Chapman opt for heavy-duty JCB excavators

Crushing and screening specialist using three JS370XD excavators for Bardon Hill Quarry Extension contract

SPECIALIST crushing and screening company Paul Chapman & Sons has put three JCB JS370XD crawler excavators to work on a three-year aggregate production contract at the Bardon Hill Quarry Extension, in Leicestershire.

The machines will help provide up to 13,000 tonnes of processed stone per day for client Aggregate Industries, while a new primary crusher is installed within the planned quarry extension.

Based in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, Chapman operate a fleet of 22 mobile crushers and 12 screens, in quarry and asphalt recycling sites across the UK. The business also has 16 crawler excavators, 19 wheel loaders, seven articulated dumptrucks and nine stackers of varying sizes.

All of the company’s excavators up to 37 tonnes operating weight are manufactured by JCB and supplied by local dealer Watling JCB. ‘I buy the XD heavy-duty models, not the standard plant hire JS370,’ said managing director Paul Chapman.

‘They come with heavy-duty belly plates, a reinforced dipper arm and additional protection. They do the job for me; you can’t fault them. You can put a JCB excavator against any machine of an equivalent size.’

Mr Chapman established the business in 1982. As with many start-up plant businesses, he sold his car to get the deposit for his first JCB 3C backhoe loader. Initially the company worked in groundworks on smaller projects, but this expanded into earthmoving and muckshifting, and, in 2006, the business diversified with its first mobile track-mounted crusher.

‘From that first 3C, everything under 37 tonnes has been JCB,’ he said. ‘I’ve always got on really well with Watling JCB; it’s the people there that have really made the difference.’

Over the years, Mr Chapman has built a strong relationship with the manufacturer too, and his company is one of a select few that will test new machinery, such as the recently introduced 220X, for JCB, providing feedback to the engineering teams prior to launch.

All of the company’s JCB excavators have been purchased with a three-year warranty and Watling JCB provide all regular service and back-up. That said, Chapman have a team of five in-house engineers working across the fleet, to ensure production levels for customers.

The three machines, currently two of Chapman’s own and one that has been hired in from local company JoinPoint, are working 16-hour days, six days a week, without any problems.

Operating in tough site conditions, two of the excavators are loading McCloskey J50 jaw crushers, which feed into Sandvik cone crushers to produce a Type 1 aggregate in a variety of sizes. The third machine is loading a GIPO 1490 crusher to produce a single-size product.

The quarry at Bardon Hill has been a feature of the local community for more than 100 years and now provides the headquarters location for Aggregate Industries as well as being a working production site.

With permissions for the extraction of rock for at least another 40 years, the site extension will improve production at the quarry and provide increased efficiencies, with the new in-pit crushing system.