Rare JSW Hydraulic Excavator Spotted

Last week while travelling cross country from a photography assignment in Daventry, I spotted an old excavator parked up out for the corner of my eye, and decided to turn back to investigate!

I posted the only image I was able to get on my various social media channels and it got a fantastic response, so I figured it was only right to share it on the stand-alone Digger Man Blog platform.

The machine was lying in a yard just off Tadmarton Heath Road in Oxfordshire, just a few miles north east of Chipping Norton. The cab shape was the first thing that caught my eye, and got me thinking could this be an old JSW machine.

While I was too far away to get a definite identification, I eventually established that it was indeed a JSW made by Japan Steel Works Ltd. We have covered JSW before here on the blog, but I decided to do a bit more digging about the company when I got home.

Following a conversation on LinkedIn with Mark Schmiechen and our good German friend Dirk Bömer it was confirmed that there once was a connection between JSW and German manufacturer O&K.

From 1964 to at least the 1980’s excavators were manufactured under a licence from O&K with production starting with the RH5 using the brand name Nikko-O&K, a photo of an example was shared from Dirk’s extensive archives as we see below.

I recall going on hire to a firm from Kent who were working in Southampton at the time whose name escapes me right now, but I recall the GF telling me they had some JSW’s in their fleet, however, I never saw one in the metal until this one last week.

I would be very interested if anyone knows who owns this machine, as I would like to gain access to it for a good look around at some point in the future.