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Sling yer Load!
Page 54
Page 55
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We report on why a Stockport-based building supplier is now the UK and European agent for the Canadian MultiCat spreader, and how a Cornish concrete company has extended its reach.
Words: Brian Weathertey Travel through the US and sooner or later you'll spot a 'stone slinger' on the back of a truck. The principle is simple enough. A hopper body holds material, which is then fed via conveyor belts onto a placement boom that can reach up to 30m from the rear of the truck. This allows the driver to spread up to 18 tonnes of product in a matter of minutes.
The obvious advantage of the stone slinger is that the truck can remain on a road or sufficiently hard surface, while depositing material on softer gmund or difficult-to-reach sites.Although stone slingers are virtually unheard of on this side of the Atlantic, Stockport-based Aardvark Concrete was sufficiently convinced by their potential to recently take on the sole distribution rights for the MultiCat spreader, built in Canada by Bay-Lynx Manufacturing.
Aardvark already runs a number of volumetric readymixed concrete carriers that are based on a variety of eight-legger chassis and, following its distributor agreement with Bay-Lynx, it has invested close to £165,000 in a stone stinger demonstrator unit based on a 400hp Volvo FM13 eight-wheeler.
The MultiCat system comprises a sloping steel hopper body that feeds product onto the bottom conveyor belt, which then passes the material onto a conveyor on the rear swivelling boom that can also be raised for delivery over various obstructions.
The conveyor belt system is powered by the truck's PTO and can discharge up to 18 tonnes of product in less than five minutes. In addition to its demonstrator model, Aardvark has a free-standing body for sale, ready for mounting. The standalone price is around £60,000 depending on final specification, and complete bodies can be fitted within six weeks of the initial order. Aardvark will either fit a MultiCat body to an operator's chassis itself, or alternatively, general manager Mick Duignan says, it can be fitted by an operator or truck dealer — under supervision, of course.
Ripe market Duignan explains the company's decision to take on the MultiCat distributorship: "First, it allows us to extend our own fleet of specialist vehicles, increasing our own capabilities, and second, we feel the market is ripe for opportunity. We run seven volumetric cement carriers already, and I can see us ending up with three or four stone slingers ourselves."
Duignan adds that while the MultiCat can be fitted to any chassis, it suits the Volvo chassis particularly. "It fits it like a glove. We know the Volvo chassis, it's strong and is designed to carry a fair bit."
Potential customers for a stone slinger service include construction firms and utilities as well as rail companies, while typical applications include j trench-filling and ballast-spreading. With the conveyor having a variable speed, the MultiCat can provide a very precise delivery of products such as sand, aggregates, mulch, topsoil and stone. Materials up to 152mm (61n) in diameter can be handled by the discharge system.
The planetary drive delivery boom swings through 90 degrees left or right, and can be raised at the end by up to 3.35m (lift) from the horizontal position, allowing it to deposit product over fences and walls, or up motorway embankments. When not in use the boom folds along the side of the truck body.
The boom and conveyor system can be operated by the driver from a control panel on the truck, or in the case of the Aardvark demonstrator, via remote controls While the current economic situation is not exactly helping the construction industry, Duignan believes that the European market for the MultiCat could be more than 20 units in the first year, growing thereafter. "There's potential out there," he says, adding, "Otherwise we wouldn't have signed the deal." • • For more information, visit www.aardvarkconcrete.comk/