by Nick Drew | Mon 20 Nov 2017
Cornish Plant Memories (Part Two)
Continuing our look back at an interesting batch of old photos sent in by Graham Centini featuring plant run by St Columb, Cornwall based plant hire and contractors Bazeley’s, focusing in this last instalment on a sticky situation for the company’s shiny new JCB’s.
Readers may recall last week we showed photos of Bazeley’s new JCB 7B arriving on site, around that time 1972 – 73 the company had also taken delivery of six new JCB 3D backhoe loaders, apparently as part of a deal that saw them purchase 5 machines with another one being supplied for free. In this shot the new machines are all lined up for that all-important PR shot.
However, some of these machines were not destined to stay clean for long, as the new JCB 7B had become severely bogged in some of the treacherous moorland that can be encountered in Cornwall and as such some were dispatched to attempt the rescue mission.
Many an old plant man has told me that the JCB 7B was a fine machine to operate, but they were no match for the Hymac 580 on soft ground as it was a much heavier animal. Powered by a Perkins 6354 six-cylinder engine of some 106hp the 7B was an up-rated version of the 6D model, it was a powerful machine in the dig, but it was not light on its feet and as you can see in these conditions it had become well and truly bogged.
The JCB 3D’s also got themselves into a bit of a mess trying to assist in the extraction of the 7B. The 3D itself was no lightweight either, based on the ever popular 3C the 3D featured it tipped the scales at around 7 tonnes and featured a larger backhoe which offered a maximum digging depth of 15ft 1” in old money!
Of course, the glory of a backhoe loader is that a really experienced operator can virtually walk a machine out of a sticky situation like this by using the backhoe and the loader arms in unison, I witnessed my late father do this on a couple of occasions and it really is a sight to see.
The detail on this extraction is sketchy, but from what I can make of the photos they eventually opted to winch out the 7B with two of the 3D’s acting as braces on harder ground. I’m sure after a good wash down and a check over the machines were all good to go again shortly after, with nothing but a few red faces, some lively banter, and no H&S inquest or trial by social media like we face today, one has to say they were happier days.
The Digger Man Blog would like to thank Graham Centini for sending in these photos to share with fellow readers of this blog.