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Chesapeake Materials, of Stafford, Virginia, is a full-service rock breaking company operating from New Jersey to Florida that specializes in stone for marine applications, specifically the rip-rap and armor stone commonly used to stabilize and protect shorelines, dikes, grades and breakwaters from the force of waves.
Yet they have no quarries of their own. They are specialists who contribute their unique skill to partnerships with quarries, adding value up and down, from quarry to end-user. Randy Blanton, President of Chesapeake Materials, said, “Quarries can’t specialize but Chesapeake does.” Chesapeake Materials excels in this market by staying quick on its feet, outperforming crews who use bigger, less mobile equipment. Team players Chesapeake offers a valuable service to quarries. They produce the highest quality products and ensure on-time delivery. Quarries don’t have to tie up their capital in additional equipment that Chesapeake already owns, uses and maintains on a daily basis. This same equipment might only see production on a part-time basis if it were owned by a single quarry. And when Chesapeake is done on a project in the quarry, the equipment goes with them to their next job. Often as not, they are cleaning up a quarry, turning what would be waste rock or large obstacles to the quarry’s other operations into profitable products as advertised by their “Obstacles into Opportunities” slogan. And Chesapeake’s specialists keep prices down for the end customer without eroding profit margins for the quarry by providing the most efficient production, meaning lower cost. Their rip-rap and armor stone customers, in particular, rely on Chesapeake. The rock faces tough natural forces along the water and some quarries don’t have the techniques to ensure the highest quality end product. And if needed, Chesapeake deals with more than one quarry to get the best product for a job, it already has a number of contacts in place. On this job A company with a long-term relationship with Chesapeake is Independence Construction Materials (ICM). For the job, Chesapeake was in ICM’s stone mill located at Elk Mills, Md., filling an ICM customer’s order for a bridge project. The job required significant truck loads each day to meet the customer’s needs. Armor stone is generally made to order by weight. But weight is not the sole specification. On this order, the rock must be 165 pounds (~75 kg) per cubic foot (~0,28m3) and have few seams—“not stuff that’s easy to break,” said Blanton. They could judge the stone at this quarry by color. Only the darker grays had a specific gravity high enough to ensure the bridge plan’s engineering specifications were met. Blanton’s crews are experts at this. There will be no rejected shipments. “This is all our people do, 50 to 55 hours a week, every week,” Blanton said. “They can tell you whether a rock weighs 4,000 pounds (~1.800 kg) or 5,000 pounds (2.267 kg) from 30 feet (~9,1 m) away. They know what is good rock or bad rock.” Tools of the trade Blanton said the hammer, the hydraulic breaker, is the most important tool on site. “It’s vital to everything—all we do is determined by the hammer.” All totaled, Chesapeake owns over a dozen hammers. For nearly 10 years all of their hammers have been Atlas Copco. “We’ve been approached to try other manufacturers’ models, even allowed to try them for free. Some talk us into it and it usually ends up a disaster,” Blanton said. “Big thing about Atlas Copco, they stand behind their equipment. It’s not just durability. It’s their efficiency. Easier on the carrier.” The company routinely gets 10 years or more of service from a breaker, keeping them well-maintained and repairing them until they decide it is time to replace them. Blanton said they recently had one scheduled for replacement that was still in operation after 12 years. For the chisel, he said, they use the Atlas Copco SilverLine series due to its longevity, performance and price. Bread and butter hammer It is common to use an HB 4200 in quarry work, and Chesapeake does have three of them in Georgia. But the nature of Chesapeake’s business in the Virginia and Maryland area down through South Carolina requires greater mobility. “We need hammers that are big enough for the job but also small enough to minimize transport cost in terms of breaking the machine down and permits. The machine might need to move across the street or three states away. On the 330/350 Link-Belt and Volvo carriers we like to use, they won’t take a 4200.” So Chesapeake Materials has relied on the Atlas Copco HB 3000 heavy duty breaker, which until now had been the heaviest breaker they could mount to a 330/350 class Volvo or Link-Belt excavator. The current model offered by Atlas Copco is the HB 3100. Robert Pough, manager of Chesapeake Materials’ Georgia operations, and Marvin White, a Virginia-based senior foreman, established the skill level for the company’s operators based on their 20-plus years of experience with Chesapeake. The operators’ superior training means they not only keep up with the larger hammers in the quarry but generally out-produce them. Blanton explained: “The 3000 is our bread and butter. Many people are surprised what we can do with a 3000 when we show up where other quarry personnel are using a 4200-class breaker. We do it all the time.” Filling the gap Throughout the industry an increasing demand for smaller, more mobile carriers has emphasized the gap between the 3000 and 4200 sized breakers. Enter the Atlas Copco HB 3600. When Chesapeake Materials purchased theirs, they were excited by the prospect of a unit that, Blanton said, has “higher impact performance and runs on any excavator in our fleet.” Blanton reported, “The general impression from our operators is that it hits harder and gets more work done than a HB 3000. The HB 3600 doesn’t hit quite as hard as a HB 4200 but it can do as much work as one because of its higher impact frequency. We’re very happy with it. The HB 3600 fills the gap.” More information under: http://www.breakingthelimit.com |
