Catawba Baler unveils Gold Rush series

Catawba Baler & Equipment (CB&E), Greensboro, North Carolina, has introduced the Gold Rush Series 12/9 two-ram baler with optional Free Jam technology. The company says the balers are the market’s only two-ram balers that can “quickly and safely eject jammed recyclables from the charge chamber without manually digging out the material.”

CB&E says the new technology replaces the “gathering wall” of a conventional baler with a patent-pending jam-release system. The system gives operators push-button control over the Free Jam release door to clear jams in a matter of minutes, according to the company.

“Recycling facilities operating conventional two-ram balers know all too well the time and danger associated with manually clearing a jam in the charge chamber,” says Mark McDonald, president of CB&E. “Our optional Free Jam system on our Gold Rush Series baler is all about operator safety. It virtually eliminates the need for a person to enter the baler to manually clear a jam. Operating a conventional two-ram baler without push-button jam-release technology is like purchasing a new car today without airbags. ”

CB&E also says the new Free Jam system on its Gold Rush series balers increases profit potential for any recycling facility operating conventional two-ram balers. McDonald says medium-size operations baling 2,500 tons of material per month can save more than $300,000 annually in lost labor and production revenue. “An operation of that size will experience about 10 jams per month on average. This results in unproductive man-hours and expense for clearing jams and more than 150 lost bale-tons of productivity. Material jams are extremely expensive for a recycling operation,” McDonald states.

The Free Jam system also enhances baler accessibility and serviceability, according to CB&E. The Free Jam door opens to offer what it calls unobstructed access to the charge chamber from ground level for hydraulic cylinder maintenance and wear plate inspection and replacement.

The baler’s wear plates are constructed of 0.5-inch Hardox 500 material and the Underwrites Laboratory-listed baler is custom-built to customer specifications and manufactured in the United States, says McDonald. The baler also has a heavy-duty reinforced subframe and side walls.

Other features listed by CB&E include:

• twin 75-horsepower electric motors allow continuous operation even if one motor is out of service;
• laser-guided tracking of the press bars with a redundant proximity switch, permitting operation in case of laser malfunction; and
• redundant filtration in the form of a 10-micron main kidney loop with high-pressure filters and additional in-line high-pressure filters that is designed to safeguard the hydraulic system and O-rings from particle damage.