Two business partners say getting a helping hand at the right time made all the difference.
It’s a testimony to both men that Joshua McNary’s former employer, Jerry Baden of TVEK Enterprises, helped he and partner, William Lockhart get their start in business, named LoMc LLC, in the fall of 2012 with a screening plant they built themselves.
When they landed a job recovering iron from an old Republic Steel dump site in Canton, Ohio, they were tasked with processing a five acre mound averaging 60 to 70 ft. (18 to 21 m) deep.
Faced with moving a mountain to separate slag from the reusable iron, McNary and Lockhart soon set about searching for equipment that would deliver greater efficiency. The first screening plant they tried out was an improvement but still didn’t provide the processing speed they’d need if they were to stay in business.
A call to Chris Harris of Ohio CAT put them on the road to profitability. According to McNary, Harris introduced them to IROCK’s screening plants which turned out to be exactly what they had in mind for the job.
They’re currently running an IROCK TS-522 triple deck tracked screener and an IROCK TS-522 double deck tracked screener on the job. In the first stage of the process, they load materials into the triple deck screener to separate materials into piles of 2x slag. Slag fines and the remaining materials are conveyed past a Dings #33 magnet to separate out iron from 304 slag.
The second stage is to run the iron materials through the IROCK TS-522 double deck tracked screener to separate 2-3/4 in. iron from 3/8 to 1/8 in. iron and a final recovery of fines. According to McNary, with the separation of fines, their pace is 3,000 tons (2,722 t)per day. He added that if they were running 1/2 in. material they could double the amount processed daily. In all, they’ve processed more than 2 million tons (1.8 million t) of materials at the site.
The iron they process is sent to steel mills in Ohio, Michigan and other nearby states to be melted down and reused while the slag will be used for fill.
McNary explained that the material they’re recovering is rated at 68 percent FE. The recovered iron also contains lime, phosphorous, nickel and cadmium, all materials that would need to be added to a mill’s furnace to produce iron products if virgin iron was used. Currently the mills they supply can’t take any recycled materials under 3/8 in. so the iron fines are being saved for a process called water jigging which separates materials by density for a high grade iron. According to McNary, his old employer Jerry Baden is working on improvements to the water jig process for a higher production level.
According to McNary, having IROCK machines on the job has helped the company land a new recycling job in Lorain, Ohio on a 400 acre site averaging 70 ft. (21 m) deep that could keep them busy for the next 20 years.
Regarding the IROCK screening plants, McNary said that while not all of the features he found beneficial are unique to IROCK, it’s the features combined in one machine that make the IROCK screeners stand out.
Key features start with the remote controlled grizzly on the initial feed that allows the operator to dump oversized materials from the loader. Another feature is the ease and speed with which they can change the angle of the screens to remove fines. McNary also is impressed with the vibration speed, adding that while it’s not considered high frequency, it’s as close as it gets with a portable plant.
McNary said the tracks on the plants make a huge contribution to their productivity, allowing them to move with the pile of materials, making set up time incredibly quick.
He said that both IROCK and Ohio CAT are great to work with. Both companies are extremely responsive to their needs, providing a level of support that indicates a vested interest in their ongoing success. Maintenance and service issues have been treated with a demonstrated concern for LoMc LLC’s success.
LoMc LLC, which currently has six employees, with plans to add four to five more, now has four IROCK plants, two Cat excavators, and two Cat wheel loaders along with other miscellaneous equipment.
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