magazine C o m b i w e a r pa rt s
a newsletter for us who love to dig
NEW DESIGNER Page 6
dalby maskin Page 7
OFFICIAL OPENING IN LJUNGBY page 4-5
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
Properly equipped for the job combiwearparts.com
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
page six
SOFT AND HARD
page nine
intermat
NEW ADDITION WINTER IN TO THE PRO- SWEDEN – CLAWS RANGE TIME TO GO FISHING ProClaws is now available for excavators in the 25-35 tonne class. The size is called W09 and the range now comprises a standard tooth weighing 8.9 kg, 286 mm long and 103 mm wide. There are two adapters, one for a 40 mm cut and one for 50 mm. The locking mechanism is mechanical and has the same design as the other sizes. If you need more information about W09 or other teeth, please call or email your contact at Combi Wear Parts or contact your local retailer.
A lot of people love the ice and snow of winter in Sweden, especially those winter fishermen who enjoy sitting out on thick ice on a lake waiting for fish to bite. It’s usually just a simple question of getting out there – but you should check if you need a fishing licence first.
Ice fishing Swedes call it ‘pimpling’ and they use a short hand-held rod. First you drill your hole in the ice, then you lower a reef with jig and hook down into the water. You could use maggots or fly larvae as bait. You pull gently on the rod to make the jig move and attract some fish. In southern Sweden you’ll mostly catch perch and in the north you’ll catch char, but you can also go ice fishing for whitefish, pike and burbot. So, just wait for a nice sunny winter’s day, dress up warm, take a thermos of coffee and start fishing.
Don’t forget that the ice on Swedish lakes can get up to 50 cm thick, so it might take some time to drill through it. Good luck! 3
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
NEW PRODUCTION LINE
GRAND OPENING IN LJUNGBY
Combi Wear Parts and Keycast Foundry Group officially opened the new production line in Ljungby on 14 November 2014 with some grand ceremony. The new line is right next to the Combi Wear Parts plant that will supply the new production line with melts.
foundry and production will now be more efficient and flexible. Modern technology will mean that total capacity will be around 12,000 tonnes, making the Ljungby plant a world leader in its field.
It’s 30 years since a new foundry was built in Sweden, so it’s no exaggeration to describe the project as unique. The new production line has been in full production since the start of 2015 following the official opening in November 2014. The old foundry had been in operation for 100 years and has now closed down completely. It took around six months to move 200 products from the old plant to the new one, a tough job that was successfully completed thanks to
4
the commitment of staff at Combi Wear Parts.
Double capacity The new, highly modern and eco-friendly plant has double the capacity compared with the old
Niclas Wechselberger, market and technology manager for Combi Wear Parts says: “Combi Wear Parts and Keycast Foundry Group now both have cutting-edge competence in foundry technology and processing. This means we can compete better on international markets, specifically for complicated forged products. The official opening was a very exciting day for us as we were able to show the new plant to local politicians, municipal staff and other members of the business community in and around Ljungby.”
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
A riddle Imagine that you are a digger operator who comes to a new town and have to find the mine where you will begin work. You come to a road junction. There’s a road to the right, and one to the left. This is when your sat nav breaks down. One of the roads is correct, but which one? Next to the road to the left stands a man wearing a hat. Next to the road to the right stands a man wearing sunglasses.
First bridge made of forged iron
The problem is that one of the men always lies, the other tells the truth. You can ask just one of the men one question. So what question do you ask to find the right road to the mine?
Some clues If you ask ‘what is the right way to the mine?’, you don’t know whether you will receive the truth or a lie. If you ask ‘Is Stockholm the capital of Sweden?’ then you will hear from the answer if the man is telling the truth, but you will not find out the way to the mine, and you can only ask one question. So you have to ask a smarter question. The answer to this riddle is on another page of this magazine.
The first massive structure made of forged iron was the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England, which was declared open on New Year’s Day 1781. The builder, Abraham Darby, used the same dimensions for the bridge as if he had been making it in wood. That meant that when one of the beams broke due to faulty forging there were enough other beams to take the strain and keep the bridge standing. The next forged iron bridge to be built used half the
amount of iron even though it was longer than Iron Bridge. Quite simply, Iron Bridge was the prototype for future iron bridges and since 1934 it has become a sightseeing attraction, if also a beautiful building memorial. For safety’s sake only pedestrians are now permitted to cross the bridge.
5
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
COMBI WEAR PARTS PRESENTS
OUR NEW DESIGNER Jonas Lindblad, who recently celebrated his 30th birthday, started work as a designer at our head office in Kristinehamn in January 2015. He previously worked as designer for durability calculations and general engineering design for a consulting firm in Karlskoga.
Jonas studied mechanical engineering at Karlstad University. When we asked what he brings to Combi Wear Parts, Jonas answers that he is good at finding solutions and he understands that time is money, something you learn quickly as a consultant. Jonas lives with his wife and newly born daughter in a house beside the lake in the small village of Skattkärr, about 30 km west of Kristinehamn. The lake in question is Vänern, the third largest lake in Europe, which we wrote about in the last edition of this magazine. Naturally, Jonas spends most of his spare time with his family. If there is any spare time over he likes to be with his best friend (they first met when they were two years old!) who still lives nearby. Jonas also likes computer programming, although it’s just a hobby, he says modestly.
Soft and hard Both diamonds and graphite consist solely of carbon. So how come they are such different materials? The answer is that it depends on the composition of the carbon atoms. In graphite the atoms are bound to each other in thin layers, and the bonds between layers are weak. That means that the layers can fall apart, which makes graphite so soft.
6
Graphite is used for lubricants or in ball-point pens, for example. In diamonds, on the other hand, the atoms are arranged in an extremely strong 3D network. Pressure and temperature determine the crystal structure formed by the carbon atoms. Of course, a diamond ring is much more exciting than one made of graphite.
Ten years ago Jonas did his military national service overseas. He was part of the peace-keeping team in Kosovo. This experience left him with a taste for adventure, and he would like to visit the South American jungle, which is not well-known for all-inclusive luxury. This will no doubt have to wait until his daughter gets older so until then the family would like to visit more civilised places such as the US, Thailand or Vietnam. The main thing is that they visit somewhere with a hot climate, says Jonas. Jonas does have one hidden talent. He’s brilliant at barbecuing. No matter what he puts over charcoal, the result will taste excellent. So if you ever pass by Skattkärr on a warm summer’s evening and wonder what smells so good, it’s just Jonas busy at his barbecue.
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
LARGE BUCKET
DALBY MASKIN
We have written previously about Dalby Maskin, just one of many satisfied customers of Combi Wear Parts. Dalby Maskin operates the 55 quarry and recycling station located just outside the city of Uppsala in Sweden. Dalby Maskin is a family business with around 17 employees that produce around 700,000 tonnes of crushed rock products a year. Recently, Dalby Maskin contacted Combi Wear Parts with a special request they needed help with importing what by Swedish standards was an unusually large bucket. There was no company in Sweden that could make a bucket in the size that Dalby Maskin wanted. Combi Wear Parts contacted Corazza, an Italian company with great experience of large buckets. Corazza has been both a customer
and partner of Combi Wear Parts for many years and they offered to produce the bucket exactly as Dalby Maskin wanted. The bucket measures a full 7.0 cubic metres and weighs 9.1 tonnes. It is used on a Liebherr R984C, a 120-tonne class digger. The bucket is equipped with ProClaws size W40 including lip shroud, side shroud, heel shroud and ProMite wear buttons. This bucket is easily the largest one used in Sweden for quarrying. This is what Jesper Sundström, operations manager at Dalby Maskin, has to say about it: “We use the bucket on the machine to load crushed rock and it works very well. To crush the rock we use a large steel ball that weighs nine tonnes. The ball is lifted in the bucket and then dropped onto the rock, which is then crushed. To protect the bucket it has a rail that
the ball rests against so the ball is prevented from wrecking the sides and bottom of the bucket. Therefore the bucket has a double function which makes it very cost effective.” Dalby Maskin has previously installed ProClaws sizes W10 and W25 on two other machines, so they are used to of the high quality of Combi Wear Parts products. Jesper Sundström continues: “We are very impressed with the wear strength of Combi Wear Parts products. That goes for the entire range, not least the ProMite wear buttons. They are both fun and serious to work with as a company, which is important for us,” says a smiling Jesper.
7
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
Rare earth metals These are the metals that have lived more untouched compared to the better-known metals, but they have gradually become more interesting. The reason for this increasing interest is that they have unique characteristics and versatility that are making them indispensable in many of our most common products such as mobile phones, washing machines, cars, computers, and wind turbines. They help make stronger magnets, harder alloys and lower resistance in electrical circuits. Earth metals are important because of their economic, technical and environmental aspects.
To be really honest, they are not particularly rare. They are scattered in the Earth’s rocks, and in fact the rarest of rare earth metals is nearly 200 times more common than gold. However, it is rare to find deposits that are large and concentrated enough for it to be profitable to extract them. It is therefore much more complicated and much more expensive to extract earth metals than other metals. The countries with the largest production of rare earth metals are USA, Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Russia and China.
Production
Here is the process by which an earth metal is extracted:
The ingots are converted into components.
Group Period
Lanthanides Actinides
17 rare earth metals Scandium, yttrium, plus the lanthanides: Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium and Lutetium.
8
Earth metals are mined and transported away from the deposit.
Separation The oxides are separated from the ore.
Refining The metals are refined into metals with varying levels of purity.
Casting Then they are melted into ingots.
Manufacture
C o m b i w e a r pa rt s m a g a z i n e
Answer to the riddle This year, as before, Combi Wear Parts will be exhibiting at Intermat in Paris. This year the exhibition is being held on 20-25 April, and we are at stand 5a F 027. As usual we have a lot of interesting products on show, and we really hope to meet you there.
Glowing metal If you have ever visited a foundry working in full production then you have undoubtedly seen melted iron. The colour of the melt depends on the temperature. Because the colour comes from heat rays, the colour of all metals is the same at any tempe-
rature. The table shows how the colour changes as the temperature rises. As you probably noticed during your visit, the melted iron was whiter, so its temperature was around 1,560°C.
Temperature °C Colour of heat rays
600 Soft glowing 700 Dark red 900 Cherry red 1100 Orange red 1200 Yellow orange 1300 Yellow 1500 White 1600 Blue-white
Ask one of the men what road the other man would point to as the right road to the mine, and then take the other road. The key is finding a question with two parts. If you ask the truth teller, he will tell the truth about what road the other man will point to. And since the other man is the liar, he would point to the wrong road. If you ask the liar, he will tell a lie about what road the other man will point to. So the liar will also point to the wrong road. Both men will therefore point to the wrong road. So you just need to take the other road.
We are now on Facebook. Why not go in and see what we are writing about. And don’t forget to ‘like’ us!
www.combiwearparts.com 9