EVENT NEWS: Diesel, Dirt & Turf Expo wrapup

Ron Horner was invited to the Diesel, Dirt and Turf Expo in Penrith last month and deems it a huge success

The 2018 Diesel, Dirt and Turf Expo displayed a myriad of earthmoving and associated equipment with a total closely accounting for 200 outdoor and 50 indoor undercover exhibitions.

With the award and trophy of the Best Stand and Best Large Stand being snapped up by Boss Attachments, it was an enormously successful expo for all the participants.

The show was not only for earthmoving equipment but catered for every single aspect of construction – from financing, small tools, small engines, some trucks, attachment fabricators, pressure washers, slashers and mowers, ag machinery, tyres and wheels, hydraulics, loaders, excavators galore and everything in between. It was exhausting just walking around trying to get a look at everything!

Friday seemed to be the perfect day for anyone who could squeeze the day off (it did take a day to get around) as the weather was perfect … to a touch on the hotter side of pleasant.

Saturday greeted us with blown-over tents and stands (some even blown out of the grounds and onto the highway) and I saw one old bloke carrying the chain with a reward note on his back looking for his blue heeler, which had apparently blown off the chain during the overnight wind storm.

Here is my list of favourites:

STANDOUTS

A few stands that impressed me were ‘Shaw X’ out of Brisbane with a good array of attachments but the 16-wheeler “Eject X” ejector body tipper is a beauty. This unit will certainly set a higher level of safety for the trucking and construction industry than what we have seen before, especially when it comes to off-highway tipping and discharging of materials on sites where tipping is an issue.

Ejector bodies in tippers are not a new idea but certainly Shaw X has taken the design, fabrication and service to a new level.

BEST STAND

The ‘Best Stand in Show’ went to Boss Attachments and rightly so. It was a brilliant display of attachments suited to any machine for any job, ranging from hydraulic XCentric ripper and crushing bucket, all types of grabs, hydraulic rock cutting saw, hydraulic rock breakers, twin-headed rock or concrete cutters, vibratory plates to suit excavators, and so much more.

A lengthy and most-positive discussion with Boss Attachments general manager Ricky Kirby saw a commitment to Earthmovers and Excavators of a truckload of attachments to be delivered to our testing grounds later this year so we can give our readers and viewers a first-hand look at the gear in action – in full working mode on a real construction site.

This is the first offer we have ever had to supply equipment for the sole purpose of testing and just proves that the generosity and self-belief Ricky has in the products is another reason why the award for best stand in show went to Boss Attachments. I am certainly looking forward to our dates later in the year.

BEST LARGE EXCAVATOR

In shows like this I am always drawn to excavators; like moths to a camp light, really. At this expo, to me, there were a couple of standouts I would love to get my bum into – and they were as follows:

Komatsu had one of the nicest little 28-tonne close-radius excavators on display, albeit at the back of the stand. I found a beautiful Komatsu PC228USLC-8 excavator fitted with a brilliant Topcon 3D GPS which looks to have all the goods from a distance and the spec sheet.

For the size, specs I quickly looked over, the fitout and presentation, this machine was, in my opinion, the pick of the larger excavators on display at the show and should be a good seller for Komatsu in the future.

While crawling all over the machine I could not help but notice the keen interest in purchasing this excavator by several cashed-up and loyal Komatsu customers. We discussed the possibility of a demo in Queensland with Carl Grundy, the national sales manager of Komatsu, and we are well on the way to being able to secure it. Watch this space!

BEST OVERALL AG AND CONSTRUCTION

Kubota had another great display with a full range of mini and midi excavators, attachments and agricultural range of machinery.

The Australian Hammer and Australian Bucket Supplies stand proved a formidable ally and gave enormous clout to the Kubota brand, and is a credit to Bruce Pennels, his wife Julie and the boys, as this is purely a great family story and one worth telling. There is more news to come out of that particular camp in the near future and we have the scoop coming up so, again, watch this space.

SHOW FAVOURITE

When it comes to excavators, I fall in and out of love with them like ‘schoolgirl crushes’. However, sometimes you meet up with one that takes you way back and reminds you of just what a relationship you and that particular machine had. The good, the bad, the frustrating and the great jobs you were involved together certainly can stop you in your tracks for just a fleeting moment.

That moment grabbed me when I visited the Semco Equipment Sales stand and gazed upon a Takeuchi TB280FR compact excavator and subsequently met up with company director Graham Murphy.

The eight-tonne Takeuchi, not this one, and I go back a long, long way. We accomplished many great things along the path we all get to travel at some stage of our chosen career. My time was when I was doing hard yards and picked up one of the first Takeuchi excavators into Australia back in about 1987, a bit of a gamble back then, but the specs looked pretty darn good so I threw my hat in the ring … and presto.

A great machine with no problems, I worked it so hard and in so many different applications that I just had to go a buy another one. My second TB2070 is the machine that I consider as one of my life-changing machines which earned me so much money it set me up for many of the major projects I eventually became involved with. I will always have a ‘soft spot’ for this branded machine and those memories will live with me forever (but that’s another story).

The spec sheet on this new Takeuchi TB280FR excavator just jumps out and bites you … I love it already and I haven’t even started the darn thing. A quick meeting with Graham Murphy and an old-fashioned handshake has secured us a demo, possibly out of Brisbane, with this beautiful little tractor.

Call me sentimental, call me stupid, call me outspoken but this little tractor is, in my opinion, the excavator of the show. That’s how much I think of this unit.

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, and now I’m saying it thrice: watch this space.

IT’S A WRAP

There were so many really great items and stands on display that I cannot get through the lot of them in one small documented brief but you can see them all again next year at the Diesel, Dirt and Turf at Penrith Panthers grounds in 2019. Don’t miss it.