DOWNTIME IS NOT AN OPTION
TOP TIPS FOR SUCCESS FROM MACKAY FENCING LTD
When I asked Jim for his top tips for success he replied in an instant “to be honest and to honour my word.”
That answer was only part of his criteria for a successful business as a fencing contractor covering West to East through the Central belt of Scotland.
Other parts pertinent to the success with Jim’s operation are men, machinery and materials or what Jim calls the three “Ms”.
“I am lucky having a good team around me” said Jim. Good hard-working men are not thick on the ground so if you get them on your books, look after them and they’ll look after you.”
“On the materials front, I have to be very vigilant when sourcing timber. People are slating timber but all I can say is be careful where you buy from. We are up against a lot of competition so we are bound in having to source water based treated timber which has to be pine or larch. I could sell the creosote or metal alternatives but the price drives them out of the market in our operating radius.”
Tornado Wire is my preferred supplier of all wire products. Their products are very good with a service to match. I find the Taurus net unbeatable and I wouldn’t use hinge joint any more. The Taurus Net is a lot stronger and stiffer and doesn’t go baggy or stretch under heavy stock pressure. You do pay a premium price for it but you save a lot of time on erection as it strains up brilliantly and stands vertical, making stapling very easy.”
On the machinery front Jim uses a Solo wire net unroller/tensioner. “I have it mounted on the dipper of a 6 tonne Takeuchi digger with steel tracks and this makes it really good when unrolling the net as you can lift the net up and round the back of turning posts, especially when deer fencing . I use this weight of digger with steel tracks as but any lighter machine on rubber tracks cannot tension high tensile net goup to what it should be to fulfil the concept of high tensile net when it was introduced to the market in the 1970’s.” Jim reminds us that a properly tensioned net allows posts to be set at 4 – 5 metre centres which lowers the cost of materials and erection time.”I see high tensile net being tensioned with lightweight tracked machines and the reason they get away with it is that they set the posts at 2 – 2.5 metre centres which totally defeats the original concept of high tensile net.”
Post drivers in Jim’s lineup are all Bryce. “I cannot rate Bryce highly enough” says Jim.
“They are strong, robust and last. We have a Magnum that is 7 years old on a Bryce Fencemaster, which has knocked in thousands and thousands of posts and it has never required anything done to it apart from the occasional rope and plenty grease.”
With the 500kg hammer and a rockspike system that continues to take severe punishment, our daily targets are always met. If we encounter solid rock we have the optional auger set-up if it’s too hard for the rockspike.”
“The Fencemaster is champion at transporting materials and travelling on all types of terrain and we can unhitch the post driver to lessen the weight when transporting materials on bog.”
“The Bryce 180 Pro we find very good indeed as a dedicated post driver. It is very compact, well balanced and travels very well on the bog with the optional wide tracks fitted. As with other Bryce equipment, it is very well designed and exceptionally well built – the quality is second to none and residual values are always high, which is important when upgrading to new models.”
“The productivity of Bryce machines allows us to erect an impressive metreage of fencing every day. Up until last night we erected 2500 metres of deer fence in the last 5 days and this morning we posted 800 metres on the next section.”
“With very heavy workloads we simply cannot afford to lose time with breakages and repairs and Bryce delivers on every front. I can accept routine maintenance and replacement of parts through normal usage but will not tolerate anything else – downtime is not an option” says Jim.
Mackay Fencing Ltd
Harelaw Farm Caplethill Road Barrhead G78 1TW
Phone: 07515 432505
Mobile : (Jim Mackay) 07515432505
www.mackayfencing.com
