Capital Quarries Co. Inc. in Jefferson City, MO, started 25 years ago and has since grown to a fully integrated group of companies involved in markets from block brick, ready-mix asphalt and cement to heavy highway construction. Its owners include Frank Twehous and the Farmer brothers, Bud and Mike.
“They [all] bring a really good mix of talent and needs to the quarry group,” said Eric Strope, president of Capital Quarries. “Frank can bring stripping expertise and he is a specialized heavy hauler so he is set up to move all of these overweight or over-sized pieces on these crushers. The Farmer brothers bring the markets of different types of asphalt and block brick.”
The primary aggregates produced by Capital Quarries are used in road projects, general construction and specialty projects like block brick. “We do the whole gambit,” said Strope. “We’ll do paving stone, Superpave for asphalt and just all general types of surfacing material.”
The company operates 24 quarries in Missouri and one in northeast Arkansas, producing approximately three million tons of aggregate. Eighteen of Capital’s quarries are active. “The remaining six are used on specific jobs,” said Strope. “They’re close to an interstate and we only go in if we need to or for county work.”
Capital Quarries uses the Metso/Nordberg LT110 jaw as a primary plant with support from an LT1213 impact crusher plant, an LT300HP cone plant and three ST620 screens.
As the primary plant, the LT110 jaw crushes both blasted rock and any mineral based demolition debris at the beginning of multi-stage crushing, or the train. With a feed opening of 34 by 44 in. and a capacity of 550 tons per hour, the LT110 jaw crusher can take material up to 24 in. and crush it to 6.75 in.
The secondary LT1213 impact crusher reduces material to 2.75 in. (70 mm) and the LT300HP cone plant crushes material to as small as 1.5 in. (40 mm). The three-deck, 6 by 20 ST620 mobile screens are set up between each of these plants and can produce end products from 2 to .1 in. (50 to 3 mm).
“As far as I understand, we have the first complete train in North America,” said Strope. “It is all the Metso/Nordberg line, which was all purchased from Roland Machinery.”
Paul Reynolds, Roland Sales Rep, specializes in the Metso/Nordberg line and serves as Capital’s representative.
“Paul is an outstanding hand. He was the one that we first talked to on these types of crushers,” said Strope.
Strope mentioned that he and Reynolds had very lengthy discussions on whether the company should go with track or chassis machines. “We had two portable plants that were on chassis that we would hire cranes to set up and set down. The fastest we could move was probably a week and a half,” he said. “This one takes two-and-a-half days.”
Capital found this even more beneficial when it purchased its newest quarry in Arkansas. “We acquired another LT1213 impactor and another ST620 to take down there and clean up the boulder piles and piles of material lying around the quarry,” Strope said.
And the mobility of the machines proved equal to the task. “It is a lot easier when you have a mobile crusher to go around the different areas in a little quarry site like that and clean it up,” he said.
In fact, because of its full-integration and range of products, Capital is constantly on the move from job to job and site to site, crushing what it needs and moving on. For example, the company had its train set up at a site in Eugene, MO, this past winter. At another site, which had stockpiled a year’s supply of 4-in. material, a customer came in and bought all of this material for the construction of a stockyard.
So Capital split the train apart, using the cone and jaw crushers and two screens at the Eugene site and sending the impact crusher and the third screen to replace the depleted 4-in. material.
“With this set up we can literally drive off two pieces, move it down the road and be crushing in a matter of hours,” Strope said. “That mobility, and a couple of hours, is a big key for us.”
That mobility doesn’t just benefit customers, but Capital’s owners as well, particularly Twehous’ heavy-highway operation. “It is nothing for us to pull out of a quarry, go on a road job and crush material for him, right on the road, and the very next week pull off the job and go back to the quarries,” said Strope.
Like with any new technology, Capital has hit some bumps in the road and has had some issues to work out, but according to Strope, it has been a very good experience. “Paul has been very good about making sure the equipment does what it is supposed to do and correcting the problems that you get,” he said. “We’ve got enough confidence in him, obviously that we ordered a second piece to take down to Arkansas to clean up that quarry.”
For more information, visit www.rolandmachinery.com.
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