Material Handling Category Winner
Super Jawz Grabbing Tool
Star Hill Solutions
Key Innovation: JAWZ is simple in design and now available for wheel loaders and excavators. Based upon the principle of applying tandem hydraulic squeezing power through a steel finger attachment, JAWZ delivers the required gripping power to handle those “hard to remove” objects with ease.
Star Hill Solutions introduces Super Jawz Grabbing Tool, which was developed to meet the increasing demand for a grabbing tool with larger lifting capacity (10,000 pounds) and an opening of 58 inches at the tips that is suited for use on large wheel loaders and excavators. The patented Star Hill Jawz Grabbing Tool is an hydraulic front-end attachment with two fingers that open and close on a common plane for land management tasks such as removing invasive trees and brush, fence posts, stakes and moving large rocks or boulders. The wheel loader version, Model C3700CQA, of the Jawz Grabbing Tool, is designed with a quick coupling to accommodate wheel loaders and excavators. Super Jawz is ruggedly designed with the large equipment rental firms and heavy equipment operators in mind. Jawz fingers are 1.5-inch thick T-1 steel, and include a protective guard plate covering hoses and connectors. No longer will wheel operators have to push and roll boulders to get them in place because the Super Jawz easily accomplishes this task. The Super Jawz Grabbing Tool is a wheel loader and excavator attachment for grabbing and removing invasive trees, shrubs, brush and hedges, roots and all. It is designed to be more efficient than a shear, tree saw, or cutter because it doesn’t leave the roots in the ground. Super Jawz is designed for demolition projects where heavy equipment is needed.
RER: What makes the Super Jawz Grabbing Tool innovative?
John Lyddon, president, Star Hill Solutions: The patented Super Jawz is the latest addition to the family of Star Hill Jawz Grabbing Tools. The Super Jawz, like it’s smaller “cousins”, is innovative for many reasons, but perhaps the most obvious is that there is simply no other attachment like it. As one begins to understand the unique features of the Super Jawz, it becomes clear that this tool is very innovative, on both operational and mechanical as well as conceptual levels.
The Super Jawz provides great squeezing force that is delivered hydraulically thru a pair of synchronously moving 1.5 inch T-1 steel fingers that open and close on a common plane. This is the heart and soul of the Super Jawz. There is no other attachment in the marketplace that combines these features. Why is this so important? If your objective is to uproot an invasive plant or tree, post or stake, or other vertically embedded object, you need a very firm grasp at the base of that object before you apply the lifting power of your loader to pull the object up and out of the ground. Think about it, what other tool, mounted on the front of your loader or excavator, allows you to squeeze tightly onto the trunk of a plant or tree and completely uproot the whole thing? The only tool that fits this description is the Super Jawz.
It is important to remember the best approach to pulling out vertically embedded objects is from a ninety-degree angle. The Super Jawz is the only attachment designed to operate mostly parallel to the ground surface when pulling out embedded objects. Simply drive up to the tree, close the fingers completely, and then use the lift and curl functions of your loader to pull the whole thing, roots and all, out of the ground. Tap your loader controls a couple of times and shake the dirt from the root ball back to the ground. What you are left with is an invasive tree and its dangling roots. Getting the roots out is key to controlling re-growth. This is the true beauty of Super Jawz. You now have a tool that allows you to quickly and efficiently pull out those unwanted plants and trees, roots and all. Compare the Super Jawz to thumbs, clamshells, grapples, and four in one buckets and you will find that the Super Jawz is the only tool that combines all the necessary features to allow you to pull embedded objects from the ground. No more bucket and chain!
Another great mechanical and operational feature of the Super Jawz is that the steel fingers give the operator precision control. Imagine these steel fingers as a pair of large hydraulic tweezers. There are all kinds of situations where having pinpoint control is highly beneficial. For example, in disaster cleanup work, such as in an ice storm, tornado, or hurricane, having precise operational control is desired as you go about the dangerous and delicate work of untangling the mess. Trees, limbs and poles need to be carefully suspended for cutting. Broken trunks and posts need to be pulled out of the ground. Use the steel fingers in a digging mode to go below grade to grab onto and pull out dangerous remnants. Grab awkwardly shaped objects with precision. Precise steel finger control is also needed when uprooting unwanted plants, trees, posts and stakes, not to mention picking up and placing big rocks exactly where you want them to end up. There is simply no other attachment that provides the operator, through a pair of hydraulically powered steel fingers, with this level of precise operational capability.
Super Jawz is conceptually innovative because using this tool allows you to think differently as you envision the best way to pull plants, trees, posts and stakes out of the ground, not to mention disaster clean-up or moving rocks. It used to be that you had to use a bucket and chain to pull posts and stakes out of the ground. No more. There has never been a tool, until now, that actually gives you the possibility to pull out, let’s say, a cedar tree, and get the sub-surface root structure out at the same time. This is truly a “revolutionary concept”. The Super Jawz allows you, the land manager or owner, to actually change the way you think about doing things. Instead of using conventional methods such as sawing, chopping and applying herbicides to manage unwanted plant or tree growth, the Super Jawz provides you with a completely new option and way of envisioning how you are going to manage the universal challenge of unwanted tree and plant growth.
The Super Jawz therefore may represent the beginning of a paradigm shift when it comes to the following question: What is the best attachment (and methodology) for removing plants, trees, posts and stakes completely out of the ground? Based on the experiences of our very satisfied customer base, the family of Star Hill Jawz Grabbing Tools, including the Super Jawz, changes the way people think, feel, and act in the performance of many of the common tasks mentioned above. Because there has never been an attachment like the Super Jawz it is hard to know how widespread this attachment will eventually become. Super Jawz and the whole family of Star Hill Jawz Grabbing Tools are poised to become the dominant tool of choice when the objective is to remove completely embedded objects from the gound.
RER: What are the benefits of the Super Jawz Grabbing Tool? How does it make jobs more effective and efficient for rental professionals and their contractor customers?
Lyddon: The benefits of the Super Jawz are the following: *Faster and more efficient *Saves money *Saves time *Reduces employee count *One person operation *Multi-purpose *Eliminates bucket and chain method *Offers precise operational control *Allows for complete root removal *Enhances safety *Robust product design *Place rocks exactly where you want them *Pull out trees and plants completely *Remove posts and stakes easily *Handle awkard objects easily
Super Jawz makes jobs more effective and efficient because the innovative features of this attachment allows for rental professionals and their contractor customers to quickly and easily grasp the many benefits of using this attachment. While there is a learning curve associated with any new product innovation, the workplace benefits of the Super Jawz can be easily understood by those experienced in the field.
RER: Describe the development process of the Super Jawz Grabbing Tool. Where did the idea come from and who was responsible for its engineering and development?
Lyddon: Our office received a call from a potential client in Yankton, South Dakota who asked if we had a Jawz that would fit his Caterpillar 924 loader. He has a 3500 acre ranch and wanted one of our attachments to pull out cedar trees. We replied that we did not have a model to fit that size of a loader. He asked if we would make one for him. We said yes we could but that he would need to outfit his CAT loader with a quick attach system. He called us back a couple of weeks later and said that instead of retrofitting his existing CAT 924, he traded in his old one for a new 924G with quick attach and would we please now make him a Super Jawz. That is what we then proceeded to do. We contracted with an engineering firm XXXXXX to design and stress test this new model. Working closely with the engineering team at Paladin, Delhi, IA and our in-house engineer Dirk Duffner, we designed, manufactured and delivered the first Super Jawz to our Yankton client within five months of the order. John Lyddon, the inventor, patent holder and President of Star Hill Solutions, Inc., the parent company for the Star Hill Jawz Grabbing Tools, was the principal lead person on this project.
