Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Guss109]

Bought a new six tonner recently, it needs to come in for guarding before it goes in the woods.

 

http://www.liugong-europe.com/products/excavators/compact-excavators/906diii

 

 

 

 

How are you getting on with the lg bob? Watched a thing about them and they seem a great machine for the money

[aspenarb]

How are you getting on with the lg bob? Watched a thing about them and they seem a great machine for the money

 

All good so far Gus but that said we have only put 150hours on it , jury is still out on it

 

Bob

[Guss109]

All good so far Gus but that said we have only put 150hours on it , jury is still out on it

 

Bob

 

 

The clip I saw was of the uk franchise and said they're selling well to the demo companies and even the likes of flannery's have bought a few so seems good feedback. Hopefully you have no problems with it

[Stephen Blair]

Hi Billy, I got your PM.

I don't know about weights but I find keeping things moving is the key.

From the second it's cut, move.

If you move you can drop and move way more that you will ever lift.

[Adrian cook]

I think I would opt for some guarding...

 

I agree and I have now asked 3 companies to quote for this and none of them have turned up. If anybody has any contacts let me know. I did speak to fms at the APF and even the have not come back to me. Whilst I agree it needs some guarding to tick a box. The cab is rops and fops certificated anyway unlike most excavators even without guarding. To be honest the only thing that concerns me is the fact that there is no protection to stop anything coming through the front window. In reality a 60ft branch or tree 14inch diameter falling out of the shear is merely going to roll off the cab anyway. No fops protection is going to stop a broken branch spearing the window in the roof! I am thinking of changing the 'plastic' panel for a toughened glass. But then I can't think of any reason you would have anything leaning over the cab anyway. Just seams daft to me. Any suitable contact appreciated though

[LGP Eddie]

I agree and I have now asked 3 companies to quote for this and none of them have turned up. If anybody has any contacts let me know. I did speak to fms at the APF and even the have not come back to me. Whilst I agree it needs some guarding to tick a box. The cab is rops and fops certificated anyway unlike most excavators even without guarding. To be honest the only thing that concerns me is the fact that there is no protection to stop anything coming through the front window. In reality a 60ft branch or tree 14inch diameter falling out of the shear is merely going to roll off the cab anyway. No fops protection is going to stop a broken branch spearing the window in the roof! I am thinking of changing the 'plastic' panel for a toughened glass. But then I can't think of any reason you would have anything leaning over the cab anyway. Just seams daft to me. Any suitable contact appreciated though

 

 

You do right to get some guarding sorted and the reality is finding someone who is willing to do it will be extremely difficult.

Several schools of thought exist on guarding, but the facts as I see it are you can't touch the existing Cab structure in any way, and any guarding must be accepted as not being approved in any way apart from the fact you are taking all sensible precautions to minimise the risk.

However, having it designed/constructed by an industry recognised specialist with the correct fabrication knowledge and qualified welders etc clearly demonstrates you have taken all reasonable precautions.

 

Sometimes factory guarding is available, and in limited instances approved third party guards, but these are mainly for Demolition and not necessarily suitable for the task.

Changing windows out for Marguard especially where Mulchers or Harvesting Heads are concerned is a must, and in reality can be a lot easier than some would make out, and can be done skilfully so you really wouldn't know it's fitted.

 

Your comments on nothing stopping anything from above lead me why my current Kubota is guarded as it is. It may not be the limb you're shearing that gets you, it's most likely that bit of dead top that you've just dislodged that's hurtling down towards the roof without you knowing!

I had this happen whilst felling with the grab of my old Kubota, and it's not something I'd want to repeat. I was inches from a top window unwanted visitor!

The top of my machine will now keep me a lot safer than before, and the times the whole structure rings like a bell, lets you know that it's money well spent.

 

The front window is obviously maximum risk, and for those daft enough to shear without a guard, at least take the levers off your track pedals.

Why? If it all goes wrong and that limb comes in, depending on which way around you are, you may have the machine back away from it, or worse keep tracking that limb into the cab with you unable to do very little about it!

 

Personally I'd like to sit down with the HSE and take a look at sensible precautions for a minimum standard of guarding for Excavators in Tree Work, before we read of a tragedy with the inevitable knee jerk reaction that would follow with either bans on certain attachments or machines looking like tanks with a periscope to look out of!

 

There are some great companies that will do the guarding, Forest machine Services, Wilsons, Caledonian Forestry, JCC Engcon are the ones I can think of but it would be great to hear of more.

Cab Care and Jayscreen do a range of guards for machines that are approved for demolition.

 

My final point really has to be, how does anyone use a Shear on an Excavator without additional Front/Top guarding and get it past the most basic Risk Assesment, and the same would apply to a screen guard with a free swinging log grab?

 

 

Eddie.

[IRE David H]

Does anyone use a mulcher on their digger,

[LGP Eddie]

Does anyone use a mulcher on their digger,

 

An awful lot of Flail heads and Mulchers getting fitted these days to all sizes of excavators. I'm running one.

 

 

Eddie.

[gemtrees]

Here's our 5tonner

[Dave177]

Having had an excavator at work in the woods fairly continuously for around 2 years I would suggest anyone wanting to do a similar thing to invest in the guarding.

Since guarding up we have had no real machine damage, but have had lok of object hit the guarding, typically from dead tops or hanging limbs or when handling big tops and hitting the screen guard. No matter how good an operator you are It will still happen. Even when using a simple fixed demo grab we had a 5" log twist and get pulled straight through the window of the machine, luckily the operator reacted quickly and no damage was done apart from a new screen.

We guarded ours ourselves due to the problems you are finding getting hold of people that acctually want the work.