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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

The APE 200-6 was recently rented to an experienced customer in HaiKou to drive double “Z” shaped sheet piles for a new dock project. Convincing new customers in China that APE equipment is of the highest quality available is never easy. Many years of competition in the market selling fake products, low quality products, and terrible service has left most contractors extremely weary to trust anybody. Even as a Tall 2.1 meter tall white speaking foreigner in China, it is not enough to fully convince contractors that our product and service is far beyond anything they have experienced in the past. This particular customer has either purchased or rented at some point every single vibratory hammer in China available from electric to hydraulic and local to import. Due to the extreme success of the “Octa-Kong” project for the HongKong-Macao-Bridge project to drive 22m (72 feet) diameter piles he decided to give us a chance. He figured that if we can drive 22m (72 foot) diameter piles we should be able to drive sheet piles. 24 hours prior to us receiving a down payment for a few months rent he received all call from our competitor saying he was making a grave mistake to rent our hammer to him and APE hammers would absolutely not succeed in driving the sheet piles to grade.

Our customer called me on the phone and said he was extremely disturbed by the call. Dan Collins and John White has told APE CHINA several times to rent our hammer for free if we have to prove to the market that we have the best product. I told the customer we would return 100% of the money if our hammer didn’t drive the sheet piles. He was so moved by what I said he said he would send 100% of the money within 20 minutes, he did without any extra modification to the contract. After the hammer arrived on the job site our service man Mr. Liu discovered that all of our engine oil from our Cummins 700 HP engine was gone. We all remember quite clearly doing a full service check of the machine prior to shipment and were shocked to discover that all of the engine oil was mysteriously gone after the first night on the job site. Mr. Liu, being the excellent service man he his, checked all fluid levels prior to initial startup of the power unit of the drive pump lube oil level, hydraulic oil level, radiator fluid level, diesel fuel level, and thank goodness the engine oil level.

After a wasted half day of replacing the engine oil, which we paid for, the hammer finally had the chance to prove it could work. The hammer ended up doing extremely well on the site driving 15 to 20 piles per day easily. Our customer was so happy with our service he wrote a full-page hand written thank you letter to our service man Mr. Liu and to APE for the excellent service given on the job site and high performance of the hammer.  We are extremely happy to represent a product we all believe in, there’s nothing better than selling a product that you know is going to work. Go APE!

The Seattle Times just posted a news article this morning about the new 520 floating bridge project spanning Lake Washington just east of Seattle. The bridge has been in development for last couple years, with dry dock construction for the pontoon sections taking place in Aberdeen Washington (See Chris Wang’s article on the dry docks here). Construction on the actual bridge site has been in the prepping phases and is now ready for major foundation work which is slated to start next week.

The coming weeks will include huge foundations and concrete spans near shore, twin sloping transition spans that reach down to the lake, floating pontoons, and road decks fastened upon them. APE will be on the scene with a 600 Vibratory Driver extractor, the largest vibratory pile driver in the APE fleet will be pulling the outer casing for 12.5′ drilled shafts. We will also see an APE 200-6 driving the sheet piles for the cofferdams. See the Seattle Times new article here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017862072_520bridge29m.html for more details.

US WICK DRAIN a Leland NC based company has just completed the largest marine barge installation wick drain project that has ever been done in the world. This project is part of the first phases of construction for a new port facility at “Craney Island” in Norfolk Virginia. US WICK DRAIN under direction of president Mark Palmatier installed 12,150,000 lf of wick drains in 6 months using the APE wick drain installation machines.

Now that’s 6 months with 2 rigs 24 hours a day 6 days a week! That’s a lot of wick drains. The longest wick drains were 150 ft. in length. Great Lakes dredging dumped a drainage layer of sand in the proposed wick drain area with hopper barges. The wicks will be placed and more sand dumped on top of them.

In order to place the wick drains in the correct locations on the water 2 barges had to be converted to have a grid all the way through the decks of the barges using steel pipe from the top deck all the way through the bottom. Each barge had a wick drain machine / rig on the deck. The barges would be surveyed into position and secured in position, and then each machine would go down the deck installing a wick drain in each provided hole.

Once these wick drains are installed and pre-loaded the engineers predict they will have about 21 feet of settlement. These wicked areas will support a series of dikes for the new Craney Island port. If wick drains were not used the dikes would constantly be settling and would have to be maintained at a large cost. This project gives US WICK DRAIN the most marine experience in the wick drain industry. APE looks forward to working with US WICK DRAIN on the next phases of the Craney island port. If you have a current or upcoming job contact your nearest APE branch to see just how much APE can offer to you. GO APE.

APE has managed to catch the attention of Mexican Contractors regardless of the long term presence of other manufacturers such as ICE, PTC, BAUER/PILECO.

APE ha logrado captivar la atención de los Constratistas Mexicanos apesar de la larga presencia de otras marcas como ICE, PTC, y BAUER/PILECO.

Ever since our entry into the market on December 2010, APE have managed to provide the right equipment solutions for complex infrastructure such as:

Desde que entramos en el mercado en Diciembre del 2010, APE a logrado proveer soluciones de equipo para complejos proyectos de infraestructura tales como:

• The Construction of a Distribution Facility of a Natural Gas Terminal (Rental of APE D50 Diesel Impact Hammer for 7 months)
• La Construcción de la Terminal de Distribución de Gas Natural, Tuxpan, Veracruz (Renta de Martillo de Impacto Diesel modelo D50 por 7 meses)
• The Expansion of the Container Terminal for Port of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico (Rental of 200-6 for 5 months)
• La Expasión de la Terminal de Contenedores del Puerto de Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico (Renta de APE modelo 2006- por 5 meses)
• The Construction of a New Major Naucalpan-Ecatepec Expressway accross Mexico, City (Rental of four (4) APE 200 vibros for 6 months each)
• La Construcción de la Nueva Autopista Naucalpan-Ecatepec inteseca la Cuidad de México (Renta por 4 meses de 4 vibrohincadores por 6 meses)
• The Construction of a New Marina in Los Cabos, Mexico (Sell of an APE 170 Variable Moment Vibro)
• La Construcción de la Nueva Marina en Los Cabos, Baja California, México (Venta de un APE 170VM de Frecuencia Variable)
• The Construction of a Walmart in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico (Rental of APE 150T for 4 months)
• La Construcción de un Walmart en VIllahermosa, Tabasco, México (Renta de un APE 150T por 4 meses)
• The Construction of Shafts for Línea 12 Underground Train Project in Mexico City (Rental of APE 150T for 6 months)
• La Construcción de Túneles para el Tren Subterráneo de la Línea 12 en Ciudad de México (Renta del APE 150T por 6 meses)
• The Expansion of Port of Veracruz, Mexico (Rent of JM 66-80 & JM 416 vibros)
• Expansión del Puerto de Veracruz, México (Renta de JM 66-80 & JM 416)
• The Construction of a Mining Facility, Baja California, Mexico (Rent of APE 400 vibro)
• La Construcción de una Terminal de Minerales, Baja California, México (Renta de un APE 400 vibro)

APE was also a proud Sponsor and Organizer of the 1st Deep Foundations Symposium ever to be organized between the Deep Foundations Institute (www.dfi.org)  and the Society of Mexican Geo-technical Engineers (www.smig.org.mx) back in November 2011 with an assistance of 325 people.

APE también participó como patrocinador y organizador del Primer Simposium de Cimentación Profunda jamás antes organizado entre el Instituto de Cimentación Profunda y la Sociedad Mexicana de Ingenieros Geotécnicos en Noviembre 2011, la cuál tuvo una asistencia de 325 personas.

It is APE’s goal for 2012 to triple our presence in Mexico and to establish local service, parts, and support to cater for Mexican Contractors looking to switch to the World’s Leader Manufacturer of Piledriving Equipment: APE and J&M.

Es la meta de APE para el año 2012 triplicar su presencia en México y establecer servicio, partes, y apoyo local para atender las necesidades de los contratistas Mexicanos buscando cambiarse a la Marca Líder a Nivel Mundial de Equipos para Cimentación: APE y J&M.

Local distributors are also welcome to call for distributorship opportunities in Mexico.

Distribuidores locales son bienvenidos a contactarnos para oportunidades de representación.

Best Wishes to All for this New Year 2012!

Mis Mejores Deseos para Todos para este Nuevo Año 2012!

Franki Segura, MBA
Business Developer for APE Mexico
Cell: +1-786-991-687
frankis@apevibro.com

When “American Infrastructure” was awarded the new highway 15 bridge in Chester Virginia the existing large overhead power lines looked awful low. They scratched their heads as they kept looking at the headroom situation and how they were going to get machinery under them to drive the piles… can’t do anything till the piles are driven… right?

The management staff knew if any company could help them with this situation it was APE / American Piledriving Equipment. They contacted Jimmy Deemer APE’s Mid-Atlantic manager to come to the jobsite and have a look at what the jobsite conditions were and what recommendations he could make. After looking things over with the onsite staff the only solution was using an excavator. Along with APE’s in house engineering staff & head engineer Joe K they came up with a very productive & slick system. They decided to use one of the APE low-head room hammers. They chose one of the 7.5 series hammers the 7.5C

APE designed a self-contained system with the APE 7.5C hammer, 30’ of APE 21” leads with a 2 line headblock and a hydraulic sled that mounts directly to the tip of a 345 CAT excavator. The hydraulic sled that mates up to the back of the leads has tilt cylinders built into it for the side to side batters they needed to drive. It also batters fore & aft. All functions are run off the excavators hydraulic system “plug & play” This system can do it all!

Part of the design incorporated a Gear master hydraulic winch on the back of the sled for hoisting the hammer & piles. This is run with a foot control form inside the cab of the excavator. The piles are a taper tube MONOTUBE style pile. They pre-drill the 1st 15’ and set & seat the pile 17 foot tater bottom. Then they weld the second section a 20’ mid and drive it and then splice & drive the 3rd and last another 20’ mid or top .

They will drill & set about 15 piles in one set-up. This system is extremely quick & productive and all aspects of safety are incorporated into it. The onsite supervision staff said “We had no idea this low head room nightmare could have worked out so well “That’s why APE has a registered trademark “when a piledriver talks we listen”. We wish American Infrastructure’s Highway 15 job a safe & productive project. Don’t wait till your piledriving job has you backed in to a corner, start off on the right foot… contact your nearest APE branch and see all we can offer to you ! GO APE!