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Ageless Akerman Soldiers On

When I last visited Brian and his Akerman over in Essex towards the end of last year for my feature in Earthmovers magazine, the machine had been all fixed up mechanically with refurbished hydraulic pumps that Brian had done by highly respected firm Atom Hydraulics. Since then Brian has been tackling all manner of jobs from ditch cleaning to tidying up roads and tracks.

The machine is actually an H3 model and bares the serial number of 0129 which suggests it was built around 1984, production of the H3 ran from 1984 to 1986 during which time 276 were produced. It appears that someone had obviously resigned this machine as an H3B but Brian is confident it really is just an H3.

Brian put the machine to work again this past weekend  at Claverings Farm in Greensted Green where he has been putting 50mm of topping waxed sand layer onto a show jumping arena. As we know sand can be very unforgiving material to grade off, but the old Akerman is smooth as any modern-day machine and well up for the task in hand.

Brian reports that there was 250 tonnes of material to spread out on the 60 x 40 metre arena, he started at 8am on Saturday morning and finished at 3.45pm, during the course of the job the Akerman used 60 litres of diesel, not bad for an old excavator. Just a quick harrow ran over it to complete and it was ready for the local pony club to use on Sunday.

Brian has sent in some video footage of the machine in action it’s a bit grainy but we have popped it up on our You Tube channel. Its great to see this classic machine still doing its thing!  

The Digger Man Blog thanks Brian for sending in his material.