Meet the Powerhand MV Series scrap grapple
The MV Series is widely used in vehicle recycling yards across the UK. We recently spoke with Powerhand to discover what makes the MV Series unique and the ideal tool for car handling and processing.
As with all Powerhand attachments, the MV is designed and manufactured at their site in southwest Scotland and is constructed from high-strength Swedish alloy steels.
The first unique feature of the MV is the offset legs. Unlike traditional scrap handling grapples, which have five equally spaced legs, the MV has four legs which are offset. This design feature means that the shape of the grapple has been optimised for the task of ripping engines from the engine bay, as the offset legs can slide in between the suspension mountings. The offset leg design also makes the MV ideal for baler loading and unloading as well as the loading of bales into wagons, as there is no fifth tine that can get caught in the side of the baler and/or up the side of a wagon.
Many operators also use the MV for removing wiring looms from ELVs as the leg tips are machined and hardened as a set to create a perfect gripping surface to pick and pull parts such as dashboards and wiring loom.
Powerhand recognises that the scrap vehicle recycling industry is notoriously demanding on equipment, and uptime must be maximised because, of course, ‘time is money’. Therefore, a key feature of the MV Series is the hydraulic cylinder design which incorporates Powerhand’s Gun Drill Shield technology, where no part of the cylinder shaft is exposed to the environment as they are fully encompassed by the sliding guard, and both hydraulic ports are at the cylinder base end. This means that when the MV Series is deep inside a car shell, nothing can damage the cylinder shafts and cause costly downtime.
When we spoke with Powerhand’s Managing Director, Murray Clark, he explained that the conception and development of the MV Series as a unique scrap grapple, optimised for the car recycling market, came about from many years of development with key industry customers who put the grapples through their paces and wanted an alternative to a traditional scrap grapple which would make their own processes as efficient and operator friendly as possible. Powerhand believes they have achieved this goal for their vehicle recycling customers.
For more information on the Powerhand MV Series, check out www.powerhand.com/products/mv-series-grapple or contact Murray Clark at +44(0)1387860241.
