The July-August 1992 edition of Aggregates & Roadbuilding included an article on Robert E. Young Construction Ltd., a family owned business based in Peterborough, Ont. and one of the biggest custom crushing operators in the province. The article described a unique telescopic tower mounting for a hydraulic breaker on one of Young’s existing portable primary jaw crushers. The successful retro–fit of this tower and breaker combination facilitated raising and lowering of the breaker when changing from working to travelling mode. At the time, this design promised to play an important role in the company’s future, as it not only eliminated the safety hazard of crusher jams, but also offered fast set up and improved productivity, while meeting Ontario’s highway height restrictions. Aggregates & Roadbuilding visited Young again recently, to learn more about the long-term performance of this unique breaker system.

Owner and president Robert Young has no doubts that the custom-designed hydraulic breaker system used on his spread of portable crushing equipment has contributed to both the company’s excellent safety record and subsequent growth. So much, in fact, that all of the company’s primary crushers are now fitted with the height adjustable breaker.

View of the 2000 ft-lb class TB-725X hydraulic breaker and PB12 pedestal boom at work on a Cedarapids 30 x 42 portable primary jaw crusher.

"For us, the breaker has played an important role for several reasons. We have eliminated the safety hazards traditionally associated with freeing jammed or bridged material from a jaw. Also, our success in the custom crushing and hauling business depends on us being able to set up and take down equipment quickly and the breaker is capable of operating within 30 minutes of arrival at a new site. This, combined with the fact that all our mobile crushing equipment has hydraulic jacks, as well as hydraulic drives, means that we can be fully operational within two hours. Not only that, our average productivity has increased by at least 20 per cent."

Young Construction have utilised Breaker Technology, Ltd.’s, (formerly Teledyne) PB12 pedestal boom equipped with a 2000 ft-lb class TB-725X hydraulic breaker for all their jaws, mounted on a custom built tower. With its reach of 3.6 m the boom enables the operator to direct the hammer into all areas of the feeder and also directly down into the crusher to break up material jams.

The breaker system is credited with boosting production while greatly improving operator safety.

In 1992, Young Construction had a significant contract crushing business and were already established in the relatively new business of crushing reclaimed concrete and asphalt materials.

Over two hundred crushing contracts and seven and a half years later, the company now operates up to 500 km from their base in Ennismore. In 1999 Young Construction crushed a total of about 3 000 000 tonnes, divided equally between reclaimed materials and sand and gravel, on contracts ranging in size from 10 000 to 200 000 tonnes. At the same time, separate asphalt and construction businesses have been successfully established. A comparison of Young Construction’s equipment inventory makes interesting read   ing and underlines the growth of the business.

The hammer breaks slabby material in the feeder.

The company currently operates five diesel-powered Cedarapids primary jaw crushers, compared to two in 1992, including a 26 x 40 and three 30 x 42 machines, together with a new 30 x 54 unit on order from the Mississauga, Ont. branch of Strongco Equipment. All these units incorporate the telescopic tower and breaker system. The 1992 fleet of six Cedarapids 443 Commander secondary plants has increased to eleven units, including seven 443 Commander plants and four 855 Commander plants. In addition, the company employs nine diesel-powered stockpile conveyors ranging in length from 24.4 m to 30.5 m.

 

Young Construction crushes 1.5 million tonnes/y of recycled concrete. Crushed recycled concrete is stockpiled for use as Granular A materials.

In terms of mobile equipment, the loader fleet has expanded from seven machines to no less than nineteen, including four Michigan L190’s, 10 Caterpillar 980 models (six 980C’s, one 980F and three 980G’s), as well as five Michigan 125’s. The company’s fleet of Mack trucks has increased to nineteen from fifteen (four CL600’s and fifteen RD685’s), as well as fourteen Raglan belly dump tri-axle trailers and six tri-axle dump trailers.

The breaker used by Young Construction is mounted on a 1219 mm square telescopic tower that is raised and lowered 1219 mm. Two 50 mm diameter pins are used to secure the tower in the raised position. Vertical movement of the tower is provided by a hydraulic cylinder located in a protected position, while the power pack is located in a protective cavity directly below the plate supporting the pedestal boom. The Caterpillar D3406 engine driving the jaw has ample capacity to provide the necessary hydraulic power for the boom and breaker, although it has to be moved towards the front of the trailer to accommodate the tower, resulting in longer jaw drive belts and hydraulic hoses. The design of the tower and hammer mounting reflects the care and planning that went into the first 1992 model given the close tolerances in every direction. The current design is essentially unchanged, although the two most recent machines have two hydraulic cylinders compared to a single cylinder on the first three machines.

The current telescopic tower arrangement for the pedestal boom system utilizes two hydraulic cylinders mounted to a steel H-beam on the centre line of the tower frame.

When traveling between jobs, the tower is lowered 1219 mm and the hammer boom is set to a horizontal position across the top of the jaw and feeder. The resulting overall height is below the 4.27 m height limitation established by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation for highway travel in the province.

During Aggregates & Roadbuilding’s latest visit, one of Young Construction’s plants was set up in North York in the City of Toronto on a contract to crush about 50 000 tonnes of reclaimed concrete and as-phalt. The material included slabby material up to 102 mm x 204 mm, typically 203 mm thick, although some pieces were as thick as 458 mm. A Caterpillar 980G on load and carry fed the jaw’s feeder. Here the hammer worked steadily, breaking oversize material, clearing hang-ups and raking material into the jaw to maintain an even flow.

The 30 x 42 jaw is run at a tight setting, reducing material to 102 mm minus. The jaw products are conveyed to the secondary plant The breaker system is credited with boosting production while greatly improving operator safety. 

for further reduction and sizing into Granu-lar A (19 mm minus) roadbase materials. The plant’s average production rate is 225 tonnes/h, with a typical operating week consisting of 6 am to 6 pm shifts and a weekly target running total of 55 hours.

The increased versatility and productivity offered by the breaker system has enabled Robert E. Young Construction to bid on recycling contracts and oversize jobs that otherwise might have been seen as too risky or costly to undertake. Don Young cites several examples where jobs could not have been handled effectively without the breaker, due to oversize in the feed material. Here, undesirable alternatives included a separate backhoe-mounted breaker or leaving behind a pile of oversize material.

Cat 980G feeds portable plant. Last year, Young Construction crushed a total of 3 million tonnes.

So what does the future hold for Robert E. Young Construction Ltd.? Rising fuel costs are a concern, as they are for thousands of operators using diesel-powered equipment.

As Robert Young points out, the company’s pre-tax cost of diesel fuel has increased by 100 per cent over the last year, which translates into increased overall production costs of between 12 and 15 per cent.

Despite this, the future looks good, given the strength of the provincial economy and the level of construction activity, while the increased interest in the crushing of both on-site and stockpiled reclaimed material suggests numerous opportunities for an experienced operator such as Young Construction.

Robert Young has been in the custom crushing and hauling business for some 45 years. This business is a family affair, and included in the total of 45 employees is Robert’s wife Eleanor, sons Robert Jr., Carl, and Don, daughters Ilene, Lenore and Sarah as well as family nieces, nephews and grand-children.

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