Screening in Scotland

15 February, 2022

First published in the February 2022 issue of Quarry Management as

McCloskey Equipment take a look at how a number of their machines are exceeding expectations screening some of the hardest rocks in the UK

With its unique geological formations, material processing in Scotland is tough business. The country’s rock is known for being hard and highly abrasive, some of it having formed over millions of years into dense, solid stone, and it is not uncommon for Scottish quarry operations to employ two crushers, a primary jaw and secondary cone, before screening and processing material.

This particular journey starts with Nairn-based G.F. Job, who operate two McCloskey screeners, an R155 and an S190 Triple Deck, at Castlecraig Quarry, where plant and quarry manager Graeme Watt said: ‘We have a pair of McCloskey machines for our screening operation here in Nigg. The S190 was here first and then we bought the R155 in 2021. Both are worked hard, with the R155 having had more than 250,000 tonnes of granite across it in its first 12 months alone.’

According to McCloskey, the R155 is particularly well suited to GF Job’s operation. A tough, robust screening tool, it is designed for the heaviest of applications and to minimize material pre-handling. With its ‘high-energy’ screenbox and 155ft2 screening area, the largest in its class, the R155 can handle the worst, untreated, and most difficult materials, such as heavy rock, fines, and boulder clay.

Explaining the challenges of his operation, Mr Watt continued: ‘One of the main uses of the material coming off the belts is road building, thanks to its hard-wearing characteristics. These properties also make it a difficult material to process, but the McCloskey screens are more than up to the job and far superior to our previous machines; it was the performance of our first S190 that prompted us to invest in a second machine. Both are highly efficient at their job, needing just one pass over the screen. This reduces wear, fuel costs and processing time.’

Heading south, the next stop is at Williamson Groundworks, in Speybridge, an owner/operator business which utilizes a McCloskey R70 for contract screening. Owner Sean Williamson commented: ‘We chose the McCloskey R70 for two main reasons; its compact size and manoeuvrability, which make transport easy, even around the smallest of sites, and the high performance of the machine.’

The McCloskey R70 is well suited to contractors. Effectively taking the heavy-duty configuration of larger R-Series machines and packaging it into an easily transportable design, the R70 is more than capable of any number of smaller, heavy-duty construction, demolition, and remediation projects.

‘Despite its size, it does an outstanding job screening a wide range of material,’ continued Mr Williamson. ‘It is predominantly used for contract work, and its high efficiency reduces our running costs whilst delivering fantastic results for our customers, many of whom are removing rocks, stones, and bricks from waste to create quality topsoil. This allows our customers to re-use product, reducing waste. The performance of the machine directly reflects on us as a business, providing a quality service.’

The final stop on this journey around north-east Scotland is at Blackhills Quarry, near Aberdeen, where Leiths Group operate a McCloskey R230, one of the most robust, durable, and powerful heavy-duty mobile screeners at work around the world today. Designed to provide high levels of production in heavy-duty scalping operations, the R230 screener joined Leiths Group’s fleet in 2018 when the company undertook a particularly tough assignment providing thousands of tonnes of rock armour for Aberdeen Harbour.

A Leiths Group spokesman explained: ‘The R230 was a new addition to the fleet, brought in specifically for this job. Over a three-year period, it processed thousands of tonnes of blasted rock, direct from the rock face, and it did an amazing job. It impressed all of us from the moment it arrived on site.

‘We operate a mixed fleet of machines, but everyone here holds the McCloskey R230 in high regard. It’s a favourite with our operators, as its very easy to use and reliable. Our fitters like working on the machine because it is so accessible, which maximizes our uptime.

‘From my perspective, it’s a complete package; it was keenly priced, it’s very reliable and incredibly durable, the running costs are low, and, most importantly, we always get a great quality product off the belt.

‘For the harbour, our primary focus was large pieces of granite, in sizes ranging from 1kg to 500kg. The R230 was a lifesaver for us, handling material beyond our expectations. We’ve also used a McCloskey jaw crusher, which was equally impressive. We wouldn’t hesitate in buying another McCloskey, as the performance has been outstanding and the support from McCloskey Equipment is second to none.’

In Aberdeen, where thousands of tonnes of rock from Blackhills Quarry now protect the city’s harbour, seeing the North Sea crashing against this defence provides a vivid illustration of just how tough the material is, and how robust the machines need to be to process thousands of tonnes of it, day in, day out.