by Nick Drew | Tue 22 May 2018
“In’t Thick of It” Dig Day a Big Success
JCB dealers TC Harrison put on a Dig Day last Friday and Saturday at Maltby in South Yorkshire, named the “In’t Thick of It” Dig Day the event went down a storm apparently and one attendee, the well-known rubber duck owner operator Ollie Kitchin has shared some photos from the day with us here on the Digger Man Blog.
The event was held at the CTA’s (Construction Training Academy) facility in Maltby over two gloriously sunny days and it offered visitors the chance to see and try out the latest products on offer from JCB including the stunning new 220X tracked excavator, the new 18Z-1 and 19C-1 mini excavators, the latter being fitted with an Engcon tiltrotator, the new 7T-1 Hi-Viz forward tipping site dumper and the revolutionary new JCB Teleskid alongside a host of other JCB products.
TC Harrison had put a lot of effort into gathering together a number of interesting company’s including long term JCB customers from their region and attachments suppliers, adding into the mix internet celebrity owner operators like James Covell, who brought his JS145 with Steelwrist tiltrotator and Richie Collett’s operator Scott Hastings who all have a significant following on the World Wide Web.
JC Balls & Sons were also there and brought along a number of their classic JCB machine restorations for visitors to reminisce over including the classic JCB 7 hydraulic excavator.
Ollie only intended to pop along to the event for a couple of hours, but he was so impressed with it that he stayed for the best part of Saturday, talking about the event Ollie said, I have to say I thought it was a fantastic show and all credit must go to the guys at TCH for putting it on, it was well laid out, dry underfoot and family friendly, the guys behind other major UK plant shows could learn a lot from this event in my opinion”.
During his time at the show Ollie spent some considerable time with Ritchie Collett and said, “The set up on Ritchie's machine was very impressive! All Engcon EC-Oil, detachable gripper and in operation it remained very well planted on the ground.
I Spent a good hour or so with Ritchie, who I thought was a cracking bloke, it really was time well spent to see how all the Topcon system worked and how easy it was to set up, I think it has to be the most highly specified JS145’s in the country”.
There was a heavy presence of tiltrotator’s, currently the UK’s fastest selling must have attachment at the event with examples of show and available to try out from Engcon and Steelwrist.
Although this was primarily a JCB themed event, there were some other brands on show, with one large guest proving popular with the visitors. The Caterpillar D11R which was displayed without its blade, was quite literally a massive crowd drawer, parked alongside a D9T as a size comparison.
Ollie always has his eye on the latest innovations and he was keen to take a look at some of the new developments from James Fisher Prolec, the safe load specialists whose products now cover a wide range of applications.
Aerial filming experts Hawk UAV's owner Steve Pentleton installed a 360 degree camera into James Covell's JS145 and it could later be viewed via a virtual reality system which Ollie described as being very impressive!
Check out this 360 degree in cab footage by Hawk UAV.
The event was very well attended with hundreds of visitors taking time out to visit the show over the two days, from the feedback I have received there is definitely a strong desire to see this event replicated in the north of England and even expanded to include other manufacturers, it looks likely to be a case of watch this space next year.
The Digger Man Blog thanks Ollie Kitchin for sharing his photos with us.