The family-run concern supplies quality sand and aggregates to the construction industry throughout Fife, and operates at three closely located sites around Ladybank together with a bagging plant.
Celebrating its 50th year in business last year, the company bought Volvo Construction Equipment’s 846 loading shovels in the 1970s, and since then the business, now in its third generation, has continued to favour Volvo loading shovels including the 4400 and every model of L120 to the newly-acquired L120G.
Peter Cuthbert, son of managing director Ian Cuthbert, said: “This latest machine replaces an L120E which has reached 14,500 hours with all its original components intact and still running on the original set of tyres.”
The new L120G has been placed in the hands of operator Ron Taylor who has been employed at Angle Park since 1988, and who achieved the high hours on the same set of tyres on his E series machine. It joins a fleet of nine loading shovels (eight of which are Volvos) together with a Volvo EC240C excavator. The machine has been equipped with boom suspension for its primary duty of load and carry, feeding a primary hopper at the Melville Pit site besides loading stock out onto road-going wagons.
The new Volvo L120G features an 8litre Stage IIIB compliant engine, optishift transmission and axles all designed and manufactured by Volvo, and a full-turn tipping load of 11.4tonnes. It is said to offer a 20% increase in lifting force and 10% increase in breakout force over its predecessor.
This coupled to the engine output with high torque at low engine rpm is said to have resulted in faster cycle times and increased productivity.
Two stronger, variable displacement load-bearing axial piston pumps and hoses have been introduced to handle the increased pressures and a new hydraulic cooling system has been designed to reduce the working temperatures by up to 20oC over the F series model.
