More marble quarry memories with Hidromek

Sun 27 Oct 2013

More marble quarry memories with Hidromek

The story I wrote on this visit is currently appearing in the latest edition of Earthmovers Magazine (issue 115), which is in the shops now. But such has been the interest from so many of my readers, I thought it would be a great idea to show a few more shots from the visit to this amazing place, high up in the mountains around Isparta. Our guides for that day were Akay Ergun, who is Area Sales Manager for Hidromek in Antalya, Arda Guven, Marketing Manager for Hidromek in Ankara and Hakan IIhan, Marketing & Sales Development Manager, who is based in Istanbul, who were all keen to show me how dominant the Hidromek product was in this impressive marble quarry. Ozcinar’s fleet of HMK370LC HD’s currently stands at 8 excavators, with all machines far exceeding the expectations of the senior management at the quarry, in terms of strength, power, operator comfort, and reliability.

The guy operating this machine had come up with an ingenious way of keeping the blistering sun off himself, by sticking sheets of newspaper up in the windows to act as a sun screen. It got me wondering if the fitting of heavily tinted, or heat reflective glass might be a great option on future machines. Something similar to what we see on the Scandinavian machines, which prevent the glare from the snow in winter, would be a great idea I think.

During my visit, I didn’t see one Hidromek machine with a conventional digging bucket on, although I am sure they all have buckets located somewhere. Most were deployed with either a hammer, heavy duty ripper tooth, or the “panther”, a hydraulic marble block splitter attachment.

As mentioned in the article, the wheeled loader fleet in the quarry is mainly sourced from Volvo, with the L220G model being the preferred model of choice. The machines use a combination of buckets and heavy duty loading forks in the course of their duties around the massive site.

The HMK370LC HD is currently the largest production model in the Hidromek range, but as we reported on the Digger Man Blog earlier this year, a new prototype 50 ton + machine, the HMK540LC HD (click here for more detail) is currently undergoing field tests in Ankara, with full production likely to commence in 2014.

I will be returning to Turkey next month and am hoping to get hands on with the big machine for a test drive.

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