LIFELONG RED & GREY FAN

Nick Drew reports on a small business owner who is a long-term user of Takeuchi compact excavators

Herefordshire-based James Hilldrup is a big fan of Takeuchi mini-excavators. He was smitten with them from an early age, since riding in the cab of an early TB020 model operated by his older brother Adam.

As their father Adrian Hilldrup was a well-respected local builder, the brothers grew up around the building game and diggers. Sadly, when James was only 15, their father passed away. Adam took on the small family business, while younger brother James went to college to become a bricklayer. After leaving college, James initially worked for the family firm but it was not long before he decided to broaden his horizons.

James recalls, “My brother-in-law is a digger driver, and at the time he was working for a chap who did some groundworks and a bit of building. He was looking for someone to come on and lay a few bricks, so I went to work for him.

“It turned out that his son was a contracts manager for Hampshire-based Raymond Brown, now Knights Brown, who had a long run of work down in Cardiff. I decided to go and work with them, building the Dr Who Experience, and on that job I laid 120,000 brick pavers. From there we went on to the Sennybridge Training Area for the Ministry of Defence, where I was involved in building a fort using those precast concrete Lego-style blocks. That was followed by a park-and-ride scheme in Merthyr Tydfil.”

Owner Operator

Despite this early success as a bricklayer, James really wanted to be involved in groundworks, in the cab of a digger. As major bricklaying projects dried up, he began to hire an old Takeuchi TB125 from the person he had been working for.

Undertaking a few small jobs of his own at weekends, James went on to purchase this mini-excavator – his first owner-operated machine.

Another family member provided James with a contact within the main contractor for a blockwork contract at the Cadbury chocolate factory in Leominster. This firm constructed large concrete floors for warehouses and farms, together with all the associated civils work.

James said, “I got talking to the guy and he asked what I did. I replied, well I have a digger and I’m keen to focus more on the digger work, rather than brick and block laying. He then said, come and see me Monday morning and we will get you going!

“Some 12 months on, the TB125 was starting to get a bit tired due to the hours we were putting on it. I decided to trade her in for a more modern, low-hours TB228 and we were away. Armed with the newer machine, I was offered a two-week job in

Essex. As so often happens in this game, that two-week job transpired to be 12 months of work, as the farm manager kept adding work on. It was a lot of travelling, but it established me as a sub-contractor.”

Another job arose with the same firm, which would see James supplying all the kit and labour, and the contractor supplied all the materials. As the workload continued to expand, James often found himself jumping between his three-tonne mini and a larger midi excavator. It came to the point where James decided to purchase a used eight-tonner, in the form of a venerable Takeuchi TB175, an example of which was available from local dealer Bow Plant Sales. Bizarrely, when inspecting it at the dealer’s yard, James discovered some of his old paperwork in the cab, as he had used the excavator a couple of years earlier. As it turned out, some seven years later, this purchase is viewed as the catalyst for what James’s business has become today. Now with an eight-tonner and a threetonner, he picked up more contracts, building a core of regular clients. He currently employs two young adults, one of whom is doing an apprenticeship at a local college, plus a network of subbies he can call on, as and when required.

Fleet Focus

The latest addition to the fleet is a fourtonne Takeuchi TB240, which replaced a TB230 model, but retained its Engcon EC204 tilt-rotator. The fleet also includes a 1.5-tonne Takeuchi, together with a range of site dumpers from one to six tonnes capacity, plus a Bomag BW120 double-drum roller, all with a matching Takeuchi-style red and grey paint job. Unusually for such an operation, James also has a small Blaw Knox tarmac paver, enabling him to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on paving contractors. Again, to be more self-sufficient, he runs a beavertail HGV to move his kit around.

The pride of the fleet is the nine-tonne class TB290-2, which arrived late in 2021. It is an all-singing, all-dancing midiexcavator, configured with a TAB boom, an Engcon EC209 tilt-rotator and a Leica 3D GPS machine control system.

James continued, “We have been running Takeuchis for over 10 years now, and apart from regular servicing work, you just never have to put a spanner to them.

“In terms of operation, I just find them to be really good, so smooth on the hydraulics and completely userfriendly. We have tried other brands that we have hired in, but it’s always a delight to jump back in the Takeuchi. One thing I always notice is that you can grade stone easily with the cutting edge. Whereas, with some other less-refined machines, you end up having to use the back of the bucket to get the desired finish.”

Regarding local Takeuchi dealer, Bow Plant Sales, James said, “We have a really good working relationship with them.

The father and son team of Martin and Ollie Hughes are always on the end of the phone if you ever need anything, and the deals are always spot on. I can’t fault them really.”

Conclusion

We met James on an agricultural building project in Herefordshire. The job involved demolishing existing structures, then perform the groundworks for a new steel-framed shed, lay a massive concrete floor, together with all the associated external drainage works for the new building. There was plenty for the small team to go at.

Looking to the future, James does have ambitions to move up the weight scale and invest in a compact 14-tonne excavator. Predictably, he has his eyes on a Takeuchi TB2150R and concluded, “I am looking at them, but our nine-tonner can turn out an awful lot of work, it’s such a capable machine. Everything we have here today is paid for and earning, so I will wait and see how things pan out.”

Below: The latest addition to the fleet is a four-tonne Takeuchi TB240 mini-excavator, equipped with an Engcon tilt-rotator used on its predecessor.