McCloskey Equipment’s Tim Watson tells Project Plant of the impact the firm’s J50 has had at a quarry in Cowdenbeath, Fife.
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. Surrounded 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 6.8m2 hopper, each bucket feeding the machine with around 10 tonnes 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 trialled 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 with a range of materials and the quality of the product; it was head and shoulders above the rest, hence why it is here.”
McCloskey’s reputation for proven performance is renowned globally, and the J50 embodies this entirely. For example, the jaw box on the McCloskey J50 – the widest jaw in its class measuring an impressive 1,270mm (50”) – is highly effective. As well as its size, multiple enhancements are employed by McCloskey to deliver maximum productivity.
Heavier flywheels and faster jaw speeds deliver better reduction and material being processed faster through the crushing chamber which in this application sees throughputs in excess of 300 tonnes per hour.
Aside from the headline figure, we saw first-hand just how efficient McCloskey’s jaw box is. Throughout our entire visit, the excavator did not stop once. Load after load, Brian wasn’t left waiting at any point. Complimenting the J50’s class-leading performance and capacity is the largest stockpile height in its category, further enabling greater throughput by minimising limiting factors.
“About six weeks ago, Brian came into the office with a photo of the scale display; it was reading 999,900 and was only a few loads away from one million, but the readout only had six figures,” Duncan added. “We all thought it would go back to zero, like the milometer in an old car, but as it hit the magic 1,000,000, the display went to dashes!
“It’s the only thing that has broken on the machine – and it’s the only part that isn’t made by McCloskey. Otherwise, we’ve had no downtime at all, just routine maintenance.
“McCloskey Equipment are fantastic. When they brought the machine in, we were immediately impressed with the efficiency of service from the team and the aftersales support has been second to none, especially from Chris McKinstry, our sales manager. Any questions or spare parts have always been answered and provided promptly, which has ultimately led to maximum uptime and the J50 delivering more than one million tonnes in just over a year.
“We would have another McCloskey in a heartbeat. It is so operator-friendly – pull the lever and away it goes. And it keeps going all day, every day. Everyone who sees the machine and what it is working with can’t believe the performance. The results speak for themselves; it’s a remarkable achievement from a brilliant piece of kit.”
A video of the crusher can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/nh_LHNx99aA
