South West Spider Cranes recently took delivery of a new Maeda MC305-3. Company owner Jacob Arevalo talks us through the decision to buy the mini crawler from Pace Cranes.
Jacob has been in cranes and rigging for close to nine years. Towards the end of last year, he saw an opportunity for a specialised crane service in his area and launched Southwest Spider Cranes with a new Maeda MC305C-3 mini crawler from Pace Cranes.
“My experience within cranes includes working in the northern regions of WA on construction projects, mining, maintenance and shutdowns and taxi hire crane work in the South West of WA – based in Busselton. I’ve worked on many different mine sites driving cranes and rigging for companies such as Mammoet and Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) to name a few,” he said.
It was during his time here that Jacob saw an opportunity to launch SouthWest Spider Cranes.
“I wasn’t planning on investing in a mini crawler crane, and I was looking at buying something I was more familiar with, like a Franna or an all-terrain slewing crane. But after some research and conversations with people within the industry I was confident the mini crane would have some very useful applications in Busselton as there isn’t any down here.
“So, we started SouthWest Spider Cranes in November last year and got rolling in December when we brought a truck over from Melbourne and the Maeda MC305-3 arrived,” said Jacob.
There’s a variety of different businesses SouthWest Spider Cranes is working for, Jacob says.
“We have been specialising in steel erection and glass glazing. We have all the equipment to glaze big panels, and for steel erection. But we also provide general lifting services and with the truck, we offer transportation services as well.
“Some of the clients we are servicing are local, high-end bespoke builders including Valmadre, Lodge & Co and Kurys-Romer to name a few, and the local clients we work for in the glass and glazing sector would be Pure Glass and HeatSeal,” he said.
Jacob spent a lot of time researching the mini crane crawler market before making the decision to go with Pace Cranes and the Maeda brand.
“I did a lot of research and examined most of the major mini crawler crane brands that were available in Australia. After looking at their specifications and capabilities of the various models, I finally narrowed it down to three which included Maeda.
“I started ringing the various distributors and representatives for the brands, including Michael Cawston at Pace Cranes. As I spoke to each company and began asking questions, lots of questions, the decision to go with them became straightforward.
“I can’t speak highly enough of Michael and the team over at Pace Cranes. Every question I had they were able to answer off the top of their head, they didn’t have to get back to me on anything. Michael really knows his product and he has a great team supporting him,” said Jacob.
“Michael doesn’t really sell the crane. He is highly educated about the product and wants to make sure he is proposing the right crane for the customer’s requirements. When I was speaking to the other representative companies, they couldn’t answer fairly basic questions, and I was thinking ‘you’re selling a $250,000 machine, you should know the answer to that’.
“I understand everyone is in business to make money, but I have never really felt like this with Pace Cranes. Even though I’m not in the market for a crane, I still give Michael a call to chat about the crane and any issues I might have with it, and how I might be able to improve the performance I can get from it. He is always prepared to spend the time helping me and understands this is my first business and I’m still learning a lot. Michael has made the process of buying and owning a crane super easy,” he said.
Jacob has kicked off SouthWest Spider Cranes with a diesel-powered Meada 305C-3.
“I went with the Maeda 305C-3 diesel version. I also purchased the Searcher Hook because I was going to be targeting a lot of glazing work and listening to Michael, I could see that the Searcher Hook would give me a huge advantage. It’s been excellent and well worth the extra money, it’s such a handy little tool. We also have the Uplifter inline 6 glass lifter with a capacity of 450kg and that’s also excellent,” said Jacob.
The Maeda MC305C is a compact crawler crane and despite its small size, it is very powerful – making it perfect for hard-to-access locations. It features a load capacity of up to 2980 kg, its only 1.28m wide and has a maximum liftmheight of 12.52m.
Jacob says he is impressed with the Maeda, how intuitive he finds the controls and how smoothly the crane operates.
“The Maeda is really impressive and has a 3t capacity while also lifting nearly 300kg with its 12.5m max radius,” he says.
“We purchased the cable remote control as well which can be handy on some jobs, but so far, I’ve mainly used the seat controls as I prefer them.
“Prior to owning the crane, I did have concerns about it not having very smooth operation as smaller machines such as excavators usually have a reputation for being jerky and I had never operated a crane under 20 tonnes.
“But after purchasing the Maeda I can confidently say it stacks up equally with a 300 tonne slew crane in terms of smooth operation, it’s so nice and easy to control,” said Jacob.
Jacob is also impressed with the precision of the way the Maeda operates.
“When you’re installing glass there is no room for error, the movements you make have to be incremental and to within a millimetre sometimes, because if glass gets caught up when it’s being installed into its frame, they can shatter quite easily so you have to be careful and precise. The Maeda is awesome for this.
SouthWest Spider Cranes has quickly established a good reputation in the local construction sector and Jacob has a growing pipeline of work.
“We are now servicing pretty much the whole of the South West now, and we’re getting work from Mandurah down to Augusta. It is quite broad spread of work which wasn’t necessarily the plan in the beginning. But when you start a business, you learn that plans can quickly go out the window and you work with what you get.
“The work is predominantly in the glass glazing and building industry, but we’ve also done a bit of work in wineries and breweries in the Margaret River Wine region, and that’s been really interesting. We do a lot of steel erection and a lot of indoor works. Thanks to the Maeda and Pace Cranes we’re slowly but surely growing and getting bigger and bigger, which is great for business,” said Jacob.
“We plan on expanding in the coming six months and taking delivery of another larger slewing crane to target the works that are just a little too far out of reach for our Maeda so we can cover a broader scope of work and offer even more lifting solutions to our current and future clients,” he said.