The well-known Gradall excavator traces its roots back to the start of the 1940s. During this time, WWII had caused a scarcity of laborers as the majority of the young men went away to fight the war. This decline in the work force brought a huge need for the delicate work of finishing and grading highway projects.
Ferwerda-Werba-Ferwerda was a Cleveland, Ohio based construction company that faced this specific dilemma first hand. Koop and Ray Ferwerda were brothers who had relocated from the Netherlands. They were partners in the company which had become among the leading highway contractors within Ohio. The Ferwerdas' started to make an equipment which would save both their business and their livelihoods by inventing a model which would perform what had before been physical slope work. This invention was to offset the gap left in the workplace when a lot of men had joined the army.
The first apparatus these brothers invented had 2 beams set on a rotating platform and was fixed directly onto the top of a truck. They used a telescopic cylinder to be able to move the beams in and out. This enabled the connected blade at the end of the beams to push or pull dirt.
The Ferwerda brothers improved on their first design by creating a triangular boom to produce more strength. After that, they added a tilt cylinder that allowed the boom to rotate 45 degrees in either direction. This new unit can be equipped with either a bucket or a blade and the attachment movement was made possible by placing a cylinder at the rear of the boom. This design powered a long push rod and allowed much work to be done.
Numerous digging buckets were introduced to the market not long after. These buckets in sizes varying from 15 inch, 24 inch, 36 inch and 60 inch buckets. There was additionally a 47 inch heavy-duty pavement removal bucket that was also available.