Old Pond publishing days

Chris Lockwood's Rubber Track Revolution - tractor DVD filming

Thos who have enjoyed Chris Lockwood's DVDs Combine Harvesters Part One and Part Two will be glad to know that he has spent a lot of time in the fields with his video recorder this autumn. His next DVD to be released is The Rubber Track Revolution. This covers the development of rubber-tracked farm tractors from 1989 to the present day, with 25 examples filmed by Chris in the UK.

Below are four stills showing some machines Chris has been recording. You will see a John Deere 9320T, Challenger MT865C, Cat Challenger 75D and Track Marshall TM200. All the photographs have been taken by Chris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Massey Ferguson implements filming has started

Following his successful DVD Massey Ferguson Classic Tractors George French has now started work on one or more DVDs showing the wide range of MF implements. As on the recent DVD Ford Tractors 1965-95, this is only being made possible by the preparation and work of Dennis and Maurice Burston and their fellow enthusiasts around Taunton, Somerset.

Last Saturday we filmed some cultivation implements on land kindly allowed to us by Ken Hallett. Among the implements we filmed were: (1) MF 1080 with MF 41 5-furrow plough; (2) MF 1100 with MF 10ft pigtail cultivator; (3) MF 1200 with MF 39 3-leaf spring cultivator; (4) MF 1100 with MF 37 with 35 11ft 4 ins flexible spring tines with a crumbler roller; (5) MF 1200 with MF 52 12ft discs; (6) MF 175 with MF 86 4-furrow plough. Finally, the lads enjoyed themselves ploughing together with MF 4, 5 and 6-furrow ploughs in sequence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scrap Metal Giants forthcoming DVD 4th post

(Continued from the previous post.) We saw two MultiDockers at Thamesteel.

The first (far left), based on a Cat 365, was selecting from different types and grades of waste to make up the batch required for the furnace.

A second MultiDocker was sorting heavy melt, such as steel girders, at the other end of the store.

For each operation the furnace takes about a hundred tonnes of waste, loaded in three passes. Thamesteel  produces recycled steel through a Fuchs UHP Electric Arc Furnace, consisting of two in-line ladle furnaces.

Although we weren't allowed into the furnace area, we did see a tapping from a safe distance.

Thamesteel's four-strand continuous billet casting machine produces billets 150 mm square, 9.6-13 metres long, with an average weight of 2 tonnes. The steel is cut to length automatically. The mill has an annual output of 750,000 plus tonnes of steel a years.

LV Handling's Iveco Stralis 430 is taking a 20-tonne load to Sheerness Docks to be loaded into 40-60,000 tonne vessels for the rolling mills in Saudi, and eventually for their building industry.

The mini-mill does produce products other than billets. For more information about this facility see Thamesteel's website.

Scrap Metal Giants forthcoming DVD 3rd post

Back on 29 June we posted some pictures and story about the visit we made to Thamesteel at Sheerness. We are looking now at the ways in which the waste steel is handled and what is the main end product.

Among the different types of steel waste being handled were compressed blocks of what looked like your old washing machines and other white goods. Behind the Cat 980H is the gantry of the magnetic hoist.

The steel waste is loaded into baskets each holding about 30 tonnes of waste

 The baskets are moved by Kress 6926 ladle carriers, made in Brimfield, Illinois.

The Kress carrier was in continual action taking baskets to and fro between the waste store and the furnace. Here it is reversing into position for one of the MultiDockers.

(Continued in the next post.)

Massive Backhoe Dredgers - new DVD in preparation

In the blog of 30 April we showed some stills from the filming of the new programme Massive Backhoe Dredgers by Steven Vale.

Steven and his crew have now been filming in Felixstowe, the busiest container port in the UK. Currently shifting more than 9,000 containers each week, owner Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd is looking to boost volumes by nearly 50 per cent.

To achieve this they are redeveloping the southern end of the Port to create a new deep-water container terminal. Called Felixstowe South, when it opens it will accommodate the largest container ships afloat.

There is heaps to do and not just on land but also under the water. All the dredging work is in the hands of sub-contractor Westminster Dredging Co Ltd - part of the Royal Boskalis Westminster Group.

Huge trailer suction hopper dredgers extract most of the sediment to deepen and widen the Harwich approach channels. Hoovering up the material at breathtaking speed, when full, the contents of the hopper are pumped out through a gigantic hose.

But some of the material is too tough for these floating vacuum cleaners and one of the company’s largest backhoe dredgers has been called in to help out.

Fitted to a pontoon called the Maricavor, the digging arm comes from a land-based Komatsu PC3000 hydraulic excavator. Although it often wields a 13cu m bucket, the under-water material here is so hard this has been swapped for a smaller 5.5 cu m one.

Cameraman Roger Wiltshire and film director Jonathan Theobald not only managed to capture some stunning images of one of the large barges pulling alongside the pontoon, but also take a peek at what goes on below deck.

For full advance information see blog 19 August.

 

Filming Scrap Metal Giants - 2

In November 2009 Steven Vale started filming scrap metal giants for a DVD to be released in 2011. We continued filming recently as the guests of Thamesteel Ltd, a subsidiary of the Saudi Al-Tuwairiqi group of companies. Their site is in the grounds of the garrison town surrounding the historic Sheerness naval dockyard on the north Kent coast.

Thamesteel operates a 'mini' steel mill in which waste steels of various kinds are furnaced to produce new steel billets, bars and rods. Our main purpose was to record the MultiDockers handling the waste, but we found a great deal more of interest.

For a start there was the continuous flow of trucks bringing waste steel in. Some examples follow:

(Left) A DAF CF 85.410 operated by Van Dalen (UK) Ltd.

(Right) The arrival at the weighbridge was a Scania 124L 420.

There was a constant flow of Volvo FM 12s from Hargreaves (below) extruding their waste rather than tipping it.

Now, I don't think this (far left) is something you see every day: the truck being loaded by the Atlas is a Heathfield H33 from the 1970s. It is reckoned that only about 68 were ever built.

 On the right is another Heathfield tipping.

 

As an Ipswich resident I always like to see the name Rapier at work. The Koehring-based NCK-Rapier 1405D crawler-mounted crane and excavator was drop-balling a 12-tonne steel ball to break up large steel agglomerates.

Bill Friday, Thamesteel's safety manager, showed us that there was plenty to see at this fascinating site. For two more posts see 18 July.

The world's largest backhoe dredgers - forthcoming DVD

Seriously large hydraulic excavators are the subject of Steven Vale’s next DVD. But this time he has left the quarries and mines and gone onto the water to track down and film the world’s largest under water diggers.
Rivers, canals, lakes, ports and harbour entrances need dredging on a regular basis to prevent sediment from building up. Much of the lighter material is removed by massive suction dredgers.
But these are no good at some new port and harbour-widening and deepening projects where heavy clay and rock is encountered. In these cases powerful hydraulic excavators are called in to reach down into the murky depths.

In 2009 the film crew visited the port of Raahe at the top end of the Gulf of Bothnia in northern Finland.
The project was in the hands of international dredging company Royal Boskalis Westminster. It was tough digging and a race against time before the return of the Arctic winter when the sea freezes.
Three of its most powerful excavators were working round the clock to ensure the job got done on time.Severed from their undercarriages, the upper structures of two Hitachi EX1900s (left and bottom) are bolted to pontoons known as Attila and Koura.

But even these powerful nautical marvels are dwarfed by the Nordic Giant, the dredging company’s biggest backhoe dredger.
Time after time the Liebherr P995 hydraulic excavator (right) scoops up nearly 35 tonnes. This ferocious machine easily fills a split barge in just three-quarters of an hour.
The film crew were out and about quite a lot in late 2009 tracking down some even more powerful under-water diggers.
Old Pond expects to have this new programme on sale in October.

For a second series of massive backhoe dredger stills see the blog of 8 July and for full advance information see blog 19 August.

The world's most powerful demolition machine? And a very special crane

Steven Vale's quest to record on film the world's largest 'scrap metal giants' took us in late August to Norway.

On the west coast, south of the Hardanger fjord, AF Decom is recycling one of the North Sea oil rigs. This Zaxis 800 (left), with its Genesis shear is the demolition machine they have been using so far.

However, we were able to see the trial of an even bigger machine, the Rusch Triple 34-25 (right), based on a Cat 5130 brought second-hand from the United States to Holland.

The 34-metre triple boom gives the Rusch plenty of height to tackle the spars on this section of the rig.

This can-opener (right), at work on the helipad, weighs in at 25 tonnes.

All around us the work of deconstruction and recycling was being carried on. A 12,000 tonne section of oil rig was being moved on SPMTs.

The sections had been brought in by Thialf, the world's largest floating crane.

Thialf at night was like a floating city.

Thialf slipped into the mist to fetch another load from the North Sea.

The biggest Cat excavator in Britain

Steven Vale's two new DVDs, Britain's Massive Miners parts 1 and 2 (see previous two blogs), focus on surface coal mining in Britain and the dedicated machinery to be found there. However, he couldn't help making a detour to a limestone quarry - Swinden quarry in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

There he found a Caterpillar 5130B hard at work loading the primary crusher and aggregate conveyor.

It's the largest Cat excavator in Britain. Only two are here now, and this is the only one currently working.

There's plenty of footage of the machine in action in Britain's Massive Miners Part 2, soon to be released by Old Pond.

Komatsu WA1200 wheel loader in Norway

Yes, have had a few days in Norway with Steven Vale and the film crew building up stock for future DVDs.

Part of the time we were in the southern province of Rogaland at the Titania ilmenite mine (left).

Ilmenite ore, the darker stone in the picture (right) is a dense, hard rock containing flecks of white.

These flecks are the ilmenite deposit which can be extracted and processed to form titanium dioxide, a highly white fine powder used in the manufacture of paper, paints and plastics. Someone mentioned lipsticks too.

The plant has recently bought the largest mechanical wheel loader in the world, a Komatsu WA1200 (left), of which there are only two in Europe.

We watched it load 40-45 tonnes at a time, filling the the Cat 789Cs close to their capacity of 180 tonnes.

Nearby, waste material was being loaded by a Terex O&K RH 170 (right). The haulers were Cat 789Bs and a couple of elderly Unit Rig MT 3600s, as in this shot.

Finally, down by the primary crusher we found another well-used machine still paying its way, the LeTourneau L-1000 Letroloader (left), a model going back to the early 1980s.

And one other interesting fact about Titania in Sokndal: on 16 August 2008 Katie Melua gave a concert here as part of the local cultural festival. She was at the bottom of the mine, below sea level, watched by an audience of 6,000. One of the concert-goers told us that it was magical, not just the concert but the night-time atmosphere of the place, with coaches lined up along the mine benches.