|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 7/26/2007
Posts: 1,134
Location: Sweden
|
Hello everybody! I was watching this clip on YT yesterday; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnWXJXkCesc&feature=g-u-u and started thinking about what the benefits of a scrap magnet is over a grab. In my opinion the grabs are more common and you get more material moved per pass with a grab than a magnet. But that is just my thoughts, anyone here have more info to share on this?
//Niklas Eriksson
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 12/25/2006
Posts: 4,275
Location: Woodland, WA
|
While both have their places, orange peel grapples seem to be more common in scrap yards than magnets. For the reasons you cite; more material per pass, in addition to that, grapples are a little more reliable, and have a faster cycle time in a uniform material. ( a pile of clean steel, where sorting foreign material is not neccissary. A grapple also allows the operator to pick non ferrous material without changing attachments. A novice operator can destroy a magnet very easily by leaving the magnet on too long and overheating/ burning up the coils.
However, on a demo job, magnets are indispensable, as they'll only pick steel, and leave dirt/ concrete/debris behind, which can dramatically reduce the price the scrap yard will pay for the steel.
Eric W. Pioszak, Operating Engineers Local 701, Portland, Oregon
METAL TRACKS AVAILABLE AGAIN!
Cab guards Available again!
Grapples Available again!
Industrialscalemodels[at symbol]Gmail.com
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 6/5/2007
Posts: 2,760
Location: Sarasota, Florida, USA
|
Most scrap yards I've seen use a magnet. They use it because most everyone that brings in the scrap does not separate it into steel, aluminum and so on. so the magnet does sort it better. I have also noticed from some pics on here there are places that have magnets on their grapples as a combination unit to serve both purposes!!
I worked at a scrap yard back in 1978, back then the grapple they had was a small crane with a clam bucket and another with a magnet.
Dain
I'm a kid at heart, so I will play with any model construction vehicle from 1:87 scale to 1:1 scale!!!!
Age is a state of time NOT a state of mind!!
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/25/2010
Posts: 112
Location: Nebraska
|
The place i work at now has a liebherr 944 with magnet and we use for mostly seperating wheel disks,railroad,shear products,pipe and for loading small 30 yd containers and for picking up around small pieces of scrap around the yard (so cars or trucks dont get pop tires) but the grapples are mostly used for loading trucks and seperating bigger peices of ferrous and non ferrous products but most of the time for really tearing stuff apart we use our cat 330bl with thumb and bucket. which eric loves  but magnets are really used for smaller stuff and dont have an advantage like big loads like a grapple. heres a video of a our liebherr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IASVUDVEHM0
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 7/10/2007
Posts: 816
Location: UK Stratford on Avon
|
I used to do quite a bit of welding work in a large scrap yard a few years ago. They had what was shown on the Discovery Channel as the worlds biggest shredder there at the time and that was fed pretty much non stop by a grab/grabble. The end product though was then sorted by both machine and hand and the end resulting ferrous metal was in huge shimmering ( with heat ) piles that had to be loaded into wagons by magnet purely due to the fact that the majority of pieces were no larger than your fist. Anything larger was usually sent back through the shredder again. Andy
How to search the forums
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 12/21/2007
Posts: 2,876
Location: Eastern Pennsylvania
|
My local scrapyards have a combination of both magents and peel graples. The magnets are good for loading and unloading trucks (that can't dump their load), and to load rail cars. I see the grapples used to sort metal around the yard, load the shredder, etc. The only magnet I saw on a demolition site was hooked up to a Cat 320 to move scrap rebar coming out of a crusher, and to load it into a dumpster.
-Mike, Collecting 1/50th Construction Diecast Since 2003. View My Collection Here, As of 03/29/24
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 12/25/2006
Posts: 4,275
Location: Woodland, WA
|
Cat345bl wrote:The only magnet I saw on a demolition site was hooked up to a Cat 320 to move scrap rebar coming out of a crusher, and to load it into a dumpster. Magnets are rather specialized when it comes to demo jobs, Companies either swear by them or don't use them at all. On large industrial projects, they are used to clean the "tire-getters" from the site roads, load trucks/rail cars, pre-screen excess rebar out of the concrete before going through the crusher, clean metal from concrete being used as backfill material...also when preparing iron with a shear, you are very fortunate if you have a sturdy slab to work on, most times you're cutting in the mud, which when loading with with any tool besides a magnet goes in the load with the steel. Two of the four demolition companies I've worked for had at least two mags on every Large project, at one time on a single project for MCM we had a Fuchs 360, Cat W345BMH, Cat 345BMH and Cat W330MH Here's a unique thing you can do with a mag, that you can't do with a standard scrap grapple: By rigging up a cable and 20' welding leads as extensions, you can pull steel out of a deep pit (in this case, a reactor pit at a former nuclear power plant) with a standard excavator, Where the PC600 can't reach the bottom of the hole, the PC400 with mag extension has no issue:     
Eric W. Pioszak, Operating Engineers Local 701, Portland, OregonMETAL TRACKS AVAILABLE AGAIN! Cab guards Available again! Grapples Available again! Industrialscalemodels[at symbol]Gmail.com
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/25/2010
Posts: 112
Location: Nebraska
|
ya thats what magnets are really for is honestly finish work,for making a pile look good or there is like "tire getters" like eric said thats what there used for!
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 11/26/2008
Posts: 2,559
Location: Edmonton, AB
|
A good advantage with magnets is that it will pick-up every smaller bits a grapple won't be able to catch.
|
|
|
Guest |
