For Your Consideration

In his role as owner of Colton Equipment Inc., Temecula, Calif., Steve Colton has helped recyclers through a range of steps as they outfit their plants. These steps include researching and shopping for equipment followed by installation, training, maintenance and repair of purchased equipment.

In an interview with Recycling Today’s Brian Taylor, Colton offers his comments on what recyclers need to consider before they make a major capital investment in new baling machinery.

Steve Colton: With a single-ram baler, ram face slot covers can be helpful in preventing thin pieces from slipping through the ram face into the auto-tie needle "pockets."

With either single- or two-ram balers, a multi-height floor can be helpful. It helps keep material from wedging under the ram and has the added benefit of providing extra ram guidance to minimize side-to-side "scrubbing" of the baler floor and the liner on the underside of the ram.

With two-rams the ram face pressure should be close to 200 psi. A lot of models in the 150-psi range just can’t get the necessary export density.

Depth of ram penetration is also a factor with two-ram balers in order to get full pressure on the material early in the formation of the bale. Penetration is not a factor with single-ram balers, as the extrusion style gets full pressure on every stroke.

SC: When OCC is in the mix in any appreciable amount, the customer must choose a model with a large feed opening.

SC: Some plastics require a large opening as well, but blown shapes like bottles can be handled nicely with a small opening. This holds down frame size, cylinder size and overall cost.

In general, single-rams struggle with many plastic materials. They have a limited number of bale wires (usually four to six), and the bales must be made short.

Two-rams have the ability to use any number of extra wires to contain the memory and spring-back of plastics. However, two-rams have less throughput per horsepower than single-rams, so in that regard they are less efficient. We address this Catch 22 with every customer.

The decision boils down to percentages. If plastics are 2 percent of their total volume, the single-ram is usually chosen to avoid having the tail wag the dog. But if plastics are 30 percent, the two-ram is more appropriate.

In the larger plants, we are now seeing a trend toward two-baler systems. A large single-ram for fiber is used along with a two-ram for plastics, other minority grades and for backup when the single-ram is down or overwhelmed.

SC: Operations that have strictly confidentially shredded paper usually select a single-ram with a small feed opening. This holds down the price considerably vs. a large feed opening model.

If OCC or other large material is in the mix, a large feed opening is of course required. In either case, ram face slot covers are helpful on single rams.

Two-rams perform well on confidentially shredded paper as well.

With either style baler, a little water goes a long way toward improving bale quality and helping with dust control.

The shredders that make long strips of paper have a lower dust content and make excellent bales. The higher-rpm shredders that make more square pieces generally have a higher dust content, but still make good bales, especially with a solenoid-controlled water mist system.

Many companies have a pneumatic dust control system as well, usually located over the infeed conveyor.

SC: Baling wire, like all steel products, has gone up considerably in recent years. In fact most wire suppliers have another 3 to 4 percent increase effective Jan. 1, 2008.

It can be surprisingly difficult to figure wire costs per ton.

First, you have to know the price of the wire per pound and the number of feet of wire per pound. This varies considerably depending on the gauge of wire used.

Second, you have to know the number of feet of wire per bale. This varies according to bale size and number of wires used per bale.

And, third, you have to know the weight of the bale to convert to wire cost per ton.

After you’ve done all this, you still need a crystal ball to predict what will happen to wire costs in the future. About the only safe bet is that it probably won’t go down.

SC: When customers shop for a baler, a number of questions need to be addressed.

Three critical topics are involved in almost every case:

Colton Equipment Inc. offers more than 150 different models of balers. That seems a bit excessive on the surface, but the fact is we need that many models to make sure we tailor each machine to the specific application.

There are different horsepower choices, cylinder sizes, bale sizes, feed opening sizes, etc., that all come into play in the equation. Then there are choices on various optional features.

Needless to say this can be a confusing maze for the inexperienced buyer. It is essential to have an experienced dealer to help inform the customer when making these choices.

It’s a bit shocking how many mis-applications we run across.

The two most common mistakes are:

In the real world if you’re going to average five tons per hour, the baler had better be capable of 10 to 15 tons per hour. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen brand new installations that have no room for growth, or even struggle to keep up with current volume.

A dealer got the order by being the cheapest, and the customer got stuck with an under-sized machine.

SC: Installations are so case-specific, I can’t really generalize.

For installers, a brand new building is best—then it’s a piece of cake. Sometimes it’s a real challenge when the new system has to go where the old one was. If you have to change the conveyor, that gets even more involved, especially if it’s a wider conveyor because then there is concrete work involved.

SC: This can change depending on market conditions, but right now normal deliveries are in this range:

1) Small single-rams, two to three months;

2) Large single-rams, three to four months;

3) Small two-rams, three to four months; and

4) Large two-rams, four to six months.

Colton Equipment Inc. sells and installs equipment for American Baler, Karl Schmidt & Associates and other manufacturers. Owner Steve Colton can be reached at sgcolton@aol.com.