Moore Than Meets the Eye

Taking a look back at one of my articles previously published in Earthmovers Magazine, bringing it to life on the internet, with an un-edited version, alternative photos and video footage.

For anyone living and working in or around the Launceston and surrounding areas in Cornwall, one long established family-based plant and machinery business will instantly spring to mind.

Ken Moore, along with his wife Anne more founded K. & A.E. Moore, back in 1977, with a focus on specialising in land drainage work. Ken had previously spent an 18-year spell working for another contractor locally before deciding to go off on his own. Like so many we speak to from that era, Ken invested in a second hand JCB 3C backhoe loader to kick start his business off, which was to be the start of a significant association with the British brand over the coming years.

Within 12 months of starting, the fledgling company had amassed a total of six employees, and by then, Ken’s son Keith was on the verge of leaving school and heading out into the working world. Naturally for Keith who had grown up around the diggers and agricultural kit, he was keen to join the family business, which he did, initially operating a Hymac 370 backhoe loader, Keith recalls it was a rare old beast, with a cab big enough to hold a party in and massive long levers, that made operation feel like rowing a boat!

In 1981 father and son attended a launch event for the first 3CX backhoe loader at the JCB factory, and on the strength of that visit Ken Moore put in an order for a standard spec model, with no extending dipper, no 4-in-1 bucket and only 2-wheel drive, which was the first of its kind to be delivered into the Cornwall area, and which Keith would operate for the next few years.

Living in such a rural area, land drainage was a busy sector for the business, and Ken was doing a lot of this work himself with his JCB 5C hydraulic excavator, but with so much demand for his services, he invested in another 5C which was operated by a friend. This was later joined by an early JCB 805 model, which Keith went on to operate, Keith noted that the counterweight of that machine was painted in a red and white chequered design by someone well-known to this blog, a then 16-year-old Gary Down, who had just started working for the firm.

Some years later they purchased the all new JCB 805B Turbo complete with the Powerslide boom that JCB made their own back in the day. Keith took on the drive on this one and described it as being leaps and bounds ahead of any of the previous JCB 360-degree excavators he had run, although incredibly slow compared to the machines of today.

This machine had been specced up for the land drainage work, being fitted with 30” LGP track pads. This machine was swiftly joined by another JCB, this time a 3CX Sitemaster backhoe loader which went straight out on hire to Laing Construction on a site extension to the famous Davidstow Milk/Cheese Factory which still produces those products to this day.

Around this time Keith’s dad came out with a proposition to him, Keith takes up the story, “Dad said to me, son, its time for you to go on your own, you won’t learn anything about business just driving for me, you need to go to work on your own, he suggested that he would rent me the machine, for a sum of £500 per month, and I go out and find some work for it. I got set up with a good run of work over at Roadford, putting in fish weirs. A while later work was starting on the actual Roadford reservoir dam project, which was a big job locally, and I saw an opening for me there, as it turned out I was one of the first machines to work on the job”.

Keith continued, “As the work progressed, I could see that there was an opening for a bigger machine, so I made the decision to try something new and I purchased a Liebherr R 912 model, which I ran for a while, and later swapped in for an even bigger Daewoo DH180LC, which if memory serves me right, cost me £53,000, that machine served me well and I worked on a number of high-profile jobs, most notably including work on the A30 arterial route into Cornwall on hire to Balfour Beatty”.

Around this time, Keith’s father was increasingly busy too, and they were even running a big landfill site with a lot of machines. There was so much work on that Ken asked Keith if he would come back into the business, with his wife Sylvia to help them out, which they agreed to do.

By now the firm had continued its use of JCB products with a number of JS range excavators being added to the fleet in the intervening years, but they had swapped allegiances at this point and were running several Hitachi excavators, Fiat Hitachi dozers and Volvo ADT’s which saw them employing somewhere in the region of 20 employees.

After many busy years of work in 2000, Ken Moore decided it was time to retire, and so the business was split up with the father taking his share and Keith and Sylvia taking their share and running things as they are today.

Keith decided to scale things back a bit, initially cutting back the workforce to around 5 individuals and selling off items of kit that in all fairness were well past their time, and investing in some newer machines, a fresh start so as to speak.

Today the business which trades as K. Moore & Son is a lot smaller, but is as busy as ever, with a workforce of just three people, Keith himself, operating one machine, wife Sylvia doing all the office clerical work, and long-standing employee Nigel Hodge who has worked with the Moore family business for over 17 years.

Talking about Nigel, Keith said, “Nigel is a well-established chap in the industry, he knows all what I know and then some, and he’s a great asset to the business, not only can he drive a digger, but he can drive a lorry, he can weld, and he’s a great mechanic, he’s just a damn good all-rounder who just gets on with the job, and gets on with the customers, people with all those collective attributes are hard to come across these days”.

From the early days of the business to the current day, they have run many different makes of machines, as Keith explained, “We have run a bit of everything over the years to be honest, but I think the brand that comes out on top for me personally, has to be Hitachi, they take some beating that’s for sure, just a good all round digger, but I must also say the JCB/Sumitomo JS range were good too, we ran the JS110 and it was one of my favourite machines ever, and I rate the Caterpillar 312C which we also ran”.

Today the company has 4 excavators at its disposal consisting of a Wacker Neuson ET20 VDS mini excavator, 13-tonne class Case CX130C and Hitachi Zaxis 135US hydraulic excavators and the latest addition a Kobelco SK85MSR midi excavator, a wide range of attachments are also included in the arsenal and a John Deere tractor and trailer combination is available for machine movements locally and dump trailer work.

We caught up with Keith and his favourite machine the Hitachi Zaxis 135US where he was doing the groundworks for a new agricultural building locally. Keith is clearly a fan of the brand and gave me his thoughts on this machine, “The Hitachi is not going to set the world on fire in terms of digging power, but for grading, general work and all-round reliability it’s a fantastic bit of kit”.

On this project Keith was like a one-man production facility, as with many of his jobs, he works completely solo, digging and loading the tractor and trailer, jumping out and driving the tractor to the tip area and repeating the operation. He’s assisted by the use of two Topcon LS-180 laser receivers, magnetically attached to the dipper arm for constant checking of his dig levels, a simple but effective system, although he did mention that he has his eye on the new i-Dig set ups which have raised his interest.

In many ways he has been in the perfect position for working during this pandemic, working alone with no need for any interaction with others, I must say, it sounds like the perfect scenario for a machine operator, able to work away unhindered by others, and it really is amazing to see how much work he can turn out in a day!

Talking about the new Kobelco which also features a Hill Tilting coupler, Keith said, “The Kobelco replaced a Takeuchi TB290 we ran previously, which was a nice machine in all aspects, except we found that the pins were “made of chocolate” there was just too much premature wear in them.

The SK85MSR is pretty good, but I find its just a little bit slow for me personally, reliability has been very good, and the customer service we have had from Molson’s has been first class.

As for the Case CX130C which we bought from the great guys down at M&M Plant Sales locally, I can honestly say it’s been pretty much faultless all the time we have had it, with the exception of an oil cooler issue, which apparently is a common fault on that model, other than that it’s been 100%, we also bought the Wacker Neuson from them too and that’s been brilliant, with no complaints”.

Keith also gave us his overall thoughts on the new machines being manufactured these days, “I feel that the biggest problem with machines nowadays, is the gradeability issues, and how well you can grade with them, any machine can dig a hole, but you really need that high level of feel on the levers and finesse to make it a great machine, and in that respect, I feel the manufacturers have gone backwards”.

There never seems to be any shortage of work for this long-established firm, and I see them out and about locally all the time, with such a great and long-standing reputation in the industry, its not hard to see why, and although Keith suggests that he is slowing down a bit these days, I expect to be seeing them around for many years to come.