Excavator mounted Drivers/Knockers

[tentman]

Gidday guys

 

I'm just looking at investing in some different machinery as I've been a bit disappointed with the amount of mess and mud that have resulted from fencing on through our very wet May with my Massey 5445, which with the Kinghitter (and a grapple on the loader too to be fair) tips the scales at 7.1 tonnes.

 

I've given the tracked knockers a lot of consideration but the RG30 and CR30 units are too big for the sort of work I do, to big to cart and too orientated to "production style" fencing i.e.long runs.  Some guys here are running the tracked machines and I've talked with them, others are using bigger diggers in the 5 tonne plus class however I don't think I've ever seen a 1.8 to 2.7 tonne machine here with a driver on it.

 

For my work I'm thinking about the smallest possible Digger that will handle a driver, and I have in mind to build a lightweight driver to suit a smaller machine.

 

I see from Mark Hibberd's website that he's using quite a small machine so if there's any chance of some details and a photo or two . . . . 

 

Otherwise what else have you guys seen that worked (and more importantly didn't work). 

 

Thanks

Foster

[Markhibberdfencing]

Hi Foster i will send you some photos of my kit I enjoy a bit of welding so I have made nearly all my own kit, when I started fencing I didn't want to go go down the route of tractor and knocker I felt that the idea of a mini digger would be a machine that you can do so much with, the drawback being the weight of the knocker but now days the ground so often seems to be wet that I don't really struggle if needs be I will use the auger first but that is pretty rare more often I use the auger for rolling up wire with another attachment I made, six months ago I did buy a fancy knocker and tractor but by the end of day one I realised I hade made a huge mistake and subsequently sold it, the machinery I use would not be for everyone one but for me who enjoys working alone I love it all my kit is towable so I have everything with me on site even now have a hedge cutter attachment so I can prepare a site from removing the old fence to putting up new and at the end of the day I still have a digger with a heater and radio and I can dig trenches.our winter was also very mild and wet, James had sent me photos from Balfour on December 26th of themselves swimming and boating in beautiful weather my god I was jealous all the best Mark.

[Mooresft]

Not sure if you've looked into it, but there's a few chaps locally running diggers with a hydraulic breaker, but with a post cap instead of a breaker bar in them.

On soft ground you can stick up alot of posts in a day!

[aaron]

Wrag were/are making tracked machines based on 1.5-2 ton diggers with the arm and cab removed and also one on a small 1.5 ton tracked dumper. I think Kattrak hire and sell the dumper models.

[Markhibberdfencing]

Hello I have looked into the hydraulic breakers with a cap on and decided it was not for me also had a Klou demo'd for me but no to that as well. My mate has a Wragg knocker on a 1.5 ton machine and that goes well but just enjoy building my own kit another knocker on the go at present

[trentwood]

We had a hydraulic breaker with cap on a 2.5 ton digger, it was ok but only if the final finish can be 'rustic', as it was very hard to keep the posts straight, and also needed two man operation. We got rid in the end as we didn't think it was good enough long term, which is why we are just about to buy a tracked knocker from Protech.

[huwevans]

We invested in a Browns knocker and  fitted on to 3.5 ton neuson which has a VDS15 degree tilting cab which we allredy had .works very well especially with the tilting cab. Had a few awkward jobs to do a tractor could not get to defenetly better than a fencing maul.