A cone's first shift, and Caterpillar to buy Fabick Cat
Frank AggregateSuperior's crushing product manager wrote up what a cone tells you on its first shift, and on Tuesday Caterpillar agreed to buy one of its own dealers.
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Crushing Product Manager · Superior Industries
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Chairman and CEO · Caterpillar
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General Manager, Customer Service and Parts · Mellott
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Screening Expert · Polydeck
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What a cone tells you on its first shift
Match the liner profile to the feed, keep the fines under about 15%, and read the mantle for a hook at the bottom or wear on the cap.
On Thursday Superior Industries published a first-shift checklist for cone crushers, built on advice from Jarrod Adcock, its crushing product manager, for contract crushers moving a cone from job to job. Start with the liner profile: a standard medium liner on feed that is too big leaves rock riding on top of the head, and if slowing the crusher does not fix it, a coarser profile will. Watch the fines too; above roughly 15% of the feed, Adcock sees more power draw, ring bounce and unusual liner wear. Then read the mantle. A hook near the bottom, curled up like the end of a ski ramp, means the crushing is happening too low in the chamber, and wear on the cap means the feed is too big, because the cap is protection, not a crushing surface.
Read the first-shift checklist
Ten new operations opened in September
Eight of the ten are stone. The year started with sand and gravel pits; since July the new sites have been quarries.
| Thompson Materials, Midland and Garden City TX | Crushed stone, two pits |
| Monarch Pit, Lueders TX | Dimension limestone |
| Nickel Rock Materials, Limestone TX | Crushed limestone |
| Valley Ranch Aggregate, La Grange TX | Sand and gravel |
| ASAP Oilfield Services, Lovington NM | Crushed stone |
| Fischer Minerals, Williamsburg MO | Crushed limestone |
| Temple Hill plant, Erwin TN | Crushed limestone |
| Rocael Stone, Cookeville TN | Dimension sandstone |
| Gravel Depot, Middletown OH | Sand and gravel |
September is the busiest month of the year so far, and half of it is Texas: Thompson Materials opened two crushed stone pits in the Permian Basin in one week, an oilfield services company set up a portable crusher near Lovington on the New Mexico side, and a new sand and gravel pit opened near La Grange, down the Colorado River from last week's Bastrop wash plant. From January to June the new sites ran 22 sand and gravel to 9 stone; since July it is 17 stone to 11 sand and gravel. The national producers keep buying rather than digging: on Monday Vulcan bought the Butler quarry in northern Kentucky, a limestone supplier for more than 70 years.
Caterpillar agrees to buy Fabick Cat
Caterpillar will own the dealer that sells and services Cat equipment across Wisconsin, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and parts of Missouri and Illinois.
On Tuesday Caterpillar agreed to buy John Fabick Tractor Company, the Fenton, Missouri dealer that has sold and serviced Cat equipment for more than 100 years. Caterpillar describes its dealer network as independent, which makes this a rare case of the manufacturer owning a dealer outright. Both companies say service and local support stay as customers know them. Chairman and CEO Joe Creed said Caterpillar will keep working with the Fabick team to strengthen the customer experience across the territory, and Fabick's chief operating officer, Todd Stanley, said the change will add to the services, technology and expertise customers get. The deal needs regulatory approval and is expected to close within 30 days.
56% more hours from one set of HP400 liners
A U.S. producer measured Metso LongLife liners against a competitor's set with liner scans, and the LongLife set ran 56% longer and wore more evenly.
On Wednesday Metso published a case study from a U.S. aggregates producer running a Nordberg HP400 cone crusher. With Mellott, Metso's distributor, the producer ran Metso LongLife liners against a competitor's set and tracked both with liner scans and wear measurements under normal operation. The LongLife set ran 56% more operating hours and wore more evenly through the chamber, which meant fewer changeouts and maintenance that was easier to plan. Ryan Lee, general manager of customer service and parts at Mellott, says the LongLife liners clearly outperformed the competitor's set and brought the cost per ton down. The case names neither the producer nor the competing liner.
Read the HP400 liner case study
Watch: measuring a screen deck for liners and sideboards (66 seconds)
Polydeck's Keith Lockhart locks out the plant, climbs onto the deck and measures the feed box, the discharge lips and the sideboards before the next change-out.
On Thursday Polydeck posted a 66 second video from a plant visit with Keith Lockhart, one of its screening experts. He starts by locking out the screens and every conveyor feeding them, then crawls the decks to measure the feed box and the discharge lips for liners and to confirm the sideboard sizes, so the site has the right part numbers on file for its next change-out. One reading makes his point: the material bed runs high enough that he recommends taller sideboards to protect the screen's outer sheets.
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