Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Svts]

2 hours ago, LGP Eddie said:

Yes the very same,

 

It was perhaps deemed as it’s first day out on hire, but I did the Demo myself with it prior to it being approved and the machine manufacturer did training for some on it.

 

Likewise it was Callum’s first day on hire, not the first time he’d sat in it.

 

There were no cable strike incidents I recall, but yes Rail is an absolute disgrace in terms of scrap lying about and cable seemingly anywhere.

I learnt a long time ago you don’t just grab a pile off a slope with a long reach and head off, you’ve got to tease it off the slope and watch for any black snakes on the bank before putting some lift/speed on.

 

Like anything it has it’s place, but Rail is notoriously difficult to educate from anything that hasn’t been done this way for the last twenty years.

 

 

Eddie.

 

Thankfully they started on an embankment. It was a bum twitcher watching it slipping and sliding along in a cutting. With the open running rail at the bottom of the slope. 

He did get pretty good on it as I remember. 

Yes I had a few close shaves with cables. Mainly at night. We would fell everything into the cutting and work through it with a grab fed. Like you say you learn to pick it up carefully until you know just what you've got. 

[Svts]

11 hours ago, LGP Eddie said:

This comprehensively pisses all over a Menzi in it’s intended applications, you soon get over the Menzi rose tint once you get one in some UK applications.

The old saying if you want a mess get a 3cx, could be magnified several times over with a Menzi in the wrong conditions!

In the right place absolutely incredible machines and awesome tool carriers.

 

These are literally hand built by the guy, yes you can have an extending dipper if you like, and yes they are street pads that actually work very effectively with little impact even in wet ground due to the fact you can actually angle them to fit the profile of the ground.

 

In use we looked at steel pad and maybe some grouser options, but Callum used to manage to get it to stick to pretty much anywhere in sensible conditions.

 

Price, it’s actually peanuts in the Rail world, and it’s ability to replace manual labour doing track side clearance on day shifts with trains running, put it in another league to alternatives that needed night time or possession working.

 

Hell of a piece of kit, brilliant to operate, it could have been better setup on the Tiltrotator front, but what a Mulching head, and the feeling of using one where the power in reality hardly ever dips.

 

Delivered it’s intended project absolutely brilliantly, no real issues, and could have gone on to do so much more, but that’s a chapter closed in a few good people’s lives.

 

I was lucky enough to get to operate it, got it through the demo for Network Rail and worked alongside Callum on it.

 

Nobody’s ever revisited the concept, but take it from me, it works and in the correct application they are absolutely incredible.

 

 

Eddie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Menzi pretty much defeated by a straightforward wet clay field, my LGP Kubota could work on that a week and not put a rut in it.

Horses for courses and Instagram ain’t real world!

 

Forestry lads will laugh and say crack on until the ruts are up to your waist, it doesn’t work like that on third party landowners arable ground involving land agents in new Discovery’s and red trousers!🤦‍♂️

 

 

 

 

 

So this was your long reach then? I was carting the chip away. Callum ran my 461 over! 9

[LGP Eddie]

Back in the GC days.

 

Yes that would have been me on the Liebherr with extension arm and felling head, with almost certainly Bob loading the Bandit with the Kubota and nightmare of a grab setup.

 

It was red hot weather, we watched them silage at that Dairy Farm, a few weeks later the place looked like a desert and the poor guy had to open the clamp and use it as feed.

 

Callum was with GC then, he does a fair bit for me when I have something on, I’ll have to remind him of that!

 

 

Eddie.

[Svts]

Ask him if he remembers the daring duck rescue at Westbury! 

[swinny]

On 29/03/2022 at 15:16, LGP Eddie said:

The machines load chart will tell you what you can and can’t fit.

 

No point having a shear if you’re off the chart full reach over the side in weight terms before you’ve even started.

 

Eddie.

That said and without seeing one is a 2.7t machine peeing into the wind then? 

 

I'm running a 1.8t machine and have 2 options :

 

Move up to the 2.7t and shear and flail etc

 

or keep the 1.8 and buy something 3-6t instead but need to tractor low loader about 

[LGP Eddie]

15 minutes ago, swinny said:

That said and without seeing one is a 2.7t machine peeing into the wind then? 

 

I'm running a 1.8t machine and have 2 options :

 

Move up to the 2.7t and shear and flail etc

 

or keep the 1.8 and buy something 3-6t instead but need to tractor low loader about 

It all depends what your own applications and circumstances really.

 

I have a good mate who’s a Farmer and spent many years down the loader bucket/boiler suit/wellies/chainsaw route until he got educated what a tree shear was able to do.

 

He now runs a 5 tonne Bobcat e45 and Intermercato T cut shear as his ditching and headland clearance setup, and I’d say it’s probably as small as you’d want to go for shearing and still be able to produce a serious amount in a day.

It’s proved to be a very good setup for him, and soon had a few neighbours calling him or purchasing similar.

 

The 2.7 has always been the natural progression from the 1.5 tonners, you can’t beat them for the ability to sneak them about and that bit extra size makes a massive difference.

There’s lighter shears about now specifically for these, but I’ll be honest even on bigger jobs sometimes a few good lads on a saw will decimate small stuff and stack it real quick, then just use the excavator and grab to handle it, rather than chasing about with a shear.

 

 

Eddie.

 

 

 

 

[Stephen Blair]

It’s not a yes or no answer.  To me a 2.7t is twice the machine a 1.8t is, not for digging but with timber.  My 2.7t machines have been the centre of my business going into 10 years now.  Stick it on the trailer and go.  

[LGP Eddie]

8 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

It’s not a yes or no answer.  To me a 2.7t is twice the machine a 1.8t is, not for digging but with timber.  My 2.7t machines have been the centre of my business going into 10 years now.  Stick it on the trailer and go.  

That’s always been the case, many dip a toe in with a cheap used 1.5 tonner, next minute a 2.7 tonner replaces it and the attachments start to arrive, and then adding in a 6 or 8 tonner as things grow.

 

For me 8 tonner is the one for ultimate versatility/performance, it’s just moving them that’s the hassle.

 

 

Eddie.

[Gray git]

That’s always been the case, many dip a toe in with a cheap used 1.5 tonner, next minute a 2.7 tonner replaces it and the attachments start to arrive, and then adding in a 6 or 8 tonner as things grow.
 
For me 8 tonner is the one for ultimate versatility/performance, it’s just moving them that’s the hassle.
 
 
Eddie.

You've just described our excavator journey!
Just added this to the E85's toybox and had my 13yo daughter practicing with the grab today while I messed around at the yard.

[william127]

Any recommendations for augers for a 0.8 micro and a 1.5 ton, both run the same hitch with 25mm pins? 

Got a big decking job with great access to do soon so might invest 🤔