Bano’s Ripper Frank tears past expectations

In just two months of operation, Nick Marcezin says his new Bano Recycling Ripper Frank 2500 Series preshredder already has sparked increased production at his Depew, New York, scrap yard. 

Marcezin is the second-generation owner of his family’s business, Twin Village Recycling Inc., which has operated several facilities in the Buffalo, New York, area since 1946. The 15-acre Depew site houses the Ripper Frank, and the machine—a brand new model in Bano’s product line—has helped reduce the burden on its shredder. 

“We decided to put [the preshredder] in, and it’s working beautifully,” Marcezin says. “Actually, I was amazed at how good it works. It has met all my expectations and then some.” 

Twin Village receives a lot of bulky scrap, such as trailers, and Marcezin says the Ripper Frank handles that material with ease. “[Some material] used to get wrapped around our [shredder] grates and would plug them up,” he says. “Now, we don’t have that problem.” 

Additionally, the company uses the preshredder to process cars, washing machines, refrigerators, drums, propane tanks and more, and it has proven helpful with unshreddables as well as the prevention of thermal events.  

“I’m sure it’s going to help our wear parts, too, because it makes the shredder much faster,” Marcezin says. “Actually, our shredder can’t keep up with our preshredder. It’s very good.” 

The Ripper Frank runs about eight hours per day, five days per week at Twin Village and was installed over the course of several days in October. Marcezin says Bano, based in Italy, has been a great partner since he chose the machine. 

“The company itself is pretty meticulous,” he says. “They broke all their plans down for us. [The preshredder] has done everything they said it would do and then some. They did what they said. They were on time with the deliveries, and their technicians came out here and set everything up and trained us. We’re pleased with everything.” 

The Ripper Frank is a new model named after Bano’s first U.S. customer, Frank D’Angelo of Jersey City, New Jersey-based County Auto Wreckers LLC. D’Angelo purchased his first machine from Bano in 2011 and later helped the company improve the Ripper’s design. 

In turn, Bano named its newest version of the Ripper after him. 

“I was shocked, actually,” D’Angelo says of the honor. “I was excited and, hopefully, down the road when this one wears out, I’ll get Frank No. 2.” 

D’Angelo, whose family-owned yard has occupied its 1.5-acre location since 1968, says his company lives by its preshredding operation given the yard’s smaller size. “If we didn’t have this, we’d have material falling out into the street,” he says of the Ripper. “It keeps us up and keeps material flowing every day. We pull out all the nonferrous, and it processes the material for us. Without it we’d be in trouble. It brings us into the 21st century instead of the Stone Age.” 

The Ripper operates eight hours per day, five days per week at County Auto Wreckers and is fed material that includes motors, transmissions, semitrailers, light iron and some nonferrous. It processes around 700 tons per week. 

D’Angelo looked at a preshredder he’d been renting in 2011 and, though he was happy with its performance, he noticed he would like to have something more customized to his working conditions and company setup. Already a Bano customer after purchasing a shredder in 2010, he reached out to the company and said he wanted a more customized version of his rented preshredder. “So, we worked together, and Bano came up with the Ripper machine,” he says. “And that’s how it started. So, this was kind of like [the rental] on steroids.” 

“Bano answered our call, and they came through with this. We’ve had it for about five years now. It works great.” 

The Ripper Frank 2500 Series is comprised of two-shaft shredders with asynchronous reversible rotors, suitable for processing light ferrous and nonferrous bales and preshredding end-of-life vehicles, construction and demolition, industrial and electronic scrap, according to Bano, which says the variable speed and torque rotors reverse their direction when necessary and interchange their function according to programmable and customizable work cycles. 

When installed before a shredding line with a hammer mill, Bano says the Ripper Frank facilitates loading by producing a uniform and homogeneous feed, lowering wear and maintenance costs for the hammer mill, decreasing operating costs and increasing total capacity and value. 

“Bano becomes like family to you,” D’Angelo says. “I was [in Italy] years ago and toured their facility and was impressed with them. … You felt a connection with them. They came up with this machine, customized it to our needs and it’s been working great ever since. They’ve been phenomenal with [customer service].”