Established in 2014, Dowd Engineering is a family-run metal fabrication business based just outside Ballyjamesduff in Co. Cavan. The company provides exceptional welding and fabrication services to the farming and waste recycling industries as owner Frank Dowd explains.
Run by Frank and his wife Olga along with six staff, Dowd Engineering has earned an enviable reputation for manufacturing products to the highest quality standards and at the most competitive prices. The company manufactures a wide range of agricultural products such as bale handling equipment, hydraulic power boxes, front loaders and land levellers as well as recycling bins and skips, which are primarily used in meat plants. Dowd Engineering can manufacture both standard equipment or bespoke products to customer specifications.
Hailing from a farming / agri contracting background, Frank learned his trade as a welder with Dromone Engineering in Oldcastle, Co. Meath in the early 1990s before spending 14 years with Clarke Machinery. He then decided to go out on his own and now supplies products across the 32 counties through a dealer network of 17. Dowd Engineering moved to a new purpose-built manufacturing unit in January 2020 and has continued to go from strength to strength, despite the challenge posed by Covid-19.
“My father Mick and uncle Tom Dowd were agri contractors, so I was always around farm machinery when I was younger and was fascinated by how it worked. They were the first contractors in Cavan to cut silage in the 1950s and Tom was also a former president of the LGFA (Ladies Gaelic Football Association). He was a huge GAA man,” Frank explains.
“We manufacture high-quality, well-made robust products which are durable and built to last. That’s what we pride ourselves on. Only the best goes into making our products. Our business actually increased during the pandemic as there seemed to be more money in people’s pockets and the agri sector never stopped.
“While bale handling equipment, power boxes, front loaders and land levellers are our ‘bread and butter’, our range of products are wide and varied. A lot of our products are bespoke or made to order and come in our trademark blue. But we can cater for any colour.”
Dowd Engineering’s agricultural range of products include bale lifters, bale spikes, bale trailers, tipper trailers, cattle trailers, mobile feed trailers, yard scrapers, feeding troughs, calf dehorning crates, bale splitters and gates. Bespoke adapter plates for telehandlers are very popular with farmers. They are used to couple loader attachments with one type of mounting bracket to that of another adapter plate with a different mounting bracket by use of an interface in the required configuration. In many situations, they are an ideal, low-cost solution.
“Our fully certified and tested adapter plates can be made up to fit any type of a digger or tractor loader. You can even put a three-point linkage to it which suits a lot of tillage farmers,” Frank says.
“We can design a product before pricing it up. Once the customer is happy with the design and cost, we go ahead and manufacture it for them.”
Dowd Engineering has designed a mobile lift gantry with integrated hydraulics for removing cabs from tractors, and is in the process of manufacturing the first one. “Our ideas and inspiration come from listening to our customers.”
In addition, the Crosserlough-based fabricator manufactures and supplies rollover protective structures or rollbars to suit most vintage tractors. Its rollbars are all destructive tested, stamped and supplied with safety certificates.
Dowd Engineering also manufactures, modifies and repairs all waste recycling bins and skips from small lift skips to roll on / roll off skips. Bespoke, watertight bins and skips are a speciality.
“We make a lot of CAT 3 waste skips which are used in meat factories and also in the UCD Veterinary School. Our other industrial products include conveyors and lorry bodies.”
Frank is full of praise for his staff who have a wealth of experience in welding, fabrication and spray-painting. He is also delighted with how business has been going since the company relocated to its new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility last year.
“At Dowd Engineering, we pride ourselves in the quality and design of our work, and our ability to meet our clients’ exact specifications and to deliver on time,” concludes Frank, who would like to take this opportunity to thank his customers and suppliers for their loyalty and continued support.
Dowd Engineering
Kiffa,
Crosserlough,
Co. Cavan.
Telephone: 086 7350634
Email: [email protected]
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 9 No 6, November/December
