Hymac

The Hymac company was set up to import American Hy-Hoe excavators in 1960, in kit form and assemble them.The company has had various owners during its life due to recessions in the 70 and 80's before ceasing production in the early 1990's

Hymac 480 Crane of J.C. Balls & Sons of Ambergate Derbyshire

Early Hymac at work at the GDSF 2008

History

Hymac was born out of steelfab cardiff wales est 1946, in 1960 began importing Hy-hoe excavators in kit form. Hymac then takes on the manufacturing rights and starts manufacturing in South Wales, UK.

Hymac was taken over by the Powell Duffryn company in 197?

They built a JCB 3C type Backhoe Loader during the 1970's that had a Heavy duty loader more like a loading shovel with arms made solid steel 1½ thick rather than box beams. Some versions having Hy reach arms. These Huge machines had a flat deck cab, with good visibility from the raised position of the driver. This was based on the Whitlock 860 machine, Hymac having taken Whitlock the inventerof the BHL,over in 1972.

They also built a lot of wheeled 360 machines for scrap handling, fitted with 5 tine grabs or magnets, often with raised cabs. Till scrap yards started being cleaned up in the last few years, you would mainly see a Hymac or Atlas machine, or an old 22 RB crane in most yards.

During the Powell Duffryn ownership the company was the Demag distributor for the UK. An advert from that period claims 7,500 Hymac 580 machines sold.

In the late 1980 a revised line of excavators with new yellow colour scheme was launched. But too late to save them from the Japanese and other far eastern imports and the new JCB line up.

They generally had Ford engines, but some were fitted with Perkins units. The 360 excavators were available with a variety of Track and Boom / dipper combinations.

Hymac was sold to the IBH Group in about 1980. IBH also owned the German firm Hanomag, they then went bust in 1983 , when the bank that backed them got into difficulties. Hanomag were linked with Massey Ferguson for a period, and built some of their construction plant models. Hanomag was partially taken over by Komatsu in 1989, with them becoming a 100% owned subsidiary of the Japanese firm in 2002.

By the early 80's the Hymac excavator range consisted of four basic models; crawler 580D/DS, the crawler 450E/ELC and its wheeled version W450E+W350D, the crawler 201LC and its wheeled version W201 which were introduced in 1983 these were designed jointly by Hymac & Hanomag, prior to the IBH collapse in 1983.

In 1984 Hymac was bought from the receivers by Northern Engineering Industries (NEI). Production of Hymac models restarted near Wolverhampton. Then in 1987 the BM Group bought the company and renamed it Hymac Group Ltd. Then in 1988 ownership changed again after Gordon Brown (owner of BM group) formed Brown Engineering (Hymac) Ltd. They then to cut costs and offer more modern machines sold badged Italian built machines from FAI Group. These were the W121 a 13ton machine, 211 a 21ton class model, and the 251 a 25ton class machine .

Following the collapse of the Brown Group in 1991 the company was bought by Irish plant dealer John Kennedy, who then introduced new models; the Synchron 1301 & 1501 in 1992 which featured Linde's Synchron load sensing hydraulic systems. But production finally ceased in 1993.

HY-MAC has now come back to the machinery world designing and building a new range of machinery. www.hy-mac.com

Parts and Support

www.hy-mac.com

Factories

• Rowesley, Derbyshire. - 1962 to 19 ?
• Rhymney, South Wales - 19 ? to 1983
• Wolverhampton, West Midlands. - 1983 to 1993)
• Whitlock factory in Great Yeldham, Essex

Model Range

• Hymac 201LC - 1980s designed with Hanomag
  • Hymac W201 - 1980 wheeled version of 201
• Hymac 370 a wheeled Loader / Backhoe excavator. (based on the Whitlock designed machines)
  • Hymac 370C a wheel loader / Backhoe excavator on an Ford skid unit. Built late 70-early 80's
  • Hymac 380D (Prototype) New model under test when IBH went bust. Developed with Hanomag who carried on design & development to build the Hanomag HD60 backhoe loader.
• Hymac 380 a 7 ton class 360 excavator. fitted with a Ford 4-cylinder engine. (only 15 were made).
• Hymac 450E - 1980
• Hymac 450ELC - 1980 Long carriage version
  • Hymac W350D - 1980s Wheeled excavator
  • Hymac W450E - 1980s Wheeled excavator
• Hymac 480 series tracked Excavator (only slewed 270 deg by a pair of rams and a chain drive round a pinion gear).
  • 480 Excavator - 1962-1966 312 of these were manufactured
  • 480 Tracked Crane - 196? (270deg slew) (Example owned by J.C. Balls & Sons in their collection of vintage machinery)
• Hymac 580 series - Tracked 360 Excavator, Built from 1964-87 in various versions (10,000 built)
  • 580 - 5/8 cu yd
  • 580B
  • 580BT
  • 580C
  • 580CS
  • 580CT
  • 580D - 1980
  • 580DS - 1980
  • 580T Truck Chassis mounted 360 Excavator with bucker or Clamshell Grab. Fitted on a Bedford R 4x4 Chassis (others to Order)
  • 580 Logger (as 580T above) fitted with 2 tine log grab & T bar to Boom.
• Hymac 590 series
  • 590C
  • 590CT
  • 596
• Hymac 690
• Hymac 800 series
  • 880
  • 880C
  • 890
  • 890CT
• Hymac 1080 - 1966 fitted with a 165 hp Rolls Royce C4 TFL engine.
• Hymac 1290 - 1970s 33ton (largest model built)
• Hymac 1301 Synchron - 1993
• Hymac 121 - 1990s New Hymac 360 Excavator line
• Hymac 141C - 1990s New Hymac 360 Excavator line

Material Handlers

• Hymac wheeled material handler
  • 410 wheeled material handler
  • 610 wheeled material handler
  • 595 wheeled material handler

Mobile cranes

• Whitlock built a 7 Ton all hydraulic mobile crane with a 24ft-78ft jib between 1965 and 67. Twenty were built on the Dodge D309 (LAD cab) chassis. The 1965 List price was £6,985.

Forklifts

• Hymac Overlander 45 a 2-wd Rough terrain forklift (RTF)

Preserved machines

• The collection of J.C. Balls & Sons has an unusual Hymac 480 crane (Photo above)
• A one owner Hymac 380 is in preservation now in Scotland, after working for one firm for 40 years. Only a few hundred of these were built from the US kits.
• A few are with collector in Scandinavia were they were popular.

See also

• List of Construction Plant Manufacturers
• List of Engine Manufacturers
• Whitlock
• JCB
• Collections

References

• Classic Plant & Machinery Magazine
• Earthmovers Magazine

Links

• http://www.hy-mac.com
• http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/diad/article.php?title=221&year=1967&article=d.221.37 Article on Hymac design innovation from Design Journal 1967

Template:BM Group Template:NEI Group Template:Powell Duffryn Group