ADDED VERSATILITY - GET ATTACHED TO VERSATILITY

Mini excavators might not be regarded as a production tool, but score heavily in the use of attachments. In this field they can't boast the versatility of a skidsteer loader and are often seen as being a sort of small toolcarrier.

But as they are small, any attachments tend to have a reasonable capital cost, and they offer quite a boost in terms of productivity over alternative means of performing a task. After all operatives would rather operate a mini with a breaker than use a hand-held breaker with either a hydraulic powerpack or a com- pressor.

The most favoured attachment is the hydraulic breaker, offered as an in-house extra by both JCB Hydrapower and Kubota and for each company built and supplied by Bretec of Finland.

But there are detail design differences specified by each of the manufacturers. Neither of the marque's models are identical to each other or to any models made and sold by Rammer Oy which is Bretec's marketing organisation.

If you don't happen to have either a Kubota or a JCB mini, just about every other breaker manufacturer offers models suitable for any size of mini. The list is impressive. Indeco, Stanley, NPK, Atlas Copco, Montabert (now part of Ingersoll-Rand), Okada, Krupp and the newest recruit HMK from HM Plant offer the appropriate tools.

Minis equipped with breakers aren't capable of huge performance but there is a definite niche market in small-scale demolition jobs. Being able to wriggle inside a building and then demolish walls impunity has its major advantages.

Together with the ubiquitous skidsteer loader, the mini excavator has been responsible for the development of the 'top down' method of demolition. Most reasonably modern buildings are able to bear the weight of a mini on even quite high floors and it is child's play to lift one in with modern craneage capability.

Second most important in terms of numbers sold is the auger attachment. It is generally thought of as beloved only of fencing contractors but there are other uses. One contractor is happily using a large-ish diameter unit to help install gully traps on an East Anglian road upgrading project.

'So far it's proving very successful and is saving money," he says. "The alternative of using a backhoe loader (or a mini) with a standard bucket would have been slower and more wasteful of materials.'

Breakers and auger attachments are widely available but there is only one manufacturer offering a grasscutter!. Pel-Job offers two models, the DH 800 and DH 1000, as brushcutters rather than lawnmowers. They are used for site clearance rather than preparing the pitch for the local cricket club. To see one in action is to be impressed by the efficiency of the powerful little attachments. Not thought of as an attachment but outselling all others is the humble quick hitch.

When you need to make the best use of your mini by having a number of attachments, it pays to be able to make equipment changes quickly.