On a cold and rainy night we met for our second visit to Kocurek, this time to see a 55 metre demolition arm on a Komatsu PC 1250 base. Stephen Codd, sales executive who had arranged the visit met us and gave a presentation.
Kocurek was founded in 1979 as a private company by David Kocurek; he built his first demolition arm in 1992 at The Barn, Poplar Lane, a former farm on the outskirts of Ipswich. By 1994 a much larger site was needed and the current 50,000 sq ft factory was built on an old BT site. The company designs and builds extended arms for fitting to base units between 21 and 120 tons. They are used for Demolition, Aggregates, Waterways and in the scrap business.
The 55 meter boom works with a 2 tonne tool. It is destined for Colas in France and must be transportable on French roads; this involves breaking it into loads of less than 50 tonnes. For stability the track frames were lengthened by 1.5m and the track gauge (width) was increased by 1.7m - the result of this is that track width when fully retracted is 4.7m and when fully extended is 6.4m
Stephen, Ron Callan and Matt Bloomfield showed us round the factory. The vast majority of the equipment is made on site with CNC lathes plasma cutters and, their pride and joy, a large twin head borer. This borer was designed and largely made by David Kocurek for about one seventh of the price of a commercial machine . It has enabled bearings on large arms to be right first time, without long periods of repositioning bushes etc. The hydraulic pipes are of thick walled 4mm steel, the pipe clips and nuts and bolts all made on site. All the steel is Weldox 700 which is 3 times stronger than mild steel and enables arms to be built that would not be possible with mild steel. Care needs to be taken in welding since if it is taken above 500 degrees it loses its strength.
We were taken in the rain to see the 55 metre boom operating, with demonstrations of the 3 stage telescopic action and the tilting cab with special safety glass. Some facts:
· The boom is higher than Nelsons Column, when fully up it can work 25m forward.
The machine that dismantled Cranfields was owned by 777 with a Kocurek 50m boom, then the largest in the UK. 777 have ordered a 60m boom; we saw the base unit for it and some of the large boom under construction. A 45 ton machine would be hired for around £1000 a day the 55 metre 120 ton machine would be in the region of £5000
We were treated to a meal in the drawing office with the Cad machines showing elements of the construction.
Our president then thanked Stephen, Ron and Matt for a fascinating evening
· The boom hoist force is 375tonnes, provided from the 670 bhp gross power from the base machine.
· Kocurek use a modular joint which can achieve maximum utilisation from machine by changing between High Reach and Standard Backactor equipment in about 30 minutes.
· The driver has full computer monitoring of load balance etc. There are cameras at the boom end with displays in the cab.
