Kansas City company Wilkerson Crane Rental has purchased its third Manitowoc MLC300 crawler crane.
Taking stock of its first machine four years ago, management at the mid-western USA-based crane and lifting equipment rental company made the addition to its fleet to enhance its capacities in the wind farm construction sector.
“Four years ago, we bought our first MLC300 with a wide boom and extended upper boom point,” said Jeff Holt, Wilkerson’s Director of Operations. “This purchase was exclusively for wind farm work and apart from coming back for one three-month job, it’s been conducting maintenance on one wind turbine after another.”
Manitowoc’s MLC300 lattice boom crawler crane holds a 350-tonne maximum load capacity, 101 metres of main boom, 96 metres of luffing jib, and 42 metres of fixed jib extension. The crane also holds a maximum load moment of 2145 torque-metres and a variable position counterweight allowing for the optimisation of the crane’s lifting capabilities.
The main feature of the crane, however, is its VPC-MAX attachment. The counterweight attachment increases lifting capacity on the MLC300 crane, nearly doubles its load moment to 4119 torque-metres, allows the main boom to be extended to 120 metres.
“Five months ago, we bought our third MLC300; this time we purchased the VPC-MAX® and Wide Boom Plus,” said Holt. “These two new attachments can be utilized on any of our three MLC300’s. They make it possible to maintain up to 100-m hub height wind towers.”
“Since the purchase of these attachments, we have used them to perform complete rotor drops on 100-m wind turbines for the past five months,” he continued. “Now, this crane is off to work on a large tyre plant in Topeka, Kansas, with main boom and fixed jib.”
Purchased through Manitowoc’s local dealer Kirby Smith, the 350-tonne capacity crawler crane joins Wilkerson’s burgeoning fleet that already contains four other Manitowoc cranes on top of the other two MLC300’s: an MLC90-A, 999, 16000, and MLC650.
The company, salvaged by Jeff’s partner and CEO of the business Diana Holt, celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
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