LinCon Hire and Sales is a leading provider of high standard access equipment hire as well as offering repairs, servicing and sales. With an extensive and diverse range of nearly 150 truck-mounted Elevating Work Platforms, and with a team of skilled personnel across six states, LinCon ensures exceptional service with a focus on global safety standards.
Tony Fish is responsible for Technical Sales at LinCon. With close to 40 years’ experience in cranes and access equipment, he is well qualified to talk about LinCon’s capabilities when it comes to Elevated Work Platforms (EWPs) and access equipment.
“Throughout my career I’ve been in cranes and access equipment. I started at Lindore Cranes and Rigging in 1988 and stayed in cranes for quite a while, then moved into EWPs when Colleen Lindores started this business. I was the workshop manager for 13 of the 20 years that I’ve been here, and now I’m in technical sales,” said Tony.
“LinCon Hire and Sales is the agent for Palfinger Platforms and Barin under bridge inspection equipment in Australia and New Zealand. I’m currently part of the Australian Standards Committee to add some extra knowledge of the truck-mounted platforms and also on the board of the Elevated Work Platform Association (EWPA) Board so we can provide additional knowledge with the truck-mount platforms.
“During my time selling truck-mounted elevated work platforms, I was also receiving enquiries for scissor lifts, boom lifts, tow-behinds etc., and so we started the Access Equipment Sales website. Although focusing on the Palfinger and Barin products this website generates general enquiries for self-propelled machines.
“We have created relationships with all the major EWP suppliers including the Chinese manufacturers now in the Australian market. With the website we’re not stuck to one brand of machine. We can source the type of machine the customer wants or alternatively offer a machine suitable to their budget,” said Tony.
“A lot of the solutions offered via the website are for smaller family businesses, we also get a lot of second-hand enquiries via the website. With the second-hand market I’ll speak to manufacturers regarding their trade-ins or to access equipment providers about their older machines which might not suit their requirements anymore but still have value. We’ll buy and sell them. With the Palfinger and the Barin products, we are working with more of the larger utility companies and government organisations,” he said.
Tony goes on to explain how LinCon manages the national fleet of access equipment.
“We have managers in each state managing after the operations of the machines plus business development managers based in Queensland and New South Wales putting the LinCon name forward while looking for new work. Repairs and maintenance is taken care of by Mick freeman, he has over 20 years of experience in the crane and access equipment industry. Mick is the National Workshop Manager based in Brisbane however has the overview of the workshops in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. Nationally Mick manages the servicing and quality of the Lincon fleet plus maintaining equipment sold to other customers,” said Tony.
He explains how enquiries for the Palfinger access platforms are managed.
“The smaller Palfinger units, are supplied as kits to be fitted here in Australia. Palfinger provide us with comprehensive engineering drawings of the subframe for each build. The customers have the option to select the truck of their choice, the build from subframe to mounting and testing is all done in house, this even comes down to the painting in our certified paint booth. Once complete, all builds are tested and signed off by an independent registered engineer.
“Generally speaking, the kits are up to 30 metres for external customers, but we’ve recently built a couple of 48-metres and a 75-metre kits. Initially Palfinger didn’t offer the platforms as kits, but after years of us lobbying, they are now moving towards this type of business model,” said Tony.
LinCon also operates a fleet of insulated access platforms.
“The larger insulated machines are from Bronto Skylift. They are live line machines that are rated to 500,000 volts. We also have a Palfinger live line machine that’s rated to 750,000 volts,” said Tony.
“These machines are compliance tested every six months. They have to go down to the National Measurement Institute in Sydney, which is the only place in Australia that can test them now. Part of the testing involves one million volts through them to make sure that they are fit for purpose. When you consider we have 10 of these units in the fleet, this is a significant cost for the business,” said Tony.
“But there’s a significant amount of high voltage work coming up over the next decade or so and we are well positioned for that work. The work revolves around the renewable sector, including wind and solar farms. The companies that own them don’t want power lines shut down, because if they’re not producing power, they’re not making money. If the lines can stay up and we can work on them while they’re live, they’re making money, so these machines are busy all of the time.”
Tony explains a bit more about the Palfinger range of aerial platforms.
“The smallest in the range is 13 metres and this will fit on a Ford Ranger or an Isuzu truck. This size has been quite popular with mines in New South Wales; they’ve got them on little trucks. With the Ranger, they’re pretty much at their capacity. The 13-metre weighs 3.2 tonne however with a GVM upgrade the ute is good for 3.5 tonne. But by the time you put a bloke in the basket, you can’t carry too many tools.
“We go up to 103 metre units that are mounted to a Tadano Crane Carrier which is specially built, they weigh 60 tonne. It’s not like a crane, you can’t take counter weight off, they weigh 60 tonne and that’s it.
“A lot of the times they’re moving around on a low loader,” he said.
“We’ve recently got approval from the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) to road them in Queensland. It’ll be a single trip permit and whatever road it travels on will be decided by NHVR. With six of these in the fleet, with a reach of 103 metres, we’ll be managing lot of wind turbine work.
“Initially, when we first got the machine, it was working on drag line. Before the mine had the machine, they were using a 300 tonne crane with a man box to work on the drag line. We got in there with our 100-metre machine with 530 kilos in the basket. You can have five people up there doing the greasing, inspecting the sheaves and ropes,” said Tony. “We were able to manage 35 metres of horizontal outreach which meant we could set up in one spot and inspect 70 metres of the pendant ropes. They conduct non-destructive testing (NDT) and run along the ropes, testing them. We’ve taken the machine out to Tanami Desert to a gold mine out there and we’ve also had some wharf work on the container cranes. It’s a very flexible machine.”