custom built grinder

[tidy]

Just wondering if anyone has comments on this machine I might be looking at to buy. It was custom built by a small engineering company and designed by the owner operator. I have no doubt it has been built to a standard that would well exceed the mainstream brands and also that it has been well maintained- but slightly concerned as it has done 6500 hours. It has 38 hp Deutz. I haven't inspected the machine yet as it is 2 states away. Do you guys think that even if it runs ok now there is good chance it will need some major cash injections in near future. My mechanical skills are very ordinary so anything outside of routine maintenance I would need to outsource.

It also has some cool functions like that the wheels retract hydraulically inwards so it fits through 36 inch gates etc, she can grind 600mm below surface and 900mm above surface. Ive never seen the twin grinding wheel either, interesting...

 

[MOE]

Looks well built and like a ton of thought went into it. My concerns would be the low ground clearance, it looks like it could get hung up on chip piles pretty easlily. Parts should be available as it looks like common hydraulic components. I like the hydraulic operators platform.

 

[marne]

Looks like overkill when doing much 10-20" stumps and when working in smaller areas.

Seems well suited for everything larger.

In the end it depends on the price you have to pay for it and a new diesel-engine will not ruin you.
If you got the right sized work for it, it may earn you some nice money, which enables you to pay for the maintance.

What services where done in the last months?
Which parts are not available on the market because they're custom built?

Can you feed it with enough stumps?

From the pics it looks very well built.

just my 2.

 

[Toddppm]

Definitely stout! I would think it'd be a little heavy for nice residential lawns and landscapes. Also unless it's remote controlled I don't see how you can tell what your grinding with the controls all the way in the back?

 

[tidy]

Yeah, the operators platform is way cool , machine is wireless control too , but yeah the price is definately a major factor at the moment, price wise I wont talk figures as there is some funny distortion between the markets in OZ and the States, there is also a major contrast in the availability of machines. As far as lawns go were are pretty much in perpetual drought, everything is normally rock hard.

 

[VA-Sawyer]

I would guess that with 6500 hours the design has been proven and modified/improved as needed to deal with excessive wear issues. I would suggest having an experienced mechanic spend 5 or 6 hours inspecting it. He/she could then provide a list of defects or items needing near future maintenance. I can't guarantee that you won't still have any surprise problems, but it can help prevent them.
I understand that it is far from you, perhaps somebody from AS could suggest a good mechanic closer to the machine.

 

[tidy]

^ Yeah that's definately the best way to go about it, I've found the right guy and eagerly await the inspection results. Hopefully the price negotiations go smoothly as I have a feeling the guy might look a bit after hearing my offer, whatever happens happens

 

[imagineero]

I remember seeing this same guy offering this machine up without success about a year ago on ebay for $$$$$. It looks it would work ok, but you'd have to pick it up real cheap for it to be worthwhile. The trouble with these kind of one off machines, even the really very good ones, is that you are never going to get your money back on resale because they can only be sold to guys who can work on them themselves, and those kind of guys either have no money, or if they have money would rather build their own. The dual heads are $$$$ when you hit concrete and kinda pointless anyway. One larger head would have been a lot more efficient. The head size is way out of proportion to the machine. Add to that the high hours, low clearance, and not particularly large engine and I wouldn't offer any more than around $10k (AUD) at most. It would be a big improvement over the machine you've currently got, but not a massive improvement over, say, a 1625 which you could get for half the price and still sell for the same amount. Neil's selling his if you're looking for that class of machine. Other than that, you're better off holding out and buying a bigger machine, at least an sc60 or similar. Last year I saw a bandit 2900 TX tracked machine (about the same as an SC85) with remote con and mid range hours sit on ebay for a long time at around 30k. I kept hesitating because I had nowhere to store it and I don't think it would have fit in my truck, but I kick myself everytime I think about letting it go. At $400 an hour it would have taken no time to pay that thing off.

 

[VA-Sawyer]

Shaun makes some good points. I would certainly want to see it in action before making any price offer. I keep looking at the twin head and thinking only 38 horses.

 

[imagineero]

He had another similar machine if I remember, the mkII or whatever. Just looking at that set of 32 teeth sends shivers down my spine. Sharpening nightmare! A lot of guys I know that have bigger machines run with less than a full compliment. The machine runs just as fast, but it's less $$$ when you hit nasty. I did that a few times even when i ran a stump humper. It had 6 sets of two, alternating a pair of straights and a pair of left/rights. I found I could do just as good (or even better) running the machine with just 6 straights. Blasted through the stumps, like running skip tooth on a saw, and it wasn't quite as painful when you hit concrete.

 

[CalTreeEquip]

Looks like an old Red Max grinder. This one was a 1988 I think. Way ahead of its time but pretty awkward to use, real top heavy.
The were build at a small shop in Minnesota that went out of business years ago. It look to me like these guys either copied or bought the design and make some changes. This one had about 200 hours on it and I think I got $8,000 for it.

 

[tidy]

Thanks for the input Shaun and everyone else also. I wont be going ahead with any purchase of the machine- gave the seller a hypothetical example (1/2 of asking price) of an offer based on a "fair condition" inspection result which was rejected.
Shaun, I may start to include an Sc 505 etc as a potential target but probably still leaning towards something a tad smaller for better access and affordability on low hours unit, no doubt there are some big stump jobs around but at present myself and most of the other guys I would be trying to sell stump grinding to don't regularly pump out the monster take downs or landclearing- on the other hand having the big machine certainly opens the door on those opportunities ...

Cheers
Chris

 

[imagineero]

Maybe you should look into an alpine magnum.

 

[tidy]

^haha, reverse psychology (intentional or not) at work-there's an sc 505 with 980 hours on the local market for around $20k. My first thoughts are that thing will not be fun to tow around, yet maybe the extra coin could make up for the inconvenience....