Is Yanmar going to change colors

[dbaer78]

I really like the looks of the new yanmars. I can't wait to see them bring out some bigger tractors too.

 

[TomSeller]

Is that loader made out of oval steel?

 

[murphy1244]

Looks that way Tom, Kind of sleek.

 

[California]

Is that loader made out of oval steel?

Apparently. Yanmar has had curved tubular arms for 30 years. Thread with photos.

 

[TomSeller]

Looks that way Tom, Kind of sleek.

Apparently. Yanmar has had curved tubular arms for 30 years. Thread with photos.

Yes, kind of cool looking. I had never noticed they built them that way in the past.

 

[smstonypoint]

Just curious, does the tubular shape offer an advantage from an engineering standpoint?

Steve

 

[TomSeller]

Just curious, does the tubular shape offer an advantage from an engineering standpoint?

Steve

Actually I think the opposite. The strength comes comes from the amount of steel as distant as possible from the center. That is why there are flat top and bottom edges on I beams, not curved inward.

 

[Cnynrat]

Actually I think the opposite. The strength comes comes from the amount of steel as distant as possible from the center. That is why there are flat top and bottom edges on I beams, not curved inward.

This is true, but sharp angles will concentrate stresses in those locations, which is a benefit of curved forms. I'm not enough of a mechanical engineer to know how the rectangular vs. oval tradeoff would work out in this instance, but I think it's more complex than simply one shape is automatically better than the other.

 

[smstonypoint]

Would the curved forms would be more costly to fabricate?

Steve

 

[California]

Would the curved forms would be more costly to fabricate?

Steve

Yanmar builds big excavation equipment, huge diesels for container ships, and a broad variety of specialty planting/harvest equipment so I expect they have the fabrication equipment already. More important they have a design philosophy to simply build the best regardless of greater fabrication cost, and the customers they want will pay what it takes to own the best. (Yanmar quality and value are illustrated by the flood of 30+ year old, thousand-hour gray market Yanmars that arrived here in the past decade. These used 1980's tractors are far better value than a zero-hour Chinese tractor at similar under-10k price).

One thing I've noticed in photos of their Japan-market loaders on the older tractors, the bucket is farther forward than an American-design loader. I'm not sure why. I've read the principal use of these tractors in Japan is rice tilling and dairy use. Maybe a loader in dairy use is different from the earth/gravel loads a US loader is designed for?