Better Roads Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85916
HEAVIER WORKLOAD Characterized for pure production, 30- to 50-metric-ton crawler excavators are also winning over new customers with their added versatility I mpressing veteran equipment operators is never easy. For Georgia contractor Lee Deas IV, though, a light bulb turned on the day he pulled himself into the cab of a 72,000-pound crawler excavator. "I've run small excavators my whole life, but it's a whole different ballgame when you get on something that big," says Deas, owner of Precision Site Works, based in the Augusta suburb of Evans. "It just opened up my eyes on how much more production can be done with that machine versus the smaller ma- chines. It's just amazing the difference." A year-and-a-half after buying the 33-metric- ton JCB, Deas couldn't be happier. And it's not only about digging and loading more dirt. When his JS330LC is not being used to lay pipe at the new fi xed-base opera- tor (FBO) terminal being built at Augusta Regional Airport, it is demolishing concrete at the nearby James B. Messerly Waste Wa- ter Treatment Plant. "It's fantastic," he says. "We run it every day, and we haven't had a minute's trouble out of it." Better Roads May 2012 33b