Death of a Ditch Witch!

During a recent Earthmovers assignment to checkout a customer and their new shear I witnessed an old piece of kit about to meet its maker and felt it would make for a good piece here on the blog.

Glastonbury based scrap metal recycling business J. C. Thomas & Sons Ltd have just taken delivery of a good quality used Liebherr R 956 hydraulic excavator which has been fitted with a Shearcore Fortress FS-95 hydraulic shear which is a bit of a beast.

You will be able to read about this in more detail in the next edition of Earthmovers Magazine, but I just wanted to share this experience with the Digger Man Blog readers.

The shear has been purchased from the Blue Machinery Group, who are the UK dealers for Shearcore products, to deal with the more oversized items of metal that come into the yard.

While Martin Thomas was getting to grips with the new piece of kit, one of the Liebherr LH40 material handlers dropped off a 2004 model Ditch Witch A225 chain trencher and backhoe combo machine. Originally built by The Charles Machine Works Inc company in Oklahoma USA, the machine had obviously come to the end of its working life for one reason or another and had been sold for scrap.

The mighty Fortress FS-95 which is the second largest in the Shearcore range made light work of cutting up the little old trencher in no time at all, checkout the video below!

There is always something quite sad about witnessing the demise of a piece of equipment that was probably someone’s pride and joy back in the day, but it was epic to see this powerful shear in action, as its not something I get to see very often.

Not too far away stacked on a heap of old electrical equipment was a classic old ERF/Foden truck which was waiting to head for the same fate in due course.

The Digger Man Blog would like to thank Martin Thomas for the hospitality on the day and Blue Machinery for the heads up on this one.