Making hard physical work easier.

[Lons]

That's my excuse as it's playing really. Actually it's still hard work and seems to be worse with every year that passes. I'm having to haul the spoil a good couple of hundred yards so luckily there's not too much.

There's a corner of the front garden that got a bit out of hand with an old lilac and a cherry tree that died over the winter so I kknew it had to be done. Co-incidently I dug out the old Costco temporary garage and stuck up the frame but got grief from the missus who doesn't want it there ('cos she can't reverse properly ) so thought it might go in the corner once cleared but now I've looked at it propery it won't so If my wife digs her heels in I could be doing my own washing and cooking for a while as it's staying put. It's 6m x 3m so useful and where the motorhome used to be parked. That was 7.5m long and nearly as wide but she doesn't believe it.

I borrowed the toy excavator as I thought it would make light work of the roots, lilac no problem but wouldn't look at the cherry stump even though it's not that thick. Still it helped me to get well down to the roots and the rest was just an axe, a mattock and chainsaw.

The toy is great fun though.

 

[Blackswanwood]

Small diggers are great fun. Once I’ve finished the actual job I end up digging holes and filling them back in for no real reason whenever I get one

 

[duke]

Great little excavator, nice to have one so handy. What is the make other than C+ ?

 

[Lons]

It belongs to a mate who bought it secondhand and it's just a cheap French manufactured machine. There are loads of clones around.
It's quite limited, very slow and not much swing either side, it doesn't turn 180deg either which can make loading difficult but still fun. I used it in the field to install a fair amount of field grainage pipes last year and saved a huge amount of manual work.

I used to hire various size machines regularly and my favourite was the small micro digger with most of the grown up features and retractible tracks so it would go theough a narrow gate or doorway. They were only around £12k then and used from around half that, I often wish I had as I'd have kept hold of it when I retired.

 

[Lons]

Small diggers are great fun. Once I’ve finished the actual job I end up digging holes and filling them back in for no real reason whenever I get one

Prerequisite practice for the next job Robert. You wouldn't want to accidentally knock something down after all.

I remember when we were digging drainage trenches during a grade 2 listed stable conversion, I had a small 3 tonne digger and was working next to a rather nice 6ft high sandstone wall when the owner came out and yelled to get my attention, I knocked a lever as I turned and promptly dislodged a couple of rather large copings. After a few "deary me" and other suitable words I informed the owner, a close friend to "go away" we set about repairs as we were due a visit from the LA conservation officer. It took four of us to lift each coping into place. Luckily we had a batch of suitable lime mortar on the go and would be repointing the wall in due course.