Executive Hire News › Archives › November 2009 › Market Report : Get attached
Market Report : Get attached
Nick Johnson reports from the recent attachment demonstration days where Exac-One showed different ways to make a mini excavator more versatile.
At a time when many hire companies are seeking to increase the utilisation of their compact excavators, the use of alternative attachments can make these popular machines much more hireable. So the recent attachment demonstration days staged by enterprising dealer, Exac-One Ltd, provided a good opportunity to see ways of making minis able to undertake different tasks and serve a wider variety of hire customers.
Exac-One is based at Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire and, since the company’s formation in 2002, its Directors Andrew Harker and
Doug Guest have built up a comprehensive sales catalogue of different attachments. The equipment they now sell includes quick hitches, augers, crusher buckets, screening buckets, mowers, tree shears, power grip buckets, tilting devices, hydraulic breakers, forestry mulchers, post drivers, trenchers, stump grinders, pulverisers, compactors, kerb lifters, planers and drum cutters, amongst others.
Many hirers still do not appreciate the hire potential of a compact excavator used with a mower, forestry cutter, stump grinder or tree shear. Yet such combinations can prove to be invaluable because, whilst general construction work is at a low level due to the economic crisis, grass, vegetation and trees continue to grow and still need to be regularly cut, cleared or pruned.
Having established its business by selling PowerTilt and Engcon Tiltrotator tilting devices, Exac-One soon added Osma mowers for use on the dipper arms of compact excavators. It subsequently worked with this Italian mower maker to develop the current Mini Mower range that now includes units that can be used on machines weighing from 800kg to 9 tonne. Andrew Harker says that, despite the recession, there is still a good market for Mini Mowers and the larger forestry mowers suitable for use on excavators weighing 10 to 25 tonne.The use of quick hitches, such as the Easy Hitch from Exac-One, allows a mower to be easily removed from the dipper arm of a compact excavator and replaced by another complementary attachment such as a tree shear. Exac-One imports several different sizes of Timberline tree shears, which are made in the USA by the Sidney Manufacturing Company.
The latest Timberline tree shear is the TL250 model, which was demonstrated felling and then chopping up young poplar trees. Seen in action fitted to the dipper of a 4890kg Kubota U50-3a mini excavator, this shear weighs 255kg. The attachment has a hydraulically powered blade with a serrated jaw to hold the tree trunk as it is cut.
The TL250 can slice through hard wood with a diameter of up to 255mm and soft wood sized up to 350mm. The unit comes with 110° hydraulic rotation as standard and the excavator that carries it requires a double acting hydraulic circuit.
Once a tree had been felled, the TL250 was used as a grab to move the trunk and branches to a clear area where the limbs could be neatly cut off and stacked. The tree shear was then removed from the excavator and replaced with one of the latest attachments available from
Exac-One - the HSF27 stump grinder from R F System AB in Sweden.
Robust stump grinder
Having long searched for a robust stump grinder that can be used effectively on compact excavators, Andrew Harker is very pleased with the design and performance of the HSF27. This attachment can be fitted onto excavators weighing 2700kg to 7000kg. The HSF 27 weighs 125kg and requires an hydraulic flow rate of 35 to 60 litre/minute. The powerful unit comes with its own built-in support legs and, when in use, its vertically orientated cutting disc can reach into places inaccessible to some other stump grinders to quickly cut away the base of a felled tree. R F System also makes the smaller HSF 20 stump grinder attachment for use on mini excavators weighing 1400kg to 2500kg.
Another new attachment now available from Exac-One is the Slane HC-150 finger bar cutter produced by Gradal Manufacturing in Co Meath, Ireland. This hedge cutter can be used on mini excavators with operating weights from 1500kg to 7500kg. It was demonstrated on a 3980kg Kubota KX121-3a mini fitted with Exac-One’s 2m long dipper extension arm, with an Easy Hitch at each end.
By angling the HC-150 either vertically or horizontally, the Kubota operator was quickly able to neatly trim both the top and sides of a hedge. The unit has 20 cutting knives and their action seemed less aggressive than a flail cutter, so there is less chance of flying debris.
Visitors to this year’s Exac-One demonstration days were also able to see the latest 1500mm wide Diga-Bara. This 1500 unit is now the largest of four simple, but effective, two wheeled dumper trailers designed to be used with mini excavators. Developed by Joe Carroll of Lancaster-based JC Engineering, the Diga-Bara is hitched to a coupling fitted onto the top of the middle of the dozer blade on the mini excavator. The excavator can then push or pull the dumper trailer along and, as seen on the specially constructed Diga-Bara Challenge course, the combination is very manoeuvrable.
The excavator operator is able to load the skip of the Diga-Bara and then propel the unit to the point where the load is to be emptied. Material can then be scooped out of the skip with the excavator’s bucket (ideal for metering out pipe bedding material into a trench alongside) or quickly tipped out.
The skip of the Diga-Bara can be mechanically tipped by the excavator operator from his cab by gently using the machine’s bucket to activate the mechanical tip mechanism. The skip can be returned to its loading position by inertia through a combination of lowering the blade and reversing the digger.
Fitted with low-pressure ATV tyres, the four sizes of Diga-Baras have widths (indicated by their model numbers) of 1150mm, 1300mm, 1400mm and 1500mm. They have heaped capacities from around 500kg to 750kg and can be used with mini excavators weighing 1000kg to 2500kg.
The sole supplier of the useful Diga-Bara in the UK is Exac-One. This product, along with all the many excavator attachments which are now available to help hirers make their compact plant more versatile, can be found on the company’s informative web site which includes a video of the Diga-Bara in action. •
0845 6015574
www.exac-one.co.uk
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