Lindemann helps with Illinois shredder revamp

The Texas Shredder brand of Germany-based Lindemann helped manage a shredder upgrade project involving replacing a shredder housing for Loves Park, Illinois-based Cimco Resources.

Cimco Resources is a metals recycling business with six locations in Illinois. After 17 years of processing all types and grades of metals, including sheet iron, cast iron and plate steel, its shredder housing in Sterling, Illinois, was inevitably beginning to show signs of old age, the company says.

“They are operating a Metso 80 model, which is a kind of hybrid of our legacy Hammermills and Lindemann shredders, with a throughput of 80 to 100 tons per hour,” Keith Carroll, product manager for Texas Shredder, says of the Cimco installation.

“We installed it back in 2006, so it’s definitely seen some action. A poorly made shredder will typically have a functional life of 10 years or less, while a good one can last for 15 to 20 years, so Cimco’s box, at 17 years old, had done well, and was ready for retirement.”

With the rest of the system still in good working order and a large supply of wear parts on hand, a partial replacement was the right way to go, Texas Shredder concluded.

“The shredder box is the primary housing for everything—like the rotor, which is the beating heart of the machine,” says Carroll. “Then there’s the wear parts, such as liners, grates and other cast materials—all of which they keep in stock—that are used in the primary impact and abrasion aspects of the process. So, it made sense to reuse all these and just create a like-for-like replacement of the main steel box that holds it all together.”

With access to the original drawings and full control of the engineering intellectual property, Lindemann says it offered the most cost-and-performance effective means of creating a like-for-like replacement.

Having the original manufacturer involved also would ensure Cimco’s system remained high performing and, as all the connections with the rest of the system would be identical, the changeover could occur with minimal downtime, Lindemann says.

“The original box did a great job—it could really take a beating and keep on ticking,” says Ron Brenny, operations manager. “So, with their having the original drawings, I was confident Lindemann could do a good job in getting us a new one to match right up to our existing system.”

With Texas Shredding having operated as an outsource manufacturer since its inception, it selected a partner to carry out the fabrication for a project that was the put on hold because of COVID-19.

“Even when some initial problems arose on the manufacturing due to issues arising from COVID-19, they stepped right up to the plate and quickly found someone else to fabricate the box," Brenny says of Texas Shredder.

During the delay, the existing box continued to operate satisfactorily before the replacement box was delivered on three truckloads in May of this year.

Fewer than two weeks later, Cimco had installed and commissioned the new box, calling on Lindemann’s technical expertise when necessary. “We got it in, no problem,” Brenny says.

“One thing that never goes out of fashion at Lindemann is the support we give to all customers,” Carroll says. “Our promise of original-quality rebuilds and made-to-order replacement components ensures that even the oldest metal recycling systems can live to fight another day.”

Düssseldorf, Germany-based Lindemann Germany GmbH has an active global base of more than 2,000 machines installed, with the oldest having been installed more than 50 years ago.