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Baby Cat Ticks All the Boxes

Osian Owen has been in the industry all his life having left school at 15. A time served bricklayer, he initially worked for Turner Bros in North Wales, a real old school company, where in the traditional manner, you started on the ground, digging trenches by hand and banking diggers, then went on to drive dumpers, and eventually on the diggers.

The firm predominantly ran machines from JCB and Thwaites and had good variety of work, enabling Osian to gain a lot of experience along the way, before eventually going self-employed building extensions and doing drainage works, sub-contracting to numerous groundworks and civil engineering companies.

With over 35 years of experience under his belt, Osian established his own specialist business, Southern Counties Resin Driveways in Yeovil, and they now install driveways across a large area covering Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire.

While they undertake a wide variety of groundworks up to DPC level, the mainstay of the business is the supply and laying of resin bound gravel driveways. The resin and the stone are mixed on site using a special forced action mixer, of which they are now running two because they are so busy.

Most recently Osian has invested in a Caterpillar 301.8 Next Gen mini excavator, a little machine which is certainly making a big impact on the business.

Giving us his thoughts on the machine Osian said, “Its just a solid machine, reliable, and great quality, I feel that when you are sat on a Cat you know you are sat on a proper excavator, this one is a 2-tonne class machine, but it gets through an amazing amount of work, and it really is unbelievable what it can do in a day, it’s a really impressive piece of kit!”.

The machine was purchased from Finning UK & Ireland, who had arranged for Osian to visit the Caterpillar facility in Desford, Leicestershire to try out the machines, which left him suitably impressed with the brand and the support that could be offered, including a great finance deal which was included for this machine.

Osian has added to his fleet of Cat equipment with the addition of a CB14B double drum vibratory roller, and he is already looking at adding a 3.5-tonne mini excavator in due course.

Launched in 2019 along with other Next Gen mini excavator models, the 301.8 standard tail swing machine, has an operating weight of 2,025 kgs, and when fitted with the longer dipper arm has a dig depth of 2,570mm.

The 301.8 is powered by Cat’s Stage V emissions compliant 3-cylinder C1.1 diesel engine, which offers a power output rating of 14.3kw (19.2hp).

The machine also features the unique industry feature of “Stick Steer” which allows the operator to switch (with the touch of a button) from conventional lever/foot-pedal steering controls to left-hand joystick control.

We caught up with Osian at his yard where he put the machine through its paces for us on some wasteland. We left with an overwhelming feeling that he was one very satisfied Cat customer, and the machine is performing way beyond his expectations.