19.09.2004

How big is your deck?

This weekend saw the first Hoogwerker Dagen, (platform days to you and I), event in Holland. Among the many aerial lifts on display was a massive crawler mounted scissor lift from Hoogwerker Techniek Nederland (HTN) with a 12 by five metre platform incorporating quadruple extensions and three tonnes lift capacity! Not to mention chassis levelling and 180 degree platform rotation!
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The HTN scissor has 180 degree rotation and hydraulic levelling

The four extensions, one on each end in the traditional manner and one on each side, are all individually controlled and extend the deck area to a massive 60 Square metres!. This niche unit was designed for the construction of commercial greenhouses. Most glasshouses in Holland are constructed on reclaimed land or “Polders”, few, if any, wheeled aerial lifts can cope with the fine soft loosely packed bottomless sand, so wide tracked chassis are the norm on both Booms and scissors. In order to ideally position the platform the units include side to side and end to end hydraulic levelling, while the scissor stack is mounted on a swing bearing to allow it to rotate by 90 degrees in each direction.
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The massive 12m x 5m deck

HTN produces three or four of these monsters a year for Holland’s huge greenhouse construction industry, Working heights range from 10 to 15 metres, driven more by demand than technical limitation. Each unit tends to be special, and often include raised platforms in the centre of the deck to allow workers to reach into the roof apex. The Dutch lead the world in glass house construction and are developing the technology at a rapid pace, individual glass panels are currently as big as 1.7metres by 2.2 metres but likely to move to 2.5m square next year. Naturally such large sheets of glass not only need a big lift capacity but also special handling equipment, so the scissor lifts are usually equipped with small cranes or mechanical handling devices to position the glass with the minimum of effort.

In addition to the glass house application the company has been approached to build a similar if less exotic model for bricklayers. The benefit being the combination of a mast-climber sized platform with the mobility of a normal self propelled machine.

HTN build a wide range of “extreme specials” when it comes to aerial lifts and will design almost any machine you want as long as you can afford to pay. Other products in the group’s portfolio include the new Omega track mounted scissor lifts and modified telehandlers with self propelled capability from the platform.