A Liebherr excavator, finished in black gloss paintwork, is proving its worth in the Scottish Highlands.
The forestry specification R 914 Compact was a big attraction on Liebherr GB’s stand at ScotPlant this year before making the journey 30 miles north of Inverness to begin working with S. Milne Contracting.
Owner Sam Milne’s contracting and ground preparation business works for just a handful of long-term, repeat clients and previously ran a small fleet of used Liebherr excavators.
However, faced with a shortage of operators willing to work long hours, often away from home, he decided to reduce the fleet, buy a brand-new machine, and operate as an owner-operator. Liebherr revealed his aim was to find ‘the ultimate mounding machine’.
Sam Milne said, “I needed a machine that was capable of sitting on soft ground, as many of the forests we work in are planted on very wet, peat-covered ground. What we didn’t want was to compromise the performance or to massively increase the size of the undercarriage and therefore make transportation awkward and expensive.
“Good ground clearance was also needed as we’re finding the stumps of felled trees stick out of the ground by a good way these days.”
The answer lay in a combination taken from two Liebherr models: an extended undercarriage from an R 918 with a standard R 914 Compact upperstructure. The undercarriage was extended by 450mm and fitted with 900mm pads. Additional plating was fitted below the X-frame undercarriage as further protection.
Liebherr revealed other specification includes a guard on the lower windscreen, extra protection for the body and boom lighting, cab and counterweight light bars incorporating LED task lighting, and amber warning lights. Also included in the package is a Steelwrist X18 tiltrotator, 450mm-wide tapered bucket from fellow Highlands company Gitsham Fabrication, and the Finland-built ASTA GPS documentation system.
Sam Milne added, “The help from Mark Gorrie, Liebherr’s area sales manager, and the factory in Kirchdorf, Germany in developing this machine has been second to none.”
