Articles

Beautiful Scenery Dominates Kwajalein Atoll In the wake of the September, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington air travel in America and beyond changed forever. For me, this point was driven home in mid November. Mike Shurtz, owner of ALmix in Fort Wayne Indiana, called to ask me to travel to Kwajalein Atoll […]

While this article is directed toward Boeing drum plants, these basic steps work on ALL parallel flow drum mix plants. Drum mix AC plants were first introduced in the early seventies. At the time, the new technology revolutionized our industry. Plants became highly portable and substantially more cost effective to operate. It was a time

THE ACCIDENT It had been a long day, in a month of long days. The Astec portable drum mix plant had produced nearly 5,000 tons of asphalt since daylight. The operator had shut the plant down and loaded out what he hoped was the last truck of the day ten minutes earlier. He sat at

Record keeping. We all hate the task but it’s important in a well run business. Without it we wouldn’t be able to track expenses, or payroll, or our most important asset: profits. While most of us tend to think of offices when we think of record keeping, there’s another place where it is useful. The

Thinking back on my travels around our great country working on various asphalt plants this last summer one recurrent theme stands out in my mind. Inconsistent sample results relating to material passing the 80 through 200 screens. I’ve encountered this at more than a few facilities in the North, the South, the East and the

It’s Sunday afternoon. The wife and kids flutter about the house, happy to have you home for a day after the grind you’ve endured– they’ve endured. For the first time in several months you can lay back and relax. Monday morning that new paving contract you’ve worked so hard to get ready for finally starts.

Mashing big rocks into little rocks. Crushers do this job well, if maintained and operated correctly. The products they give us are well suited to the task of building roads and satisfying the bureaucrats with their specifications. Drum mix AC plants use the stuff ‘as-is’ and don’t seem to suffer unduly. So why do we

Winter’s coming. And with it comes time to perform needed maintenance chores at the asphalt plant. When setting up a plan of attack some people find it helpful to use a checklist to determine which items need special attention and which ones need only regular servicing. What follows is the author’s inspection protocol, used to

Another winter is nearly here. With the paving season drawing to a close many companies’ thoughts are turning toward a winter repair regimen for their asphalt plants. It’s no secret in our industry that what you do to your plant in the off-season bears heavily on your success during the next paving season. Most asphalt

In an earlier article I talked about drier/mixer trunnion adjustment procedures. If followed, these procedures can go a long way toward restoring the functionality of your drier/mixer, hereafter referred to as the drum. There are instances, however, in which no amount of adjusting will correct the problems exhibited by a particular drum. Sometimes, the trunnions