Sniffers Plant Hire are a long term customer of Premier Rock Machinery who appreciate and thank them for the demonstration.
LCM put the SC28 through its paces and came away very impressed.
Breakers can present a few difficulties for users. The high-repetition rate of their operation not only means an intensive maintenance schedule to ensure durability and performance, but the nature of their function makes high-volume noise a serious consideration. Montabert’s Silver Clip range of hammers has some clever but simple innovation that makes the management of those parameters a great deal easier, and the operation of the tool itself very effective.
There’s a lot more to using an attachment than just watching it do its job, and we were favourably disposed toward the Montabert when we found fitting it to be a well-thought-out exercise. The hoses can be used with flat-face quick couplers and therefore there’s no need to undo screw fittings. Also, anyone who cares for their breaker will want to grease the tool regularly, and we were rapt to find greasing is through a single point on the back of the hammer, which is covered by a steel slide. The grease nipple is protected during use, so there was no time lost digging debris from around the grease nipple itself. It was simply a matter of clearing the slide, hooking up the grease gun and pumping in the grease. We were surprised at how fast it made the operation. Another feature we really liked was the moil and bush being held in with a single round retaining pin. Tapping out the pin makes removing the tool and bush quick and simple, even out on the job. There’s no need to transport the attachment to a service centre or technician for what’s a very simple task on the SC28. Those things made a very noticeable difference to downtime.
Once we climbed in the cab and started breaking rock the most obvious and initial impression was the low-volume operation of the SC28. Even in an air-conditioned cabin the percussive nature of a breaker’s function can see the necessity of additional hearing protection for the operator. In fact, that’s what we expect. But we found with the SC28 that it was very comfortable in the cab with the door closed. We could even hear the radio and bop along to a few tunes as we worked. WH&S considerations aside, the comfort level for the operator was noticeably better than we’ve found on some other machines.
On the job LCM fitted the SC28, designed for 5- to 8-tonne machines, onto a Komatsu and headed to tackle a job on a domestic housing site. A home owner was having extensions done and the plumber was standing by and directing the trenching work. It was a tricky area to operate because space was tight. A hammer has to work hard to break rock in the confines of a small trench where there’s often little room to move the tool to its best impact point, so sometimes it just has to tough it out at less than- ideal angles of attack. Added to that, the ground at the test site was fairly hard.
The SC28 was able to take good-sized bites, keep moving at a good pace and worked very well. Overall, we were impressed. The ease of maintenance and fitting, and the performance of the SC28 on the job, left us feeling this was good equipment that would serve any hardworking landscaper well in a professional application.
