Skene boosts production with a new Finlay Cone Crusher

With a history that can be traced back over half a century, Skene Group are a family-owned construction services group based in Glenrothes, Fife. The company was formed in 1968 to undertake contracting works in the local area but quickly and steadily evolved into one of the largest independent operators in the construction materials sector.

2022 sees the company supplying a variety of services to the construction sector from raw material supplies such as sand, gravel, and crushed rock as well as concrete and lightweight blocks and ready mixed concrete. Both their block manufacturing plants, and concrete batching plants are all supplied with raw materials from the company’s own quarries based at Lomond and Soutra with finished blocks being shipped across the UK whilst the ready mixed concrete plants supply well over 1000m3 per day across the central belt and borders regions.

Skene’s Lomond quarry on the outskirts of Leslie is a producer of high-quality sand and gravel products as well as crushed hard rock aggregates produced used in-house for their manufacturing processes.  Kevin Hill, Quarry Operations Director commented “Our own concrete manufacturing plants are taking the majority of our material that we are able to produce.”

To ensure production rates are maintained on a regular basis the company has recently invested in a further delivery of crushing technology from industry leaders Molson Finlay.

Molson, already the English and Welsh dealers for the Terex Finlay range of crushing and screening equipment since 2018, acquired the former Scottish dealer Finlay Scotland just a year later making them the sole dealer for what has recently become the Finlay range of equipment.

Manufactured in Northern Ireland, the Finlay range of products is steadily expanding with fuel efficiencies and productivity gains being the main focus of the business. It is one of the latest designs that has joined the Skene fleet and is already making a huge difference in the quarry’s productivity.

The Finlay train consists of a jaw crusher, feeding into a cone crusher which exits onto a tracked stacker. The first machine in the train is a tried and tested J-1480 jaw crusher. This is one of the largest jaw crushers in the Finlay range with an operating weight touching 80 tonnes. The J-1480 is constructed around a heavy-duty chassis incorporating long track frames to provide the machine with a sturdy and steady platform. The rear of the machine holds a standard 10m3 hopper which can be increased in capacity by a further 2m3 using the hydraulically actuated side extensions. The vibrating pan feeder steadily moves the material over the independently driven pre-screen giving optimum separation of dirt, fines, and difficult materials before the rock enters the 1415mm x 800mm mouth of the crusher. The crusher itself is a Terex Jaques JW55 single toggle unit which is capable of a 750t tonnes per hour throughput in the right material. Thanks to the hydraulic closed size settings (CSS) on the jaw, a consistent material size can be achieved with any alterations in size requirements instigated quickly and safely.

Skene’s J-1480 has been supplied with the standard hydrostatic drive which offers reversible operation for clearing blockages and for use in demolition applications. Powered to the crusher comes from a Scania diesel engine developing 450hp.

The material produced by the J-1480 feeds out on the 1.4m wide conveyor and straight into the 6m3 hopper feeder on the new C-1550+ cone crusher. Like the jaw, the C-1550+ takes its power from a Scania diesel, this time developing 543hp. Sporting similar build qualities as the slightly larger machine, the 50 tonne C1550+ uses a Terex 1300X chamber that has a 1300 mm head diameter. The 1300X chamber is the main point of difference in this updated C-1550+ and offers an impressive 15% increase in throughput compared to its predecessor, the 1300 chamber.

The cone is directly driven with a variable clutch drive and a hydraulically actuated CSS. To ensure maximum productivity, the flow of material from the hopper is regulated to the crushing chamber by advanced ultrasonic level sensors to ensure a steady flow of material and a reduction in potential time-wasting blockages.

Thanks to the design of the hopper feeder, the machine can be integrated into a crushing and screening train or operate as a standalone unit and fed directly either by a crusher, screener, wheeled loader, or an excavator.

The final product in this train is a Finlay TC80 Stacker. The TC-80 mobile stockpiler is a highly portable and flexible machine that can be integrated seamlessly into stationary and mobile crushing and screening plants. The machine features a 22.8m discharge conveyor that can produce a maximum conical stockpile capacity of 3228 tonnes based on 37° angle of repose.

Whilst this train is the main production team for the quarry, they are using other Finlay products to produce a variety of other sized products. Whilst the new C-1550+ produces a consistent 100mm and down material, a second cone crusher, this time a C-1540 is used to reduce the material size further. Loaded by a wheeled loader, the C-1540 boasts a similar specification to the newer cone crusher albeit with a Stage IV engine. Material from the feeder hopper passes over a pre-screen before entering the cone and once crushed, it is passed onto the final Finlay product on site, a 694 three-deck screen. The 694 uses a new high-energy screen box that features three full size 6.1m x 1.53m decks that can process fine, sticky, and dirty material with ease. The large hopper feeder is fitted with variable speed belt feeder to ensure consistent flow of material and is fitted with remote tipping grid to remove any oversize material.

Material passing onto the 694+ is screened to provide three finished products that are used by the firms in-house concrete batching facility, with the oversized material being fed via a conveyor directly back into the C-1540.

“We have been using Terex Finlay products for many years and have always found them to be a reliable and productive machine.” Kevin commented. “They are designed to do a job and deliver just what we want them to do with very little fuss. They are quick and easy to relocate when we need to. We have dealt with the Finlay team for many years and despite the name change to Molson Finlay, the product and back up has remained constant and first-class.”