Smalley Restoration
A small site about my digger restoration.
About.
A small section about me, my digger, and Smalley machines in general.
Myself
I am a graduate engineer in my late 20's working as a principal design engineer, with an interest and experience in construction and agricultural equipment as well as boats, inland waterways, steam plant and club level motorsport.
My Smalley
My Smalley is a Smalley 5 MkII 360° Mini Excavator with extra long boom.
It spent most of its life owned by the Waterway Recovery Group restoring canals in the north of England, I understand WRG had both ex-demo and part-exchanged machines from Richard Smalley. As I presume demo machines would have been yellow as per the sales literiture and I can find no trace of yellow under the red I assuming it was either part-ex from a company who took the machine in red, or was owned by WRG from new. I understand from RIchard Smalley that Yorkshire Electricity had quite a number of Smalleys and the machine mad have origanally been owend by them.
The machine was then sold out of WRG and into private ownership where it worked on a farm doing mixed work including ditching, pond digging, and muck loading. Became increasingly tired the machine was then mothballed at the bottom of the farm for around 6-8 years.
I became its current owner when given it as a retoration project for my birthday. At the time nothing had moved for over half a decade, the boom ram and other parts was significantly coroded, and the cab badly rusted and the interior a mess.
The rest they say...
Smalley machines
Smalleys, designed and sold by Richard Smalley where or where one of the very first compact or 'mini' excavators. The early machines like mine did not have tracks, or even propusion, but instead 'walked' using there boom and free wheelsing rear wheels, being towed behind a van or large car between sites. Smalley initially planned to refer to the machines as 'Mini' Excavators however faced challenge from the car marque of the same name.
The majority of the machines sold where the the size of my machine, which wieght around 1.5 ton and have a norminal lift capacity of around 5Cwt which is where the name came from I understand.
It seems a '15tonne' machine, which needed towing behind a agricutural or haulage tractor, was also sold in some number, along with other versions including floating machines.
I understand a significant number where exported, including around 200 to Japan, where a great number of the later mini diggers where developed into what they are now.
Later on the machines developed tracks, or motorised wheels, selling all around the world, but becoming particularly common for grave digging applications and other confined or infrequent tasks. The company also developed amphibious machines for dredging work and other specialist solutions for various markets.
Richard Smalley:
http://www.richardsmalleytechnicalservices.com
Oily Hands Site: