The RSL Blog, 

a page to show a more personal side 

Shows are done is a pretty dramatic title, but the weather for our last show at Newark was dramatic. The word biblical could have been used in regard to the rain! While the picture above shows sunshine albeit shining onto a puddle, the rain on setup day (Tuesday) and the final day Thursday was distinctly less bright. September was very different for the APF show. We class this as our main show of the year and it did not disappoint. The APF is always busy and lots of interest for customers and exhibitors alike. The weather played ball which as an exhibitor is crucial. However the MMS show at Newark in mid November in regards to the weather can be a very different story. We managed to get loaded up on the Monday in fair weather so we could take our time packing and loading. Getting ready for a show usually starts a month early. This gives us time to manufacture the products and get everything cleaned and polished in time. Tuesday was an early run upto Newark from our main base at Watford. I did this in our U430 Unimog demonstrator with our roro trailer loaded with digger and product. Unfortunately it rained. I got to Newark at 9.30am after avoiding as many puddles as i could on the way up. This effort proved to be pointless. All our polishing was in vain. After getting drenched setting up we headed off wet and weary to ready ourselves for the the Wednesday show day. The sun was out, and so were the people. We had a great day and saw lots of new and returning customers. We prophesised that it was so busy as it was due to rain the following day. On Thursday true to form very few people turned up. Lots of rain did arrive. At one point we had 6 inches of water across half the stand. Surprisingly though the few people we did speak to made the day worth it. Packing up was a relatively awful affair. The rain had turned torrential. All the care we took when getting ready was reversed as we almost slung the items back on the trailer so we could get out the rain. A big thankyou goes out to all the new and old customers who came to see us over the course of this year. We will be back, and depending on the looming recession hopefully bigger and better than ever, and new products as well For a video of the journey follow this link. Due to weather we missed filming on the rainy days https://youtu.be/mMqJpTCJ8FM

We have finally done it! Creating a PTO system to fit UGE Unimogs has not been easy. The results though far outweigh our starting expectations. We expected the power and torque as this was all worked out on paper. Not for a minute though did i imagine the system would run a modern big baler. Not just run it either but able to run it faster than the pickup would collect the material. We have learnt a lot along the way. I have placed a few videos on the PTO web page. One of the dyno run as well testing the system for any faults and would it perform as expected. We did have a hiccup at this stage as the pump provided to us had the wrong pressure relief valves and we blew a pipe on the dyno! Once sorted though we had a successful run. The best part is the control of the system. All electronic from the cab. 540rpm and 1000rpm and eco running too. We have just sold our first system and it is to become the demonstrator Unimog for Lloyds at Newcastle. Lloyds have been selling our hitches and accessories for Unimogs for a while now and hopefully this demonstrator will be a great addition to their fleet. see this link for our Unimog baling https://youtu.be/oC5G5ZOpOHU

We know the ring style compactor wheel works and works well. Getting the new grader attachment to work with it has been an unexpected challenge. In our yard over the past few weeks i have been trying many variations for the grading beam to get it to grade smoothly with out digging in unless you want it to. We have tried different widths, angles, larger flat areas, smaller flat areas, etc, etc. The current incarnation as shown in the picture tested well in our yard. I was able to scrape the surface around the pothole and successfully level and compact the surface. Great i thought, lets go find some farm tracks. I contacted a farmer friend and offered to repair his potholes which he agreed, so on a nice sunny day i took the digger and had a go. I wish i could say all was good but i as not happy. The grader was too wide! While it worked well in a large flat-ish yard, a farm track with grass in the middle and a camber did not work. I packed up for the day and brought it back to the workshop for further modification. I think we will lose 200mm in width which should hopefully sort the job, i shall find out in further testing. We will have a stand at the midland machinery show on November the 9th and 10th, our first show since covid started. Along with our other kit such as grabs and tree shears i hope to have a finished compactor/grader wheel. We hope to see you there!

We have been making hydraulic grabs for years but they are based on a generic market design which has never sat comfortably with me. I decided early this year to make our own. We have been making our own before although maybe i was thinking outside the box too much in trying to make improvements. Such as the single sided grab, the gear grab and our twin ram with no link bar grab. All well and good especially the single sided grab ( which i do think is better than a standard hydraulic grab) but we may have missed the commercial viability mark with these. So we try again! this time its a more conventional shape, i designed it supremely strong but also easier and quicker to build which will keep the price competitive and i have designed the grab to be a lot easier to maintain by having the twin link arms on the outside so greasing and replacing bushes will be a doddle. A lot of the time we are not competing like for like but competing with cheap foreign imports. Can we compete on price with these... no but we can easily compete and exceed on quality and service. This new grab started out with bearings on the main pivots which should have been better for longevity, It turns out shock loading killed them! so we took it to bits and made solid bushes with brass sleeves. Tested again and found a tolerance issue between the ram and it's mount so took apart again and corrected this. Now i am about to go and test it yet again. I am not worried about the strength of the grab it will probably be the strongest on the market, i am looking more for reliability with the continued testing.