Back earlier in the year I had the opportunity to meet up with Carlton Everest from HMR Transport & Excavation and view his new machine kitted up with the A2Lock Tilt Motor and MK3 Wide Bucket.

Read the article here.

While there I was more than impressed with the customisations made to his new machine, so much I thought it would be worth writing a quick article and share four of his great inventions.

1. Shovel Mount

One of the easiest and most effective customisations Carlton had made to his machine was the shovel mount. From the moment I turned up I could see the shovel tucked snuggly away up the side of the main boom, this was in a great place that had minimal effect on visibility but yet was always at easy reach whenever a bit of manual digging was required. While he was busy working I could see how tightly this was sitting and not moving around in a flimsy way. After enquiring with Carlton how he made the mounts I found out it was simply two ATV gun mounts brought from the hunting and fishing shop which he had fitted magnets to the bottom of so he could easily attach to any part of the machine. This held his shovel securely in a neat place at all times.

2. Light Bar

This was a little more complicated to execute on but being such a great light bar and looking so stunning we thought it would be great to share this with you. Carlton had made this light bar himself in his own engineering workshop welding and fitting together the light-bar to suit the contours and existing mounts on the roof of his machine. Carlton then purchased LED light strips which are so easy and cost effective to come across these days and recessed them into the frame. Being such a heavy-duty light bar, this also acts as extra protection to the cab of his roof.

3. Tool box

One thing we often notice on our client’s machines is when small hand tools are required they are either stored in their vehicle or on the floor of their machine – right in the way of your feet! Carlton had come up with a great fix for this as well! Fitting a custom made tool box behind the cab answered all the issues of where to store your small hand tools. While I was there it was never an issue for Carlton to easily reach for a craft knife, tape measure or what ever he was needing at the time without needing to head back to his truck to get it, with a lock and sturdy latch there was no risk of his tools going ‘walking’ while away from the site!

4. Tow Ball

A great small but very handy addition to Carlton's machine was the tow ball fitted to his machines blade. Just protruding above the top of his blade was a tow ball – all custom fitted in his own workshop! Carlton explained to me this made life very easy when working on sights where he needed to pick stuff up and then take the material a short distance away and dump it, like a job he had done earlier cleaning up from hedge trimmers where he simply needed to scoop up the branches with his Root Rake and dump them on the trailer, after going along a hedge line and picking up the trimmings he was easily able to track over to the burning pile and push them off – making the whole job simple and without the need to hop out of his machine.

It was great catching up with Carlton and seeing his different customisations to his machine, hopefully these are helpful insights and your can learn from these great initiatives to help speed up production and make life as an operator altogether easier!