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Herein lies the very reason we all congregate around this pub……Quote:
Originally Posted by 300winmag
A normal fella leans over and asks about a 223 for hunting, and after a hearty discussion (usually between post #40 and #100 we have him entertaining a 50 cal :)
Just think of the fun you will have making and using the new duck pond!!! I cannot think of a single reason you shouldn't buy a digger even if only to build one....or two....or three. Oh the joy and satisfaction you have ahead of you.happy hours spent quietly puttering around doing whatever the hell you want in digger,just because you can.with dozer as well you can double the fun and do what each does best. A five way blade for front of wheel tractor isn't silly thing for farm track maintainence.amazing what you can do with them and zipping out to back paddock is oh so much quicker.
It all boils down to "No substitute for cubic inches"Quote:
Originally Posted by 7mmsaum
Yeah, I suppose if I wanted to move the entire farm one km to the West, that would be the digger to buy;)Quote:
Originally Posted by 300winmag
I did see a doozy of a digger down south. Parked up having done quite a bit of riverbank protection work on the Wanganui river. Spoke to the locals at the pub about it as the river had eaten into the bank its parked on, and was only one or two more floods away from joining the rest of the rocks at the bottom of the river. Its a 70 tonner, and had done in a final drive. I suspect the owner is waiting for the river to take it, then hit up his insurer.....
I'm not so sure about 20T diggers for farm work... I have a cat 308 and sure it doesn't shift as much dirt but it causes nowhere the damage getting out the back to sort a culvert or some such and you can work all afternoon for 12 litres of diesel. good for awkward jobs too. on hill country tracking you can put in a useful farm track without having to go too wide. The convenience of having your own digger onsite is a real plus - a while back we had a physcho heifer that was trying to kill her new calf every time it moved... bravery on my part wasn't working so i grabbed the digger and scooped the calf up , transferred it to the ute and off we went. The cat cost 60k +gst with 4700 hrs on it.
Not that you would put a lot of hours on a machine mucking around on a farm but there are servicing costs to take into account unless you buy one to run it into the ground etc.
Ours get services every 250 hours by Porters and AB's
The 20t & 30t are approx $2k but both are low hour machines and the guys look after them, they have inbuilt gps, sometimes we get a call that they are due for a service, we don't penny pinch as if they are down in the middle of a job it generally stops the project. We haven't had any issues with them and all 4 are under 3000 hours purchased new.
250 hours isn't bad - some of the gear used to be on 150 hour intervals and it felt like 3-4hours downtime every week with 205L drums and a transfer pump... The guys were running the things for two shifts though, and were only keeping up with demand. So you noticed it worse when the machine was being serviced, felt like you were always chasing your tail.