Pompa Brothers

When Eric LaRoche, GM at Pompa Brothers, Inc., reached out to Samscreen he was in the market for an innovative screening solution because he knew he could be getting more from his screening and crushing plant. As a leading manufacturer of specialty screening solutions, Samscreen was the right call. Our customer service team was eager to understand LaRoche’s unique screening challenges so that they could recommend a unique solution.

Located in Saratoga Springs, just minutes from the Saratoga Horse Racing Track, Pompa Brothers is an important producer of the fine, specialty crushed stone used for the track and for horse stables in the surrounding area. LaRoche produces this stone, as well as other stone and sand products, with a circuit of 2 stationary screening plants and 2 crushing cones. It was at the primary screening and crushing station that LaRoche was dealing with some vexing problems. Overall through-put was being reduced by near size material pegging of the 7’X20’ top screening deck’s woven wire panels, slowing down the entire operation. The pegging problem slowed down through-put in two significant ways: 1.) By the progressive loss of screen open area throughout the production day, and 2.) By requiring an early shut-down of the screening machine each day so that the screen deck could be cleaned it off. LaRoche knew there must be a better way and he was right!

Our Samscreen customer service rep recognized immediately that a self-cleaning MAX Kleen™ screen could eliminate Larouche’s pegging issue. A Kleen-D style MAX Kleen with a 1 ¼” opening and 6mm wire was recommended as a one-to-one replacement for the existing woven wire. With a flat, non-woven wire surface, bound only by a few urethane strips, the Kleen-D screen design makes it impossible for rocks to become permanently lodged in the screen openings. And the production advantages of a MAX Kleen screen don’t just stop at the prevention of pegging – the extra lively vibration allowed by independently attached wires, speeds up material stratification and through-put as well!

Not having worked with self-cleaning screens previously, LaRoche initially installed MAX Kleen panels on the bottom deck of his secondary screening plant and only on the upper third of the primary screening plant’s top deck, to test out their effectiveness. The installation on the primary top deck ended up being an excellent side-by-side comparison of MAX Kleens versus wovens! As can be seen in the photo below, when tested by the same material flow, the MAX Kleen D panels stayed relatively clear while the woven wire panels pegged over significantly.

An additional unexpected benefit to using MAX Kleen screens was the improvement in material cleanliness. MAX Kleen’s ultra efficient, fast material stratification produced a clean finished pile the first time through (which hadn’t previously been possible) and sent oversize material to the crusher without small fines contamination. The resultant savings in operating costs and the reduction of wear and tear on the crusher are significant. After the initial test run, swapping out the remaining woven wire panels on the top screen deck with MAX Kleens was an easy choice!

Even with MAX Kleens installed only on the bottom deck of the secondary screening plant and half of the primary screener’s top deck, for the majority of the season, the overall production gains were startling! At the beginning of August, LaRoche estimated he had the same amount of product on the ground as he ordinarily did in October, with consistent peak production rates at 550TPH! And this is all while being able to shut down most Fridays to perform routine maintenance tasks and give workers time off – a luxury the plant previously never had. Taken together, the gains in production efficiency from faster through-put, the elimination of manual screen de-pegging, and no more piles going through the screener twice, allowed LaRoche to nearly double his overall production from the year before!