“We had been running a VSI as tertiary crusher with the spread on Maui,
but a couple years ago, we decided we
wanted another cone to use as our finish cone to better handle the rock,” McCarthy said. “On the other islands we
had 400-hp cone plants that we’d been
using as finish cones, but we hadn’t
had great luck with them. There are a
lot of cone choices in that size – a lot of
manufacturers – so we were faced with
a big decision. But then my good friend
George Seubert recommended we look
into the Raptor cones, so we talked to
FLSmidth Excel’s territory sales manager, Sam Braithwaite.
Decision made
Goodfellow Bros. ultimately chose to
purchase the XL400 cone crusher plant
to replace its VSI crusher for several
reasons. “FLSmidth Excel designed its
cones after talking to people in the business. They took what operators didn’t
like about their cones, and they fixed
those problems in their Raptor cone
line. It’s very well thought out,” McCarthy said. “For instance, the tramp release
is inverted, with the cylinders mounted
rod-ends down.” This feature provides
better protection for the tramp release
system to minimize damage that can
occur with overflow.
McCarthy said the manufacturer
was able to provide good support for
the plant, including the provision of
a rebuild for the existing 1560 Omnicone plant in the Maui crushing spread.
“They worked hard to make the XL400
cone work right for our spread,” he said.
“And they provided as good a quality of
service with the 1560 as they did with
the new cone. Being in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, this level of backing was
huge to us.”
With the XL400 cone in place, McCarthy said his company was better
able to crush the tough blue rock on
the island. And a nice surprise was the
quality of the product coming off the
finishing cone. “We’re getting a better
product with it than we do with any of
our other cones – we have better cubicity – and we’re getting better production
with less downtime,” he noted.
McCarthy said Goodfellow Bros.
has recently begun to crush recycled
concrete and asphalt material. “Recycle
crushing is becoming more and more
prevalent everywhere, and our islands
are definitely limited on material, so
it makes sense to follow suit. It’s clear
we’re not your typical crushing operation. Our owners know that you have
to be able to adapt and change to stay
in business. We have a lot of options
right now. We have a history of doing a
little of everything to get the job done. I
prefer this environment to working in a
quarry – and 4 ft. of snow,” he said. ;
