One-Man Band with all the Toys

Taking a look back at one of my previous articles published in Earthmovers Magazine, un-edited in my original words with alternative images and a video clip.


David Blewett who hails from Penzance in Cornwall has been around machinery of some sort his entire life. His father Dennis was, as one might expect in this rural location, involved in farming alongside his brothers.

Like so many in the agricultural sector, times were often tough and just by chance he took on some work as a sideline on a big sewer project locally in Hayle, initially as a labourer to earn a bit more money, however he wasn’t there long before someone suggested to him that it might be a good idea to buy a digger and go on hire with it.

So, in 1972 Dennis became the proud owner of a JCB 3CII, closely followed by another digger, and employment for a driver and so it went on. David had been involved even before he left school and like so many of us, he had a keen interest in diggers too. So, it was a natural progression that when he eventually left school at the age of 16, he went straight out to work on site for his father the very next day!

Reflecting on those early days in his career David said, “One of the things I always remember, is listening and learning to the guys who had lots of experience and who could do the job, and filtering out the ones that could talk the talk, but couldn’t do the walk, it was certainly a big learning curve”.

During the 1980’s there was a lot of big jobs going on locally, in particular the Hayle bypass project and numerous big pipeline jobs, and David managed to work on a lot of those gaining lots of experience along the way.

The early 1990’s were however, very different, no new big projects and the plant game went pretty quiet in the South West, by this time David’s father’s fleet of diggers had expanded to seven machines, virtually all from the JCB stable.

Photo: From the Digger Man Blog Archives

David takes up the story, “For backhoe loaders you couldn’t go wrong with the JCB’s, however the 360-degree hydraulic excavators, weren’t quite so good back then, so around that time we did switch allegiances to Liebherr with the purchase of a 15-tonne class 900 model, which I must say was a great machine. We had previously run some JCB 812 and 814 machines but being powered by big six-cylinder engines, they used to scoff diesel, whereas the Deutz powered Liebherr would just purr away all day just sipping fuel”.

With the workload slowing down, the business scaled back down to run just three machines, with David and just one other driver. In 1996 David’s father decided that plant hire was no longer a viable proposition and decided to move into property development. He then took the decision to sell all the machines, this left David slightly in limbo and pondering his future, he decided to purchase his own wheeled excavator and go solo.

David had previously spent many years on the tracked excavators, and if needed for a small job he would take out a backhoe loader, so his train of thought was, lets have the best of both worlds with a (rubber duck) wheeled excavator opting for a German built Atlas 1204 model, and since that day, he has never been out of work.

By his own admission David is always first in the queue for the toys, and having checked out his portfolio of machines in the shed, I can confirm that, however he currently has no desire to go down the Scandinavian route of tiltrotator’s and trailers, mainly due to the costs involved.

Several Atlas machines followed over the coming years, however when the business became part of Terex, he felt they kind of lost their way and in 2010 he decided to turn to Hitachi for his machines.

Four Hitachi ZX140W’s followed over the years, which he felt were excellent machines, before he opted for the Volvo machines which dominate his fleet today. David said, I did look at the Volvo machines way back before I bought the first Atlas, of course they were officially Akerman machines back then, and we had a good relationship with Richard Shelbourne our regional salesman who back in the Akerman days was in the early stages of his career too, that good relationship continues to this day”.   

These days most of the excavators David owns are from Volvo and consist of a 2.5-tonne class ECR25D mini excavator, 5-tonne ECR50 mini excavator, both of which are compact radius models, and the 16-tonne class EWR150E wheeled excavator.

By his own admission David is completely OCD with his equipment, and prefers to work entirely on his own. “It’s probably rather unhealthy to be this way, but it works for me, I have had people say to me, why don’t you put another driver out on one of your machines, but for me, the operator would have to be a particular type of person, showing the same levels of care for the machine and the same work ethos, the way I look at it, its more hassle personally, you either stick with being a one man band, or you go big with a large fleet, there’s no in between, and I prefer being the one man band, as you have to keep your eye on the ball, and like this, I only have to worry about myself and my kit”.

David undertakes a wide variety of work across the board, you name it he’s done it. “The fact that I will do everything and anything has been the key to keeping me in business for all these years. Back in the day I used to do a lot of pipeline work for a company called TJ. Brent, and spent months and months stripping topsoil and especially on the reinstating work, which I absolutely love. Tidying up and finishing work is really my thing, its nice to have something to see when you are finished, that’s real job satisfaction in my book”.

“Another thing I like about this game is the fact that we meet so many different people, I do a lot of work down at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens in Penzance, somewhat bizarrely it was formerly run by GP’s (doctors) as a sideline. There is only one owner now who is a retired GP, but he brings me in during the winter months to do general maintenance work, and that’s where the mini excavators come into play”.

David purchased his first mini digger back in 2005 after looking at potentially just hiring one, he figured it would be more cost effective to just buy one, as in reality they are quite affordable and the residual values remain quite high when its time to sell or part exchange them so it made a lot of sense to buy.

David said, “At the end of the day, they don’t cost you a lot of money, and I was finding that on a lot of the jobs I was doing with the big machine, could be done a lot easier with a mini excavator, it just made sense to me to have my own and to increase my self sufficiency further. I first started looking at the Volvo mini’s back in 2020 which led me to buy the first EC18E through the local dealer for the South West, Plant & Engineering Services (PES) dealing with Mike Murphy who I already knew from my visits to their stand at the Royal Cornwall Show and always found him to be a very pleasant chap to deal with”.

The recent announcement that PES will no longer be appearing at the Royal Cornwall Show has left many in shock, David included who said, “Thing’s are changing in the world in the way companies get exposure for their machinery, but as an old school guy myself, I still feel there is no substitute for getting up close with the kit in the metal, and sitting in the seat at these shows, naturally I do my research online and via brochures, but its just not the same as getting in the metal with them”.

The latest mini excavator to join David’s collection is the 5-tonne ECR50 which has replaced a 5-tonne Hitachi machine which he had purchased in 2015. David has found the competitively priced 5-tonners to be the best all-rounder in his fleet of excavators, a very capable but compact sized machine which can turn out a lot of work, with excellent fuel consumption figures and the hire rate versus cost is excellent. David also spoke about the outstanding levels of cab comfort in the ECR50 which he describes as among the best on the market.

However the bulk of David’s work is however undertaken by the Rubber Duck, which he purchased from SMT GB via sales rep Richard Shelbourne, which is kitted out with a tilt grading bucket. “I still have lots of work where the duck is really the only machine that can do the job, in terms of access, flexibility and mobility, I can just gather up the work tools I need and head off down the road in the duck, do the job and head back just as you would with a backhoe loader, it’s just a great piece of kit”.

David points out that the Volvo excavators he has are outstanding machines in every aspect, in terms of power, smoothness of operation, reliability and cab comfort, and back up from both PES and SMT GB has been top drawer.

Later in the day we visited the location where David has been working with his EWR150E, where he was just finishing off the final landscaping work, on a private dwelling job where he had widened the entrance and formed a wider parking area. This work was undertaken for a building company that he works for on a regular basis.

Unlike most companies, David opts to not have any signage on his machines, saying, “To be quite honest with you, most of my work comes via word of mouth 100%, I don’t need to advertise my services as I’m well known in the area, and always have plenty of work ahead of me, which is great!”

Summarizing David said, “Regards being an owner/operator, it’s a way of life, its not a job, at least, that’s how it is for me, and I would like to mention the support I get from my wife Julie, as they always say, behind every successful man, there is a good woman behind the scenes and that’s a very true statement in my case”.

One thing I took away from this visit was the outstanding condition of all his machines, which David jokingly refers to as his toys! Every single machine is immaculate and well looked after, a real credit to the man who quite clearly takes great pride in the presentation of his kit, just as it should be!