Italian Black Beauty in the Forest

Looking back at one of my articles, previously published in Earthmovers Magazine, un-edited and with alternative photos and video.

Dan Hurle (42) has certainly packed a lot into his life already, whether that be a road trip across India in Mahindra Jeeps, up in the mountains of the Himalayas or even trekking in the Sierra Nevada in California, but when he is not globetrotting around the world, Dan is most at home working in the forestry and landscaping industry sectors.

Historically based in Cornwall, Dan works primarily in the South West including Devon and Somerset, and generally tends to keep travelling to jobs at no longer than 1.5 hours from their Cornish base, although in the last few years they have ventured further afield for certain jobs, including some road junction improvement works on the M20 around Ashford in Kent, tree maintenance works on the M25 and some work for the MOD on Salisbury Plain.  

Dan has been involved in forestry and around machinery all his life, as he explained further, “My dad has been involved in the forestry contracting sector since the 1960’s, and was one of the first in his cutting gang, to start using chainsaws, in those days he had an early Husqvarna model, and paid the money for it back to the company on a weekly basis.

From early age, especially during school holidays, me and my brother used to go to work with dad, and ride in the machines, I can vividly remember being driven up Dartmoor to a place called ‘Dendles Wood’ in a Mini-Brunnet 678 forwarder, it was one of the first purpose-built machines in the area and I was constantly amazed by where it would go.

It was this exposure that led to my keen interest and love of the great outdoors, and the catalyst for me following the ‘old man’ into the woods.

“When I was old enough to do so, I used to go hand weeding young trees during the summer holidays. Eventually I gained my chainsaw and climbing tickets worked on a firm called Fountains myself for a few years with my brother and dad. In 2000 dad took the plunge and set up on his own. Around that time, I attended the renowned Sparsholt College, in Winchester where I did an HND (Higher National Diploma) in forestry management, while still helping dad out during weekends and holidays. In 2004 we set up John Hurle and Sons Ltd and went on from there and now at the age of 74 dad is still actively engaged in the business”.

For the first decade of the new business, they were involved in a lot of railway de-vegetation projects with the furthest afield being up in North Wales at Porthmadog, there were also lengthy spells of flail strip clearance works at night in the Welsh Valleys.

As anyone who has worked on the railway side of things will tell you, it can be very stressful, and with that in mind over the last few years Dan has moved back to more traditional contracting work, most notably this has included moving a lot of iconic trees for Truro City Council and the Duchy of Cornwall.

The company had been using excavators extensively since 2006 but didn’t actually own their own machine until 2015 when they purchased a Bobcat E26.

For the more traditional forestry work they always ran Valtra tractors with timber cranes, however they then started to pick up a lot of rhododendron clearance works due to the phytophthora outbreak in Cornwall, Dan takes up the story, “At the time we were hand cutting and burning with the cranes, but on really steep ground we were having to do it all by hand, which is time consuming and hard work.

So, we contacted a then young Graham Sandercock to come and help us on the job in the Pentewan Valley to see if we could speed the whole process up. At the time Graham was running a little Kubota KX71 mini excavator and we were totally amazed at what he could do with it, we basically left him to it, grubbing out everything and eliminating the need for respraying any regrowth making the whole procedure much more cost effective, and in addition he moved all the material to a location where we could pick it up with a forwarder.   

Photo: Graham Sandercock (Right) an expert locally in mechanized tree and shrub maintenance.

Graham effectively showed us just what was possible with an excavator utilising flails and timber grab attachments, and he then undertook all our excavator works over the next few years.

As Graham’s own workload grew, we started hiring mini excavators ourselves, and we further developed our long-standing relationship with local plant hire business Acland Plant. With Acland’s being big JCB customers the machine of choice for our application was the 8026 which was easily towable, this is what led to us buying our own machine.

We did a fair bit of research for suitable machines, and in the end, we opted for the Bobcat E26 due to the reach, power and comfort levels in the cab, we especially liked the rocker switches on the joysticks for working the grab and rotation services.

It was around Christmas time last year when we potentially had a few big jobs coming our way, so I started looking for a replacement for the E26. Having been very happy with the Bobcat machine, I was hoping to upgrade to the new E27Z with a view to sending it up to Hywel Evans to convert to ARB digger spec, but unfortunately the lead time was October this year, so we kept searching.

Once more I turned to Graham for some advice, and asked him if Mecalac had any plans to launch a towable mini machine, he said no, but suggested we take a look at the Italian built Eurocomach range. This led to me having a chat with Davide Cerca the Managing Director of Robustrack Ltd who are the main dealers.

Davide suggested we could have a build slot for February this year, which led to me putting in the order with Graham helping me to spec it up to meet our requirements. Unfortunately, due to world events it was a bit delayed, but I must say Davide and Robustrack were great to deal with and kept us updated on progress and it eventually arrived in mid-June. It was supplied with a full set of buckets, and an Agriforest GMR 1100 SP rotating timber grab, Graham also supplied us with Femac T90 flail mower”.

Earthmovers visited man and machine on a Duchy of Cornwall job within the confines of their Penclenick Estate, where they were conducting tree safety works due to Ash Dieback in public areas, the job involved removing the affected trees along the boundary of a school sports pitch, thinning the wood, while at the same time removing a lot of squirrel damaged understory, and chipping leaving clear ground for replanting this coming winter. 

With an operating weight of 2,700kgs the zero tailswing Eurocomach 28ZT is powered by a fuel-efficient, Stage V emissions compliant 3-cylinder Kubota diesel engine offering a power output rating of 18.2 kW (24.7hp) @2200rpm.

The stylish looking machine is sporting a striking black livery, but this has caused some concern with certain clients from a H&S point of view in terms of visibility, hence some hastily added red and yellow chevron stickers, Dan says that the machine is going to be fitted with a full chevron wrap on the back end in due course to address these concerns.

The machine features a fuel saving, load sensing hydraulic system, which combined with the flow sharing distributor allows for multiple movements to be carried out at the same time, even when the flow rate request exceeds the pumps maximum flow rate, with a slew speed of 10 rpm it certainly seemed a lively piece of kit as Dan demonstrated to full effect in the forest!

Maximum reach at ground level with the long dipper arm is 4,720mm while a maximum dig depth of 2,850mm can be achieved.

A large gull wing bonnet on the off-side opens up to reveal the side mounted engine bay which features good access to all fluid filters and the air filter, in addition to the dipstick, and coolant bottle.

To the rear where we normally discover the engine bay, on this machine its home to the 46-litre fuel tank and the 30-litre hydraulic tank, with the cooling pack radiator located on the off-side. Access to the slew motor and other major hydraulic system components is further enhanced by the tilting cab feature.

The cab is typically Italian in design, well laid out and stylish, I found the seat especially comfortable, with the only downside for me personally the fact there was no air-conditioning fitted, as its an optional extra.

Asked for his overall thoughts on the machine Dan said, “So far it has proved to be superb and a lot better than I was expecting, the Bobcat was ace and I would happily have another one, but the Eurocomach is a bit better in all areas, for starters it’s a bit heavier, so it provides a more stable platform for shearing and timber handling, this enables us to run a slightly bigger grab with ease.

I’ve also been impressed by its ability to run the flail and track at the same time, which is thanks to the additional pump that is fitted on these machines, which has led to a lot of additional work on the new St Austell link road project.

The hydraulics are really smooth and powerful for the size of the machine and the reach is incredible. The cab is very quiet and well insulated, and with the side mounted engine there does seem to be a lot more room in the cabin area. With plenty of legroom I find it really easy to track with the foot pedals, which is something I have really struggled with in other smaller machines.

My only real dislikes are that I find door is a bit narrow for entering and egressing and it is a bit of a step up, but that’s more about me being overweight and having dodgy knees! But overall, I have to say it’s proving to be a fantastic piece of kit!”. 

VERMEER BC 1000XL

On the day of our visit Dan was also busy feeding there Vermeer BC 1000XL drum chipper, which he described as a great machine and a bit of a beast!

Described as an ‘oldie but a goldie’ the 12-inch class machine features a 14 x 17-inch feed opening and is powered by pre-emissions Cummins 3.3 litre diesel engine producing an impressive 90hp.

Talking about it, Dan said, “We like it because its very easy to set up and maintain with only 4 bolts on each blade, with no depth gauges to adjust, it’s a simply just a great machine. We bought it because we needed a bigger chipper to go with the ARB diggers, that was mobile and east to get from site to site.

In the past when we were railway contracting, we had smaller tracked machines, working with larger PTO driven units. But as we began using diggers more, we were finding a need for a larger capacity chipper to feed.

The Vermeer has worked brilliantly so when funds allow, we will upgrade but I’m not sure what to go for as emission strangled engines really aren’t that great in this application and the bigger machines are good but too heavy to move around.

Ultimately, I would like a Schliesing 550zx mobile unit on a turntable they just scrape in at under 3.5 tonnes and with turntable would be better for highway works”.

Family Affair

The business is still very much family driven, with father John still involved with tendering and a bit of office stuff, and still likes to come out from time to time to fell the odd tree to keep his hand in.

Dan’s little sister Gemma deals with the major day to day office works and invoicing, while big brother Matt helps out when needed. The core team out on site on the tools are Dan and Viv who has been with the firm for many years, and Edd who is taking on the climbing and Olly our apprentice.