Lima South Quarry – Hard Rock Application

SHAUN DEN-BAKKER, Tutt Bryant Equipment’s (TBE) Metso Account Manager for Vic/SA/TAS reports on the hard rock of Lima South Quarry.

Lima South (LS) Quarry is a family owned quarry business with significant contract crushing and screening capability located in North East Victoria between Mansfield and Benalla.

They employ a flexible team of skilled staff to produce and deliver high quality crushed rock, contract crushing and screening services to their customers. These customers include local and state governments for road construction and maintenance, as well as private construction companies building roads on their behalf. LS Quarry provides a full range of quarry products from the high quality Sealing Aggregates, Railway Ballast and concrete/asphalt aggregate products, right through to rock spalls, road bases and bedding sand. It also maintains a significant delivery capability from internal trucks and external subcontractor providers.

Their onsite service varies from winning, crushing and screening a wide range of quarry products to crushing and screening recycled concrete, for both Local Governments and private refuse centres. In addition to this, LS Quarry has extensive experience crushing and screening recycled asphalt working with companies such as Downer Asphalt, Alex Fraser Group and Boral Asphalt to help them recycle product for reuse in road construction.

LS Quarry was first permitted for extraction in 1997 when it began its development at the Lima South site. In 2008, the current Director, Ashley Day, took over operations of the small crew with a view to grow, firstly with the use of mobile equipment to supplement its fixed quarry plant production.  After grinding his way through the GFC, Ashley continued his growth by pursuing external contract crushing opportunities to both increase their capability and to raise his business’ profile in this part of the quarry sector. This proved to be instrumental in the contracting component of the business evolving and securing further contract opportunities based on reputation and developed competency providing repeat business. With growth comes the inevitable requirement for ore people to support these operations. From the 4 staff in 2008, the number of staff floats around 27 in 2016, which increases to 50 if cartage and other subcontractors are included.

The steady increase in project opportunity success has required a similar review to the modernisation of the equipment used in these operations. This saw Ashley engage with suitable suppliers which could provide adequate equipment to handle his specific source rock properties. The Lima South source rock is primarily Hornfels with a PSV of 61 and Los Angeles Abrasion between 8-10. It is quite a hard rock application so only proven crushing technology would be suitable. For example, it was recently used at the Winton Motor Raceway Resurfacing project as it can withstand the high shear application inherent in motor sports.

The existing tertiary cone was struggling to continually produce high volumes of products with a narrow closed side setting. Ashley was looking for a cone crusher which could handle the high clamping pressures required to crush his hard rock to ensure confidence in his ability to maintain supply of his high quality aggregates to meet his customers’ demand. Tutt Bryant Equipment’s (TBE) Metso Account Manager for VIC/SA/TAS, Shaun Den-bakker, worked with Ashley to provide technical support and all the necessary information to give Ashley the necessary comfort the Metso unit could meet his requirements. After visiting the TBE branch in Brisbane to inspect the new Metso LT300HP and once satisfied with the build quality, Ashley placed an order and took delivery of the LT300HP in August 2015. Since then, the machine has been put to work in this challenging environment and is achieving its production requirements from this very hard application. “The ease in change out of the mantle was an added bonus” said Mr Day, “the mantle can be changed more quickly than its predecessor without needing to remove other components. It allows you to get it back to work sooner”.

This Metso LT300HP Cone purchase was Ashley’s first Metso buy and he will continue to consider Metso for future applications.

For more information visit LS Quarry at www.lsquarry.com and for more information on TBE’s distribution of Metso LT300HP visit them at, www.tuttbryant.com.au/tbe/metso-mobile-crushers.html

For further information, please contact:

Kathryn Bush
National Administration Manager – Tutt Bryant Equipment
Ph: +61 2 9780 7275
Email: kathryn.bush@tuttbryant.com.au

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