Cincinnati recycler prefers Keestrack Destroyer

Sometimes you just can’t get exactly what you want. However, that wasn’t the case for Cincinnati, OH based H. Hafner and Sons, Inc. When it came to their crushing needs, Hafner & Sons found that the Keestrack Destroyer 1312 track-mounted impact crusher rose to the top of their list like cream rising to the top of the milk bottle when they sought the right crusher for their unique recycling needs. Following an arduous nine-month search that included inspection and testing of over ten manufacturer’s products, it became clear to Hafner Operations Manager, Justin Cooper, that the Keestrack Destroyer was the unit for them.

“The 1312 ended up being the unit that we thought nobody made,” he said. “It incorporated all of the features that we thought were desirable in a portable crushing plant, but are hard to find. This unit had exactly what we need.”

History
According to Cooper, the Hafner organization has grown extensively from humble beginnings in 1923, to what it has become today. Originally, it was a trucking and excavation firm. In the late 1970’s when Cooper’s grandfather, Harold Hafner Jr., acquired their first Lindig topsoil shredder, they began a shift in their business model. That was when the company began to focus exclusively on their on-site operations. That led to the operation of a licensed construction and demolition debris landfill.

“The C&D landfill has really become the heart of our operation,” Cooper said. “From the landfill, we receive all of the materials that we need to support our landscape material supply business. We recycle approximately 65% of our daily infeed, which includes all non-treated wood being ground for mulch. We recycle cardboard and paper products, soils, and concrete for recycled aggregate, and ferrous and non-ferrous metals for scrap.”

“We began to crush recycled concrete 17 years ago as a way to avoid putting it into our landfill,” said Cooper. “As material would come in, we would stockpile it until we had enough to contract a custom crushing firm to come in and process it. In the past few years, we acquired approximately 60,000 tons of material, every ten months. It was becoming cost-prohibitive to have a custom crusher come in and do that work for us. That is when we began our search for our own crusher.”

Cooper said that initially, they rented a unit from Crushing and Screening Equipment of Blacklick, Ohio. It was a tracked unit. “We liked the unit, but it soon became apparent that it was far too small for our application,” he said. “It didn’t seem to have enough clearance from the crushing chamber to the belt. It seemed like we were always shutting down to clean material from the system. We had a lot of rebar problems.”

“It wasn’t too long after that Dale Larmour of Crushing and Screening Equipment, gave us a call and asked us to consider looking at a Keestrack 1312 Destroyer,” he said. “We thought, ‘why bother, this is just another tracked impact crusher.’ Were we ever surprised.”

According to Cooper, this is NOT just another track-mounted crusher. “The 1312 is a robust unit that set the standard for what we are looking for in a crusher,” he said. “The unit is mounted on hydraulic cylinders in the rear and a pivot point in the front. This feature lifts the crusher off the frame for easier serviceability. Although surprising to see at first, being able to lift the unit has quickly become a ‘what-would-we-do-without-it’ feature.” Another feature that they found helpful was that the vibratory feeder has an integrated two-deck screen.

Cooper said that some of the recyclable concrete that comes into the Hafner facility is not as clean as they would prefer. “With that much dirt and fines in the raw material after it was crushed, the #304 had a tendency to get “soft” when rained upon. This was a huge problem as many contractors had vowed never to use recycled aggregate after an initially poor experience,” said Cooper.

“We immediately could see that the only way to broaden our customer base would be to manufacture a premium quality product,” Cooper said. “With the Destroyer, the 11-foot pre-screen area that has been integrated into the feeder allows us to remove all fines 1.5-inch-minus, while not sacrificing crushable stone. The retrieved fines are then sold as a clean hard fill product.”

“The Keestrack 1312 also impacts onto a vibratory pan feeder instead of having the belt under the impactor,” he adds. “We were finding with the other units that we tested, the belt wear beneath the crusher was significant, mainly because of all the rebar present in our stockpile. We could see that having a standard belt discharge system would have added significantly to our operation and maintenance costs. With this design, that isn’t an issue.”

After testing a used 1312, Cooper said that they decided to refurbish the machine themselves, and buy it from Crushing and Screening rather than buying a new one. “This unit was a fleet rental unit that only had 1000 hours on it,” said Cooper. “It had seen the usual cosmetic wear and tear that rental units routinely have, but we could see that to fix it up would consist of taking care of items that need attention on a regular basis anyway.”

According to Cooper, Crushing and Screening has been a wonderful help to them with the refurbishing of the 1312. “They have supplied us with a mechanic and all the technical help that we needed to repair the unit. We have been extremely happy.”

Frontier Screen Plant a big help

Cooper recalled that their first Keestrack unit of any kind was a Frontier Screen Plant that they acquired in 2006. “We had tried trommels, but they just weren’t capable of screening 6” plus,” he said. “Our customers were happy with our topsoil products but they were looking for a lower, contractor’s grade soil for their budget applications. That prompted us to screen some of the fill loads that in the past had been disposed of in our clean hard fill site. In order to do so, we needed a machine capable of processing rock and concrete up to 2’ cube.” After driving through Columbus, OH one day, Cooper saw just what he had wanted in a screening plant. “The Frontier is unique in the fact that we can screen clean hard fill with 4” punch plate on the top deck and two hours later after a screen change we can pull out concrete sand from our bank run.”

Because of their success with that unit, Hafner also purchased an Explorer 2-deck Screener with an inclined feed. They did that when they purchased the Destroyer. “We like the Explorer,” said Cooper. “The Explorer is a versatile unit that we can feed with the 1312 crusher, our tub grinders, and because of its low feed height, we also are able to load it with our smaller Caterpillar 950 wheel loaders.”

Cooper is excited about the capabilities that they have with their crusher/screener combination. “We will be able to produce a consistent, steady supply of quality aggregate from the material that we receive here at Hafner and Sons,” he said. “Our future in the recycled concrete industry looks to be especially bright.”

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