Willie B
Senior Member
I've never seen value in a mini excavator. I like a backhoe loader.
We had a generator to install. Customer has a CUT tractor with a post hole auger. I figured the stand, we could sink four post holes for the legs. Trench was 20 feet through a maze of shrubbery, I'd dig the 2' deep ditch by hand.
Then, he decided on an underground propane tank 100 feet away from the generator.
Customer had been suffering symptoms a month or more & just learned he has a fractured vertebrae. He came up with the idea of borrowing his neighbor's mini excavator, A Kubota 4.1? metric ton machine. His friend would run it. Somehow the operator fell through. I had the opportunity to operate it.
Everything about the machine was a sweet little package except a few issues:
It bobs around like a rubber duck in a bathtub! Rarely on flat level ground, it is often crossed up, supported on the blade & 1 end of 1 track. Blade is six in 1 so I could tilt it for better stability, yet often I found myself crossed up. Swinging to the side, it'd be easy to tip, at least until the bucket touches the ground.
Sidehill work is interesting! No house levelling as you'd do in a big excavator, turntable angle is the hillside angle.
Not much reach. I found myself pushing the extend a hoe button often, only to remind myself it doesn't have one.
Specifications were flat bottom hole 11' x 4-1/2" 5 feet deep. I found I couldn't reach the other side & couldn't see the side I was digging from the seat. When a rock rolled out of the wall, I couldn't reach it, had to get into the hole to roll it within reach.
We had a generator to install. Customer has a CUT tractor with a post hole auger. I figured the stand, we could sink four post holes for the legs. Trench was 20 feet through a maze of shrubbery, I'd dig the 2' deep ditch by hand.
Then, he decided on an underground propane tank 100 feet away from the generator.
Customer had been suffering symptoms a month or more & just learned he has a fractured vertebrae. He came up with the idea of borrowing his neighbor's mini excavator, A Kubota 4.1? metric ton machine. His friend would run it. Somehow the operator fell through. I had the opportunity to operate it.
Everything about the machine was a sweet little package except a few issues:
It bobs around like a rubber duck in a bathtub! Rarely on flat level ground, it is often crossed up, supported on the blade & 1 end of 1 track. Blade is six in 1 so I could tilt it for better stability, yet often I found myself crossed up. Swinging to the side, it'd be easy to tip, at least until the bucket touches the ground.
Sidehill work is interesting! No house levelling as you'd do in a big excavator, turntable angle is the hillside angle.
Not much reach. I found myself pushing the extend a hoe button often, only to remind myself it doesn't have one.
Specifications were flat bottom hole 11' x 4-1/2" 5 feet deep. I found I couldn't reach the other side & couldn't see the side I was digging from the seat. When a rock rolled out of the wall, I couldn't reach it, had to get into the hole to roll it within reach.
