It’s No Holiday for Takeuchi

Taking a look back at this story that appeared in Earthmovers earlier this year, bringing it to life on the internet with alternative images and some video.

Based in the picturesque setting of Polzeath on the North Cornwall coast, Daniel Wonnacott (25) like so many in rural Cornwall, started off working on farms and during that time he developed an interest for driving diggers, and it was while undertaking small excavation work on the farms now and again, that he quickly picked up the controls and honed his skills on the machines.

Daniel later found a job with local building firm Luke & Dingle Ltd, a long-established company who are based just along the coast at Wadebridge. Daniel thought it might be a good idea to get a trade, so he decided to go to Truro & Penwith College (Truro) and undertook a Level 2 apprenticeship in site carpentry which ran over a couple of years and was arranged by his employer.

Taking his newly learned skills with him onto numerous sites in the local area, Daniel was constantly exposed to diggers working on the jobs, and it was something he still had a hankering for. Daniel takes up the story, “The plant and machinery just had something about it, and to be honest I wasn’t really enjoying the carpentry work, so every time I could I would work on late with my mate Steve Jasper, who is a machine operator and I would take the opportunity to jump on the machines to gain more experience.

It transpired that Steve was going to have to renew his digger ticket, so he said to me, why don’t I do mine too, then we can both go off and do it together, so we went did our NPORS test which gave us two years, and more recently we completed our NVQ’s, so now we are NPORS qualified with a CSCS hologram card, its really been a work in progress over the years, and in all honesty it really is a minefield and they make it all so complicated.

So now I have my dumper and digger tickets, but I now have to go and do lifting ops separately as they have changed the rules again”.

Daniel continues to work for Luke & Dingle Ltd, but has also recently invested in his very own first machine, which is a Takeuchi TB219 supplied by CBL Plant Sales, but more on that later in the article.

Since focusing on the plant operating at work with Luke & Dingle Daniel has also spent time on their CASE CX75C SR, Doosan (Develon) DX140LC, DX145LCR, Develon DX85-7, DX50Z, DX25 and DX17 to name a few on a fleet which is largely dominated by the Korean built machines, which the management seem to prefer with the local dealers Kellands Plant Sales Ltd having a satellite depot nearby in Camelford.

Commenting on the machine choice Daniel said, “Yeah Luke & Dingle definitely like the Develon kit, they get very good deals on them, and they get a 5-year warranty, repair and maintenance deal, all from one place, so a bit of a no-brainer really, and the back-up is really good, just can’t fault them!”.

We actually caught up with Daniel and his new machine at the Polzeath Beach Holiday Park, which is a family business owned and run by the Wonnacott family for around 30 years, and has been passed on through various generations, right up to the current day, and as one can imagine, in such a lucrative location, it is extremely busy with tourists and long standing static/mobile home owners  during the summer months.

Moving forward with the times the family are continuing to invest in the property by installing more permanent lodges, and obviously when putting in a lodge, it needs to be put onto a concrete base. So with a lot of work to do going forward a decision was made that would see Daniel purchase his own machine to enable them to do a lot of the work in-house, whereas previously they would have hired in a machine, where you have to rely on someone to deliver it, and someone else to do the job, so having their own machine to undertake the work made complete sense in every aspect.

Even the access road which is unadopted needs regular maintenance repairing potholes, now with their own machine, it can be done as and when required making them totally independent.

Talking about the site and the developments Daniel said, “We always get the most traffic over the lane. So, we are the ones who feel it’s our responsibility to maintain it to some extent, so we go down and reinstate it as and when it needs it. As you see here today my colleagues from Luke & Dingle are also here as we have a concrete delivery coming in after lunch, which will see us poor a pathway at the back of the lodge slab, and a driveway that we dug out and prepared for concreting today”.

In the weeks leading up to Earthmovers site visit and in his capacity as a Luke & Dingle employee Daniel had been working with the team on excavation work, general drainage & groundwork and concreting using the Develon DX50Z 5-tonne class midi excavator and Mecalac 6-tonne site dumper.

Having spent much of his operating time on Korean excavators, it might come as a surprise that Daniel’s machine of choice for his fledgling business D W Groundworks, comes from the Takeuchi stable in the form of the 1.9-tonne TB219 which competes in the 2-tonne class sector. This extremely popular machine was first introduced as far back as 2011, with various upgrades happening over the years.

Commenting on his decision to go for the much-loved Japanese brand Daniel said, “I’ve always liked the Takeuchi, and I find the TB219 to be a very stable machine, with the tracks expanded, something that is a real personal preference for me, I like a machine that is well balanced and not rocking about, in addition, for a small machine it has an impressive reach on it, another feature that I really like is the fact that because of the geometry of the machine, you can clean right up to the blade in a “dust pan and brush” style which is great when cleaning up the last few crumbs of material.

We also specified a fully hydraulic quick hitch which is a Harford Uni-Lok, I had not heard of them before, but it seems to be good quality and well-built. I just wanted one for ease of use really, when you are working on your own, it’s a pain to keep having to jump on and off to change buckets, this just speeds everything up.

I love the off-set boom which offers 80° slew to the left, offering a great view to that side when undertaking ditch cleaning for instance and 50° slew to the right, another attraction for me on this machine is the fact that it has a good hydraulic flow rate of 40 litres per minute, which will be needed when I eventually put a flail mower on the end, which I am intending to take a look at very soon, and as we all know, the smoothness of the hydraulics on these machines is the stuff of legends”.

Talking of buckets the machine came with a full set of 4 buckets which have been supplied by Rhinox, and Daniel has plans to add a few attachments, including the flail mower in the future.

Talking about his dealer experience Daniel said, “The communication I’ve had from day one with CBL Plant Sales has been second to none, my local Sales Manager Mark Crocker always answers the phone if I have any questions, and its all been plain sailing from start to finish, and so far the back-up we have received has been very good, which is just what you need, especially when its my first own machine”.

Since taking delivery Daniel has been using his machine to support the work being undertaken by Luke & Dingle on the holiday park, this has saved them bringing in another machine of their own, and helps to keep the cost of the work down, by supplying their own mini digger.

Daniel says that he expects the new machine to spend most of its working life on the holiday park, where it will be deployed as and when needed for general maintenance work, and for any future development which is planned during the off-seasons.

As a side, 2026 will be another big milestone year for Takeuchi UK as they celebrate 30 years in the country. The UK subsidiary which is based in Rochdale was set up in 1996, and the distinctive red & grey machines quickly established themselves as a firm favourite with plant hire companies, utility contractors and operators in general.