The new machine replaces an older JS220 and has been bought to meet a growing requirement for heavier equipment and an increasing workload at the company.
Sutton ordered the machine, its largest JCB excavator to date, with a triple articulating boom – or TAB – adding to the machine’s versatility and flexibility.
With a length of 6.24m, the TAB boom is longer than the standard 5.85m monoboom, providing an increased digging depth of up to 12.12m with a 3.53m dipper arm and a digging reach at ground level of as much as 11.13m. This additional length also provides improved access for high-reach work with a range of demolition attachments.
However the articulating boom also allows the operator to work right up to the tracks, particularly useful when operating with a grab or shear and handling demolition waste. This ability to vary the excavator’s working envelope, using the articulating boom, provides the operator with increased versatility and flexibility, particularly when working in confined operating conditions.
The JS260XD has an array of auxiliary piping so it can be used with hydraulic breakers, pulverisers, shears and grapples.
The quick hitch has been converted to work with Sutton’s existing inventory of buckets and attachments and the additional weight of the XD machine, topping 27 tonnes, delivers a stable base for a range of demolition and recycling attachments. The TAB boom retains the breakout forces of the standard machine, with dipper tear-out of up to 18,272kgf and a bucket tear-out of 19,574kgf.
Sutton Services is based in Lakenheath. The new JS260XD has gone straight to work at the nearby RAF Mildenhall air base, where it is being used to demolish an accommodation block known as Building 479, for base facilities management provider Vinci Facilities.
Sutton has a number of ongoing demolition projects for Vinci and has found the JS260XD to be better equipped to handle the two and three-storey buildings.
“The JS260XD with the TAB boom gives us better reach,” says operator Robert Saunders. At full height, the TAB boom gives 28% more forward reach than a traditional boom.
“I’m really happy with it so far,” he adds. “The boom makes it easier to work with a bigger machine, even in a confined site.”
