The team at Trowel Trades incorporated, in Suwanee Georgia, has been selling Mortar mixers since early 1990. In that time we have seen trends come and go. Manufactures pop up and go away. The designs have changed significantly as well as remained the same. So the idea of this series “A history of the modern Mortar Mixer” came about during one of our Monday morning meetings. The topic of all the mixer brands we have sold, rented, serviced and repaired over the years and what happened to the brands that were and are marquees of our industry. The short discussion turned into such a long conversation that we decided a series on our blog would be a great idea. I hazard to guess that Trowel Trades has sold or rebuilt all of the mixers manufactured under our definition of the modern mixer at one time or another.

In this installment we will explore the mixers that Mighty Equipment Company (MEC) made in the 80’s and early 90’s as well as what happened to the company. Mighty Equipment Company was a manufacturer of Mixers, Conventional Scaffold and Crank Style Scaffold in Nashville, Tennessee . The company was started by Bill Gambill in 1984. Mighty made some great mixers and dominated the hydraulic mixer market in the southeast for the better part of ten years.

The Mighty Mixer was a very well built machine. Mighty was progressive in their use of the hydraulic drive system for the standard towable two and three bag machine. We sold many of them and have seen a few in for repair as recently as two years ago. Needless to say, the 125H and 150H (Hydraulic Mixer) series were very robust though crudely assembled.

A quick google search reveals not much about MEC as it came and went before the interwebs became mainstream. In fact Mighty was primarily a typewriter and paper company with the majority of data stored in the brain of Mr. Gambill. This lack of basic bookkeeping led to corruption and the ultimate demise of the whole company as noted by the Nashvillepost author David A. Fox.

The design of the 125H and 150H was simple and reliable. They both used a GX series Honda in either 8hp or 13hp coupled to a hydraulic pump by a LoveJoy connector. which then drove a hydraulic motor connected to the shaft via a chain coupler. The hydraulic fluid tank was then integrated into the frame. As with all mixers, they are simple machines compared to other construction but the details matter, such as the drum grate which was thicker than other manufacturers, fixed to the drum with a hinged gate for the spout unlike almost all current mixers which hinge the whole grate. The bag splitter was another feature that set the Mighty mixer apart from other manufacturers. The splitter was a beefy affair which held up bag after bag.

The cowling hinge was another detail that Mighty got correct. Instead of the standard piano hinge they used a substantial rod through two punched pieces of plate steel. I can honestly say that in all the years of repairing mortar mixers we never saw a Mighty mixer with a broken cowling hinge.

After Mighty’s demise in the early 1990’s, all of the Mighty Mixers parts were “purchased” by a company who tried unsuccessfully to manufacturer the machines via a one man job shop method in a small garage. The effort was unsuccessful and the brand died along with a parts supply for end users. We do have some parts on our shelves but they have dwindled over the years and the machines have aged out reducing the need for third party parts suppliers.

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