Page 28 - Hub-4 Magazine Issue 78

Aggregate
Crushing & Screening Feature
The Million Tonne Crusher
That isn’t a typo. The McCloskey J50 you see on this page has chomped its way through more than 1,000,000 tonnes of material in a little over 18 months. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, the material it has processed has ranged from mixed recycled aggregates to dense granite, straight from the blast face.
Arriving at Collier Quarrying and Recycling, a sleek wind turbine towers over the main offices, silently powering the site. In the distance, you can hear the distinct sound of a McCloskey Jaw Crusher doing what it does best. Wheel loaders, articulated haulers and a blanket of dust initially obscure the green machine from view.
As the dust cloud clears, we were greeted by a truly remarkable site. Surround by sheer rock face is a McCloskey J50 Jaw Crusher, working its way through hundreds of tonnes of granite, with crushed material pouring off the 48” wide main conveyor.
To its right, Brian Crawford, Plant Co-Ordinator, is loading blast face granite into the J50’s 6.8m3 hopper, each bucket feeding the machine with around 10tonnes of huge, dense boulders. Meanwhile, wheel loaders busily collect stockpiled material and load it directly into an army of customer grab loaders or into one of the articulated haulers for stockpiling. It’s a beautifully slick operation, with the McCloskey crusher at the very heart of it.
“We are working with both recycling aggregates and virgin material,” explains Duncan Collier, Managing Director. “Today, it is in the quarry, but we track it around the site to work on different materials. By moving the machine, we reduce emissions and speed up the process, taking the equipment to the material, not the other way round.”
“Here in quarry, after we blast, we bring the crusher in and feed it from the ground, right off the blast face. It’s very dense, good quality stuff, some of the hardest stone in the area.”
“The McCloskey is a mightily impressive machine. We had two crushers in here before from other manufacturers, but we were looking for something to give us better output. We trailed other machines, but they didn’t deliver the quality we needed. Then we tried this McCloskey and it outrun the competition, hands down. The tonnage, how well it coped
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www.hub-4.com January/February - Issue 78