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Panzers: I break rocks thread

2big bronco said:
Summer work for Projectjunkie and winter work for 486
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The former will flip out when he has to use equipment that wasn't made this century and start a union.

The latter will do all sorts of hack shit that will work for what it is but will be a maintenance burden as it piles up over time and make MHSA flip out.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
These are the rock cores he is pulling out.
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What's the geology of your hard rock? Igneous/granite? That bottom core looks like it'd be nice countertop material.

We have really hard gray granite here, but it's about 60-70' down. We had to do some QC cores at the bottom of drill shafts. The shafts were already 50+' deep, with a 5' rock socket and we had to core another 10-15' past that to prove there was a competent rock foundation. The cores were coming out in complete, unbroken 6' sticks. :eek: Pretty crazy to see and the drillers were all excited because they had only had that happen one time before and they were getting them on almost every hole for us.
 
arse_sidewards said:
Part it off in 1/2" segments and make some coasters. :laughing:
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Those are too small....those are usually only 2" max, sometimes some smaller metric size. Occasionally they'll do 3" and those would work well.

I always wanted to slice up some of the 3 or 4" concrete cores that had cool looking aggregate in them.....but never had access to the right equipment to get clean, square cuts on them.
 
bgaidan said:
What's the geology of your hard rock? Igneous/granite? That bottom core looks like it'd be nice countertop material.

We have really hard gray granite here, but it's about 60-70' down. We had to do some QC cores at the bottom of drill shafts. The shafts were already 50+' deep, with a 5' rock socket and we had to core another 10-15' past that to prove there was a competent rock foundation. The cores were coming out in complete, unbroken 6' sticks. :eek: Pretty crazy to see and the drillers were all excited because they had only had that happen one time before and they were getting them on almost every hole for us.
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Yeah this stone is really not the best for counter tops. There are tons of natural cracks in it. Maybe when we get down deeper it would get more solid but not the top 30’. The other issue is the colors of the stone are at different hardnesses. So when you polish it. Creates divots in the softer material versus where it is harder.
 
cj3a said:
Need to let go a little and hire someone to run day to day operations. You can spend more time on production efficiency. But I do know letting go of control is the first step and the hard part.
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I need to hire a mechanic that can do all the minor shit the big stuff I can still help on. The changing hoses and doing oil changes take up way too much of my time.

Also need an office person. Someone who can answer the phone and schedule the dump trucks for deliveries. That is one of the big headaches for me. You don’t make any money doing it but you have to keep the neighbors happy.

I just need to do it and be done.
 
arse_sidewards said:
This is why people groom their children for the role. That way you don't have to try and train someone on 20+yr of context since they acquired most of it just from sheer proximity to the business.
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Thats why the son of our VP of operations got his plant management positionI believe. The son is doing a good job, dont get me wrong. Its the optics that arent setting well.

As to your comment, he's been listening to his dad his entire life about work, its troubles, how do we respond to this... etc.
 
Penetrode Offroad said:
Thats why the son of our VP of operations got his plant management positionI believe. The son is doing a good job, dont get me wrong. Its the optics that arent setting well.

As to your comment, he's been listening to his dad his entire life about work, its troubles, how do we respond to this... etc.
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I think optics are a little different at a family gravel pit than the kind of place where you have titles like "VP of operations" :laughing:
 
arse_sidewards said:
This is why people groom their children for the role. That way you don't have to try and train someone on 20+yr of context since they acquired most of it just from sheer proximity to the business.
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:laughing: my grandparents started a company, had thier kids running it who actively encourage none of their kids to participate in the business, so none of them do. They are now hitting retirement age, I asked my mom who works there "did you guys (her and my uncles) encourage none of the kids to participate in the business so you 3 could sell it and retire from the proceeds?" Long pause... "Noooooo we just wanted you guys to pursue your dreams":laughing:
 
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As for my kids who knows what they’ll want to do for a living. They are only 13 and 10 atm. My timid 13 year old wants to be a ufc fighter :lmao: atm.

Do I want them to do what I do sure if they want to. Am I gonna pressure them into it no. They are gonna have to want to do it. Will you get rich doing this work hell no. However you won’t go hungry either .
 
Slander said:
:laughing: my grandparents started a company, had thier kids running it who actively encourage none of their kids to participate in the business, so none of them do. They are now hitting retirement age, I asked my mom who works there "did you guys (hey and my uncles) encourage none of the kids to participate in the business so you 3 could sell it and retire from the proceeds?" Long pause... "Noooooo we just wanted you guys to pursue your dreams":laughing:
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This is what I’m gonna do. If they show interest and want to work with me good deal if not that’s fine also.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Hate the big companies but jealous of how they can completely control a market so they get to set the prices in the area.

Also need to have big players like them to buy the new equipment so I can buy their used stuff :homer:. It’s also plan b if everything goes to shit. There are 3 big guys that would have a bidding war to buy my pits. 1 guy would have to buy me out so they can keep their monopoly on the asphalt production in the area. Other guy is a guy who wants to move into this market. Third guy is a concrete guy who is upsetting the market with another giant company.

The asphalt guys are 2000+ employee shops and the concrete guy is 500 guy shop. Big time business.
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I cant stand them either, my dealings with vulcan have mostly been not bad, but the constant price increase from Senior VP of whatever division letters are a slap in the face.

Makes sense on the used equipment too, I imagine they sell a shit ton.


Big picture, Seems like you are in a really good position
 
Levigarrett76 said:
I cant stand them either, my dealings with vulcan have mostly been not bad, but the constant price increase from Senior VP of whatever division letters are a slap in the face.

Makes sense on the used equipment too, I imagine they sell a shit ton.


Big picture, Seems like you are in a really good position
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Big picture looks good the day to day not that rosy :homer:. My iron is getting old and will be needing to get replaced soon. I would say the average age of my equipment is 20 years old. Msha, dnr, epa the county are all making new rules by the day. The equipment is stupid expensive. Jan-apr you don’t sell anything. It’s tough on a person.
 
In all reality running the equipment is the fun and easy part. It’s everything else that blows.

Speaking of shit that blows didn’t get any tickets with my msha inspection this morning. Only wasted 2 hours of my time this go around.
 
Slander said:
My families company is in stocks and bonds, if they had a gravel pit with all that equipment I would 10000% be in the family biz :laughing:
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Me too! My mom ran a housecleaning business, she got her clients from Gma who ran it before mom. I never missed a day in school as it meant i'd have to go clean houses with her. My dad worked union drywall and I briefly entertained the idea and he immediately told me no. His body is fucked.

The logic on dad's part I can pin point to his dad telling him to get into drywall like he was... Dad wanted to get into tech in the 80's... I'd be rich as fuck I'm sure.


ThePanzerFuhrer said:
In all reality running the equipment is the fun and easy part. It’s everything else that blows.

Speaking of shit that blows didn’t get any tickets with my msha inspection this morning. Only wasted 2 hours of my time this go around.
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2 hours is better than 2 grand in fines...
 
Another wtf:homer:. Got the cone back together after the liner change. Ran 2 days and on the third day got to the pit In the morning and seen 5 gallons of gear oil had leaked out of the pinion input seal.

Drained the oil and it had 4-5 gallons of water in the sump:mad3:. Oil was all nasty and goopy. Definitely do not want to see that in the oil that’s lubing up 100k in bearings.

So I made the call to pull the fucker back apart so I can clean out the nasty oil. I’ll also clean out all the oil passages to make sure nothing got plugged.

So another half day to pull the top off to get to the scary part. Pulled the head off and thank the sweet baby Jesus everything looked good. I was worried we ran just water in the bearings and fucked them up. The lube oil pump only moves 5 gallons a minute so it doesn’t turn over very fast.

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The wedge plate. This is what gives the crusher its crushing action. The wedge plate is powered by the ring gear. The head just free spins on top the wedge plate. The head is angled and offset so as it spins the chamber is constantly crushing.


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The dirty looking ring is the top race of the upper thrust bearing. It’s dirty because there is nothing that holds the head down other than its weight and the 5-600tons of crushing force. When I run it empty this ring can slowly spin and wears a bit on the head casting.
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This is how much the head is offset on the wedge plate. The goofy cross head is what transmits the head rotation to the anti spin brake on the bottom of the machine. If it didn’t have this anti spin brake it would spin a zillion rpm when it’s unloaded. Then it would have to brake once the rock hits the chamber causing a ton of additional wear. When crushing the head turns at like 20-30 rpm in the opposite direction it naturally wants to from the rock.


You can see the ring gear that powers the wedge plate. Right above the ring gear is the lower thrust bearing. I didn’t take a picture but there is 2 “needle” bearings one in the bottom of the head casting and one in the bottom of the wedge plate. The needles are 1.5” around and 12” or so long.



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So seeing as how I was down this far I’m gonna change the lower dust seal as that was beat up pretty bad. Also gonna toss a new oil pump at it right away. I’ll grab some more pictures Friday when I start cleaning everything up.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
The goofy cross head is what transmits the head rotation to the anti spin brake on the bottom of the machine. If it didn’t have this anti spin brake it would spin a zillion rpm when it’s unloaded. Then it would have to brake once the rock hits the chamber causing a ton of additional wear. When crushing the head turns at like 20-30 rpm in the opposite direction it naturally wants to from the rock.
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sorta like a DA sander?
neat
 
baldduck1974 said:
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Pretty awesome to have a setup like this. Sweet you have so many options on how you can crush mix and recycle the material.

Do you ever have to change sizes in the screen boxes or do the screen sizes stay the same and you just change the flow to get what you want made?
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Pretty awesome to have a setup like this. Sweet you have so many options on how you can crush mix and recycle the material.

Do you ever have to change sizes in the screen boxes or do the screen sizes stay the same and you just change the flow to get what you want made?
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New to this new stuff myself, screen changes are still old school.
Gates an some doors can be changed on the screen.
Primary crusher needs an operator, anything after that is automated.
Still learning the operation.
I worked at this location for a bit in 2013 when this plant first fired up, it runs alot smoother now that they are not trying to force 600 tph through it
 
Got the cone back together a few weeks back. Didn’t take many pictures was in a hurry. Did get a few of the seal rings I replaced.

These are what seal between the wedge plate and the base frame. When we do recycle shit gets stuck on the spider arms and the gravel will some times build up. This wears on these seal rings. You can see how much is gone on the old ones. One lip is gone. Lose too much and you feed $100k+ bearings sand.

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A little heating with a torch to get them hot and they slip into place.
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Getting some more concrete poured by the old shop. Sick of all the mud where the boys clean stuff off with the pressure washer. About 35yds in this pour.

Will continue the concrete infront of the salt shed and into the bin. This was the original reason as the blacktop was failing and needed to get fixed. Figured we should fix the whole shit at once.


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While the concrete guys were pouring I re barreled a jack cylinder for one of my jaws. I popped the seal in it yesterday while flipping the jaw dies:homer:.
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$70 in seals and a new honed tube and she is brand new again.

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Cut the top off

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Turned both ends of the new tube.

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Welded it up. I even painted it :lmao:. Took less time than it took the guys to get the 35 yds of concrete placed. :smokin:
 
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