Terex HC 285 for Big B Crane & Rigging

Big B Crane & Rigging of Burleson, TX purchased a new 285-ton Terex HC 285 lattice boom crawler crane, making it the highest capacity crane in the company’s fleet. The first such model operating in the United States, the HC 285 crawler crane offers a lift chart rivaling that of 300-ton class cranes but in a design that is easy to assemble and transport, similar to that of smaller 250-ton class cranes.

“The need in the construction market in many regions throughout the United States is expanding beyond the 250-ton class, but the jump to the 300-ton class represents a significant additional capital investment,” said Jim Strobush, senior product manager, crawler cranes, Terex Cranes North America. “The new HC 285 crane is a good in-between crane that gives customers virtually the capacity of a 300-ton class crane but at a price similar to that of a smaller crawler crane, so a company can receive a high return on investment.”

For its primary market of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Big B equipped the HC 285 crane with the maximum main boom length of 300 feet (91.4 m) and standard 76-foot (23.1-m) jib, offering a maximum tip height of 376 feet (114.6 m). The HC 285 crane comes with a maximum 207,000-pound upper and 56,000-pound car body counterweight package, yielding its 285-ton lift capacity at a 16-foot (4.9-m) radius.

While the crawler crane offers high lift capacities, the base crane carrier comes in a compact, 12-foot (3.7 m) wide by 11.5-foot (3.5 m) high design that enables the carrier to be transported on a standard low-boy trailer. The entire crane is designed with quick transportation in mind.

“The HC 285 has a phenomenal lift chart that is more comparable to the 300-ton cranes,” said Daniel Basden, presdient, Big B Crane. “However, its carrier can be transported in one piece, whereas many 300-ton cranes ship in two pieces. This adds one more load, another driver and additional set-up time.”

Basden does not see the down oil market affecting the amount of work for Big B’s new HC 285 crane. Rather, he anticipates it will be one of the company’s busiest rental crawler cranes.

“Our bread-and-butter market for the HC 285 crane is construction,” said Basden. “Concrete precast panels are getting bigger and heavier and steel is getting longer, so we needed a higher capacity crawler crane than the two 250-ton models we have in our fleet. The crane rental market is saturated with smaller 110-ton models, but once you get north of 250 tons, there is not a lot available.”

With the anticipated heavy workload for Big B’s new crawler crane, Basden mentions that his Terex Cranes distributor, Scott-Macon Equipment, Houston, Texas, also fit into the purchasing decision.

“Terex equipment is solid and dependable, but when you run the cranes as hard as we do, a dependable distributor partner to help take care of equipment maintenance and service is a must,” he said. “I cannot say enough about the support we’ve received from Scott-Macon. Their service department jumps through hoops to address any issues that pop up on the machine.”

Big B didn’t wait long to put its new Terex HC 285 crawler crane to work. In late August, the crane was shipped directly to a building expansion project site less than 10 miles from the Terex facility in Oklahoma City. The HC 285 is being used for steel, concrete panel, joist, decking and staircase placement in the expansion project for a leading global aerospace company. In less than three weeks on site, the HC 285 crane has put the crew three days ahead of schedule, placing 1,200 tons of material.

“We got a great machine at a great price and didn’t have delivery cost on the new equipment purchase,” said Basden. “You can’t beat that.”