Matthew Storrs
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Everything posted by Matthew Storrs
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Yes, I guess it comes down to the added traction you get from all that weight behind it particularly on the rear wheels. I always find a tractor spins out far too easily when pushing into a pile of soil. What size dumper is that 6 ton?
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Nice- how does the digging power compare to your big Cat you had? Would you say similar? You must be getting the hang of the new controls allright...
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Best 7 or 8 ton excavator for forestry work ??
Matthew Storrs replied to njtimber's topic in Large equipment
On reliability, Iv had 2x Takeuchis that have both done 3 years graft with neither needing any more than basic servicing, oils etc and tracks, Also they are beautifully basic in terms of fit and finish which may suit a forestry enviroment well.... Flat panel glass is easily and cheapily replaceable and the panels are all metal- no nasty plastics to crack and cost a fortune to fix! Some say that they wear quickly on the pins, but i'm convicnced this is down to lack of grease (being a common hire machine). cos neither neither of mine have worn badly at all- but i'm OTT with the grease:laugh1: -
That looks great Eddie, far more convincing looking for real world field situations i undoubtably would find myself. The dealer selling the JCB i posted said it was possible to switch the controls anyway (??) if i really did find JCB to hard to get on with but i'd be determined to persist with them much like Stephen will with his:lol: I actually kind of relish the thought of learning on something new to me alltogether! i assume though with all these extra dig models that the idea of a fixed grab or even a thumb is not possible as your bracing back on to the staionary part of the dipper? In all fairness id probably look at demo grabs anyway.
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We were doing a tree job on the main road accross dartmoor- had traffic lights set to all red and this bloke comes through them as if it doesn't apply to him- climber was halfway through a big limb coming off- what a plonker!
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I went to look at this old beast the other day- took me a while to get hang of the JCB controls but opened my mind to the backhoe route, This is going for just under £14k with new tyres basically needed all round. so probs another 2.5k.. Seems alot for an over 20 year old machine, but perhaps for good reason. http://devonplant.co.uk/detail.asp?ID=1234
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Steve,If you did go down this route then if it was too wide it might require some bracing/gusset on the thumb to avoid the twisting when the force is on the outer edge- Im sure RSL will come up with a solution. If you look at that thumb on the Neuson i mentioned above- the profile of the tines are quite curved/as opposed to the normal straight ones on a lot of thumbs, something like this but wider and with filled in gaps would work well Id have thought for your application
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Yes, sure. but a demo grab like you had on that Neuson or that Stephen Blair has on his Cat are £££. I think SteveA is after something rather more cost effective? I still think a Thumb made to suit his application ie wide and almost like an opposing side of a clamshell would work very well and not cost too much either.
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Sounds like a good plan- I,m particularly interested to see how you find it in the wet- thats my main concern at the moment. I,m sure you will get a hang of the controls soon enough once the muscle memory kicks in! I had a go in a 1994 JCB the other day and no word of a lie it took me about 20 mins to get a coherant operation out of it:laugh1: I honestly think someone who had never driven a digger before would have been better than me cos my hands kept trying to use a normal digger. I,m wondering how easy it would be to have a quich hitch on the 4 in 1 bucket with quick hoses so i could use other attachments on the front- in my case a post knocker- but all sorts really- log grabs etc.
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don't think a grab is the right tool for you by the sounds of it- you can't grab loose material unless you had some sort of add on plates made up to make it more clamshell like- fairly sure you can buy clamshell grabs in the same format as the fixed grabs.... Yes, I think if i was you Id look at getting a fabricator to make me a thumb to suit your application- ie wide as you say but with the tine filled in to assist grabing loose material- or rather keeping it in the bucket.
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depends what you are doing really- if your just after a general purpose handling tool them the thumb comes into its own- as its always there on the machine and obviously you still have the bucket on- if you start doing a lot of dedicated handling whether its logs/rocks/scrub or whatever then a proper grapple is much better- stronger- and you can really get a good grip round things where the thumb would flounder a bit. I think a rotating grab is really only worth it if your into forestry/timber handling in a big way- a fixed grab will go far once for most things- use ofset boom etc to get the log at the right angle to the stack- and you can use the grab to 'knock' the log into the right position if your not quite lined up right- you soon get the hang of it.
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Looks like an RSl engineering grab to me. I have one on my 3 tonner and it is well over engineered (in a very good way). I spend most of the time grappling with granite boulders that way half a ton plus at it has worn very gracefully over the 2.5 years iv had it. Get one- you won't regret it- much stronger than a 'thumb'.
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Wonderfull, keep us updated with plenty of pics of it in action:thumbup1: Is it a Jcb? have you got it on servo controls? Im keeping my eye out for a decent backhoe too, I,m thinking I may actually use one far more than a larger tracked machine which is the alternative. save carting the tractor/loader AND digger to the job which is what im doing at the mo
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Forgot about this thread- another little rebuild i did t'other day. using some nearby boulders to beef it up a bit! digger and grab is brilliant for this kind of stuff cos some of those stone are 1/2 ton each:thumbup1:
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Mmm nice- was that on servo controls? I had a go on a JCB backhoe the other day with a view to buying- felt proper kackhanded on it compared Mini digger controls!
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Thats a great simple idea- I wonder how the micro size diggers would cope with the extra weight or rather added extension/leverage, but could solve the problem for those who want to be able to load transits and the like.
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Eddie- its just clicked what you meant- the extension being operated by the bucket ram to give the extra lift height- neat idea. Actually, that Yanmar looks well thought out- Im looking for new options when i trade my Takeuchi in at the end of this year- it seems from looking at manuufacturers that this size machine are becoming increasingly zero tail swing or much reduced- whereas their older models were standard.
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Hmm can't picture this. do you mean like an extended dipper arm?
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sorry heres the rest[ATTACH]199967[/ATTACH]
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Heres my 3t digger with the fixed grapple in action on a river bank job- might be worth baring in mind that you will get more height with one of these grabs over a rotator grapple, cheaper too and you can quite easily knock timber about stacking it etc. The last 2 was my old 1.6 ton Takeuchi which was certainly on its limits with the last photo:laugh1: [/ATTACH]
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The work of 5 blokes without the sweat and moaning! :thumbup1:And the beauty of a micro digger is they are no bother to take along to even reletively small jobs- you could put it on a transit and still tow a trailer load of timber (Not sure about payloads of a transit but you get my idea)
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Agreed, i found haix sole quite soft and as said the sole was the downfall whereas im sure the uppers would have gone on for a fair bit longer, you can resole the pfanner air tirrols but not had to yet- i suppose if you are doing a lot of urban work on tarmac concrete etc they will wear quite a bit quicker- im in fields mainly.
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I used to wear Haix as i found them very comfortable, but i wasn't happy only getting a year or 2 use out of them before the sole came off. I now wear Pfannor air tirrols- took a while to get them comfy but they are on their 4th year now and still look good, really comfy now too. But more of a groundsman/foresty boot id say- Pricey but tough as nails
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The Takeuchi tb108 has a dump height of just over 2 meters from memory- this will be at full reach too, but bare in mind that by the time you have a log grab/ and the log hanging by gravity this height will be reuced quite abit- i think you will be ok loading an ifor flatbed but may struggle with the transit- the takeuchi tb016 with canopy is only 25cm wider with the tracks retracted but much twice the macihe and will load a transit fine. just a thought but probably a bit big for restricted access given that you could only carry one log out at a time...
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I'm with Goaty on the number of trees per day, 250 may be possible if you are just slit planting with little consideration for the roots but i planted a bareroot Beech hedge the other day and it took me most of the day to plant 100x 90-120cm, pit plating deep enough not to have to bunch the roots up a 1ft deep os so in most cases.
