We have patterns for several models of the original Birdsboro-Buchanan jaw crushers and some even with slab-tooth design jaw dies here at Columbia Steel. If basic pattern equipment exists for a given model of the Birdsboro crusher, we can get to a "slab buster" jaw design fairly easy. If the basic pattern equipment doesn't exist, then the cost of the project is amplified considerably.

In order to identify what parts you need, it's important that the size and model type are identified properly. It's even better to find the actual part numbers on the castings needed. Old Birdsboro went about doing things more than one way. For example, they'd call out a crusher as 60x84 type "C". There can be another version of a similar sized crusher known as a 60x84 type "C-DF" -- and it would use altogether different parts than the other one.

The people that are really in the know on these crushers, and who may make some of the other items you're looking for, are known as P.R. Engineering in Oshawa, Ontario. They may be able to help you with the spacer wedge and toggles. There's another outfit up there in Kitchener, Ontario, known as Automatic Welding Machine and Supply Company that specializes in hydraulic toggles for many different models of jaw crushers. They make some pretty nice gear. Let our Columbia Customer Service Department know if we can help you with the "slab busters".

Had to do some research on this one with our resident Cedarapids expert (he used to sell them), and we came up blank as far as the original CR ever being involved in out-of-the country licenses. The older line mining crusher suppliers like Traylor Engineering (now FFE Minerals), or Allis-Chalmers (now Metso) were the jaw crusher manufacturers most likely to get involved in short lived arrangements like that.

Currently there is a new model with a crusher that size, the “world crusher” (that’s a Jaques / Cedarapids deal from Terex). Jaw dies for this crusher look like a Cedarapids with the stable jaw having end flanges with cheek plate lands on the sides, and the movable jaw just having the tapered ends -- held in with a wedge.

Not much help I’m afraid. Sketches with the basic fitting dimensions can be compared to existing equipment to make a cross match. That kind of information combined with photos work pretty well for identification. We’ve had to do that many times on inquiries like this.

Here’s a series of short, easy-to-answer questions that make resolving your kind of situation a straight forward deal. They’re as follows:

1. What is the largest size material going into the crusher? (the size by 2 dimensions, i.e. 4 inches x 3 inches)

2. What size range (again, by 2 dimensions) does 50 percent of the gross feed material fall into?

3. What is the actual physical discharge setting of the crushers?

The two 7-foot standard cones in normal crushing conditions may be run at a 1.500 inch c.s.s. and would send the S.H. cones a moderate percentage of 3 inch by 2 inch material in an open circuit. The 50 percent size range would be something like 1.500 inches by .750 inch material and if in a closed circuit, a finer feed blend would be prevalent.

The liners you are using sound to be either be too fine for the job, or are losing their available feed opening thru normal wear. With the 30 day liner changes that you’re experiencing, that loss of feed opening becomes apparent within the first 25 percent of the liners’ life. The seeming high wear rate near the top of the liner set you describe begins near that same time and progressively diminishes gross output rate.

This is the most common phenomena present in cone liners and the subject we deal with most often when providing our Hi-Pro / H-D liner profiles. The object is to provide liner sets that will accept large feed size of a given blend through total expenditure of the liners, while still providing the percentage of sized discharge material required. Simply applying coarser liners doesn’t fix the condition.

This increasing of the feed opening is often misunderstood as an attempt to allow for larger reduction ratios. That’s not the case at all -- we just don’t put wear metal where it’s not needed.

That’s the rate of wear you’re seeing in the liners you use now. In your case, we’d likely provide a fine to medium liner set with an increased feed opening. These are the kind of liners that allow the top sized feed material to be accepted by the liners on the closed side (or at least for within 15 degrees of the closed side at the top circumference of the crusher.) We’d need to know what sizing requirements you have for these crushers in order to offer a specific liner set for the need.

Your question is common to what we deal with daily for most models of crushers. For example, for 7-foot Symons crushers in particular, we’ve developed several options in degrees of fine verses feed opening and thickness. Your situation is common and reasonably easy to deal with.

I am afraid we don’t have real good news in way of a cure for your situation – although, we’ve been exposed to the major aspects of your difficult situation. Let’s begin with the use of impact type crushers in high silica reduction applications. We were exposed to one of our large customer’s high volume use of wear steel in the production of shaped and colored granules. The product they make requires several stages of conventional crushing. In most cases 5 stages of reduction are required to take quarried material to finished sieve sized finished product. They experimented extensively with impact type crushers while trying to reduce stages of operation. The conclusion was drawn by a pretty high powered group -- that if the silica content was over .4 in the mineral being reduced, you couldn’t afford to do the crushing with impacter type crushers. 50# hammer like parts wouldn’t last 8 hrs. So the range of service life you describe is similar. The tests conducted were funded by the manufacturer of the crushers and fact was they left the project with their tails between their legs. We learned a lot from following that one. What we learned was that even with high hardness (700 bh) irons, suitable wear life couldn’t be obtained with that type of machine, in high silica applications. Your situation is worse than what I just described with quartz being all silica. This information was compiled nearly 25 years ago and that material is still being mined and crushed most successfully with a conventional 5 stage crushing operation. That begins in the quarry with the following crushing machines -- a primary gyratory, followed by a coarse crushing cone, with 2 more increasingly fine crushing cone crushers w/ the finished shaped product made in roll crushers. The second part of your dilemma being the magnetic removal of the spalled wear steel contaminants in the material -- we’ve run into that one, like yourselves, with glass sand producers. We’ve made conventional crusher wear parts from high hardness grades of carbon steel, as opposed to conventionally applied manganese steel, so as to allow similar magnetic separators to function the same way you have to -- to keep the oxidized material from discoloring the glass. Our findings in that arena, have been that when applying the high hardness carbon steels (up to 600 bh, most commonly 400 bh materials), the service life with the same kind of crusher, is typically one half of what like sizing of low silica range materials is with manganese steel. However, manganese steel applied to very high silica minerals is half of that of the carbon steels. Follow that statement carefully -- very high silica mineral crushing with manganese = very poor wear results. Very high silica mineral crushing with high hardness carbon steels improve wear life by a 2 factor, although are still a very poor half of service life manganese steel provides in lower silica bearing minerals. All is being compared in the same kind of crushing machinery with the same sizing requirements. The bottom line is, you have a bad set of conditions going for you and it’s possible the type of crushing machines you have, may not be the best choice for the material your reducing. High speed crushers will make the magnetic separators less effective as well. Your costs have to be at minimum triple that of conventional aggregate crushing. That’s the best we can come up with from here -- you might ask yourself the question whether or not you have the best equipment for the job.