Capital Aggregates’ six-plant portable spread at its California Quarry in California, Missouri, originated in 2003 with the purchase of one Metso Lokotrack LT1213 HSI crusher.
One year later, it finished the spread with a Lokotrack LT110 portable jaw crusher, a Lokotrack LT300HP portable cone crushing plant and three Lokotrack ST620 portable screening plants. According to Kevin Nichols, safety director at Capital Aggregates, once the spread was completed in 2004, it was the first fully linked train of Lokotrack equipment in the U.S.
Twenty-two years later, the spread continues to pay dividends at the quarry and beyond, producing from 450 to as high as 700 tph. The key to the spread’s impressive lifespan: A dedication to timely, pointed maintenance.
“The employees make sure they take good care of it – whether it be wear parts or liners,” Nichols says. “Where we buy our parts from is important [as well]. We want to make sure we have parts on hand readily. We’ve done two shifts on this plant quite a bit, so we make sure everything is ready to go.
“Our mechanics need to know the wiring, diagnostics – the whole nine yards,” he adds. “They’ve all been trained on it. It takes a little bit of everybody to make sure everything keeps going as it should.”
For a plant that moves a few times a year, planning ahead and implementing proactive maintenance strategies are key to ensuring it operates as needed when moved to a jobsite.
“If you’re not keeping up with the maintenance, you’re not running consistently,” Nichols says. “You need to make sure that when you move a plant in, it’s ready to run consistently and get out to the next spot. If you don’t, things wear out, and you’re down for two weeks doing maintenance instead of doing it proactively and having the parts there to do it.”
Maximizing mobility
One of the main reasons Capital decided to invest in the Metso spread was to expedite the teardown and setup of plants when they left or arrived at a jobsite. Operating on tracks rather than chassis made the Lokotrack plants a perfect solution to that goal.
“It cut our time down from a week and a half of tearing down chassis and cribbing plants, to the tracked plant being able to be torn down in a day and a half, move it, set it up in a day and be able to crush from different sites and on the go,” Nichols says. “When you set up plants with chassis and you’re using cribbing, you need to set up far away so the shots don’t hit the plant. This way, you can move the plant, shoot and then set it up right next to the shot.”
Admittedly, there was a bit of a learning curve for Nichols and the Capital team when they started using the Metso spread.
“There was a bit of a feeling-out process – learning what it can and can’t do,” Nichols says. “And, of course, when you go from quarry to quarry and handle different types of rock, some are harder than the others, some shoot smaller than others and you can get more production in some locations than others.”
Including the six pieces running at the California Quarry, Capital has 14 total pieces of the four plants on site (four LT1213s, two LT110s, three LT300HPs and five ST620s). This fleet means when pieces are taken to other job sites – or if different materials need to be made at the quarry – it’s as easy as swapping out pieces for others.
The spread can make up to 12 different finished products, depending on the configuration.
“There are times throughout the year where you might keep the plant as it is,” Nichols says. “Then, there are times when you might move some things out and just crush with a jaw and a screen and make oversized material at the very end for a week or two. We can do contract crushing jobs and everything else. Track them in and track them out. You wouldn’t be able to do that with a plant on a chassis and cribbing. There’s a lot of flexibility with it.”
Staying stocked up
With an emphasis on maintenance, keeping parts on hand has been critical for Capital in keeping the Metso spread up and running.
After Capital started using the spread, it took a few years for the supply chain to allow the company to keep enough parts on hand.
“Metso was good about it, but parts weren’t ready right away if you needed them,” Nichols says. “You had to plan for what you might need six weeks from now.”
To keep parts supplied nowadays, Capital works with both Metso and Road Builders Machinery, a local Metso dealer. Though it took some fine-tuning to hone in on their needs, the partnerships have proved beneficial in the long run.
“It took us a couple years to figure out how we felt comfortable getting parts when we needed them,” Nichols says. “Some things you didn’t figure out you needed until you needed them. Different types of push buttons, contacts or other things you don’t think about until they go out. For the most part, everything has been great.”
So long as Capital keeps parts on hand and its team continues to prioritize maintenance, the company has no plans of moving away from the spread. Nor is it showing any signs of stopping.
“We don’t have anything in the works to replace it,” Nichols says. “We’re going to keep it going. I don’t think I can replace it with anything better.”
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