Willowbrook Demo Dig Days hailed a success

Tue 31 May 2016

Willowbrook Demo Dig Days hailed a success

The Willowbrook Demo Dig Days event is one that is always a highlight on my calendar, it’s a great friendly gathering where you get the chance to gain some “stick time” behind the controls of the latest equipment from the company’s portfolio of products which include Hyundai, Takeuchi and Terex just to name a few. The Willowbrook team headed up by Brian Conn and Drew Bishop always offer a warm welcome and there was a steady flow of local plant men from all over the Midlands area that Willowbrook cover and some who had travelled from further afield.

For me this was the first opportunity to get behind the controls of a number of the new HX series Hyundai excavators, first up was the 30 tonne class HX300L which was one of a number of the new models sold to M.O’Brien Plant Hire. I must say I found this to be a fantastic piece of kit. The machine takes its power from a Cummins QSB6.7 Tier 4 Final engine which offers a power rating of 180 kw/242 hp @1950rpm and certainly packs a punch in the power department. It’s also incredibly smooth on the levers too with a bit more feel than on the previous Dash 9A models in my opinion. The machine was great in the dig and equally as impressive on the finer grading work too, with these models in the line-up I predict another successful year for Hyundai Heavy Industries in Europe.

I later tried out the HX220L as seen below but that will be the focus of another article in Earthmovers magazine over the coming months.

It’s no secret that I am a massive fan of the Takeuchi product having put my money where my mouth is and purchasing one last year, as such I am always keen to get in the seat of some of the Japanese manufacturers finest kit. On this visit I spent time on the TB290, TB250, and the new baby in the range the TB210R, all cracking bits of kit whose sales do the talking.

After the complimentary food and refreshments it was time to check out the fun elements which consisted of two challenge competitions, first up was the “Hook a Duck” where you were invited to use a Takeuchi TB295W (rubber duck) to pluck out as many "plastic ducks" as possible from a Terex dumper using a magnet mounted on a free swinging chain. I generally avoid these kind of things like the plague as I am dammed if I do and dammed if I don’t however, I did have a little play at it just for fun! Overall winner for this event over the course of the 3 days was Dean Thomas who works for CR Civils with 20 ducks in the allocated time.

The other competition was the Tyre Challenge which involved re- stacking 6 tyres in the shortest time using a Hyundai HX140L with a Prodem selector grab. The best time for this challenge was achieved by Steve Burrows of SW Burrows Ltd who completed the task in 42 seconds.

All in all another great event and we thank the Willowbrook team for inviting the Digger Man Blog along. I am already looking forward to the next one!

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