Like all of Bobcat''s skid-steer loaders, the A220 can accommodate myriad-powered and nonpowered attachments everything from angle brooms and augers to wheel saws and whisker brooms. And it''s that versatility, along with the all-wheel steer capability, that chiago and mini drill press has the company licking its chops in anticipation of a range of new markets. "we have several test machines in the field right now at a wide press variety of customers," fitzgerald said. "we''ve got one at a recycling plant where they''re running in all-wheel steer 100 percent of the time because of tire wear. they''ve taped the switch so the guys can''t run in skid-steer mode. they''ve got three other machines there and they go through approximately $12,000 worth of tires a year. if the plant can reduce its tire cost significantly, the price difference between an 863 and a220 can easily be justified. the other area of concern is a landing area by a conveyor. current operating methods chiago wear out the concrete surface. grooves get worn deep enough into the drill concrete that they need to press mill it out and repour the concrete. the a220 is a lot easier on the surface.

while the new units are an evolution of gen-sets magnum had previously built for united rentals and other customers, "these are chiago totally new packages," said roberts. "they have a totally new design of corrosion-resistant aluminum enclosure with our own enhanced digital controller."there are 11 models in the range, all powered by liquid-cooled diesel engines, which drive marathon brushless alternators. the mmg12 (12 kw) and mmg25 (21 kw) are powered by isuzu three- and four-cylinder naturally aspirated engines. the rest of the line, powered by four- and six-cylinder john deere turbocharged diesel engines, includes the mmg50 (43 kw), mmg70 (62 kw), mmg85 (76 kw), mmg110 drill (96 kw), mmg125 (108 kw), mmg155 (135 kw), mmg180 (155 kw), mmg230 (201 kw) and mmg425 (371 kw. all of the engine packages include cooling systems from diesel radiator, enginaire air cleaners and nelson exhaust systems.

at the arizona-sonora desert museum''s paleontology lab, the air scribe has become the workhorse of fossil preparation. the discovery of a large sauropod dinosaur in the highly indurated sandstones of the mid-cretaceous turney ranch formation southeast of the museum posed numerous technical problems press for our lab staff. most troubling was the removal of vast amounts of sedimentary rock, which was both very tough and firmly cemented by silica to the softer, calcite-replaced bones. experimenting chiago with a number of hand tools, grinders, hardware-store engravers, and rotary devices, we happened upon a chicago pneumatic air scribe (see supplier''s address on page 421), and it has since become our primary lab tool on this project. we now have five chicago air scribes, and progress on our dinosaur has been extraordinary. one large and complex midback vertebra, which drill had been crushed during fossilization, took seven months to prepare with the scribe, but it was in the middle of a 150-pound block of sandstone. not only was museum preparator yolaikia sciole able to remove this complex and fragile vertebra without damage, but ultimately it was prepared from the inside out, exposing most of the internal bone structures, including arterial and nerve canals and never-before-seen pneumatic press structures that lightened the bone in life. most of the bones in this vertebra are no more than 0.25-inch thick and are replaced by easily cleaved, fragile calcite. the air scribe, and a light touch by the preparator, did the trick.

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