed of at sea using Jenkins Marine's 300m3 self-propelled split hopper barges Nab and Needles, while about one third of the material, which has trace contamination, is being brought to shore and then unloaded by excavator ready for dewatering and remediation by main contractors Morrison construction.

Operator peels banana with Case CX50B

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:36:16 +0000

Here is another one of those videos which shows the skill and showmanship of operators from around the world. In this instance the operator of this Case CX50B midi excavator peels a banana skin which is being held by one of the members of Time Team America. I wonder who will be trying this one on site tomorrow!