Plumstead’s deposit is largely argillite, and a key market is for stone that meets state specs. “If you’re cleaning for a state spec, you’re under stricter regulations because your stone has to meet certain cleanliness standards,” he explains. The stone passes through wash screws and an on-site lab tech performs the requisite wash test to guarantee it meets the state specs.

“As long as you can control blinding, you’re not going to get the carryover on the deck and won’t get fines in the 1/2-inch or 3/4-inch product,” Grove says. “If you can control blinding, you generally have a quality product coming out to sell.”

During the winter months, the wash screws are taken out of line for repair and rebuild. He says that, because the site is still adapting to the impact of the new crusher, the lab tech is running the wash test every day, and sometimes twice a day. “We’re actually under our wash test requirements, without even running the wash screws,” Grove says. He attributes those results to quality material, cooperative weather, and a wire screen on the bottom deck that keeps grit and fines out of the rock.

“On this site, our uptime is sometimes 100 hours a week to produce for demand,” Grove explains.

“We run two shifts, so we’re going to wear things out twice as fast. We do change things more often. If we can find things that don’t wear out as quickly, I’ll spend a little more to get it.”