Are you crushing it with the right chamber for your C Series™ jaw crusher?

The Quarry profile has a flat-tooth design and plenty of manganese surface area to crush with. It is an all-rounder, and we actually have two versions of it, normal thickness and increased thickness, aptly called Quarry thick, which slightly reduces the maximum feed opening and maximum closed side setting (CSS).

Changing from the Quarry profile to something else can at first seem daunting, as Metso has so many profiles available for the perfect application fit. But worry not. Let’s take a look at the offering and walk through the main profiles and see how they differ from Quarry.

The first stop is the Quarry fixed jaw + Super grip movable jaw combination chamber. Let’s start easy by changing just the movable jaw. Why? Because the fixed jaw die typically wears out faster than the movable. So having the Quarry profile with its flat tooth attached to the front frame of the crusher can still be a good idea.

Have you ever seen a jaw crusher operating with a tight CSS, where the slippery feed material is just jumping up and down the chamber and not going through? That is the result of poor grip and it reduces the capacity of the whole plant. The sharp teeth of Super grip, as the name suggests, provide higher surface pressure and thus better grip between manganese and the rock. This smaller contact surface also reduces the energy needed to initiate a crack to the rock, often lowering power draw.

Also, quite typically, scalping, the removal of fines (material smaller than the CSS) from the jaw feed, is not very efficient and fines end up in the chamber. When running with a tight closed side setting, fines can cause packing, where fines compress to a near solid density. Trying to crush that causes high crushing forces and can even buckle the toggle plate as a result. Having big valleys (open space) between the teeth helps to avoid that and is just what Super grip provides over Quarry.

Speaking of big valleys between the teeth, take a look at the Coarse Corrugated (CC) jaw chamber, which was just recently launched globally. The total number of teeth in the Coarse Corrugated chamber is low, but the individual tooth width and valley width is massive! And the teeth height is also ideal especially for the fixed jaw, meaning loads of manganese.

The profile of the teeth is round-ish, which is somewhere in between Quarry’s flat and Super grip’s sharp profiles. I would say CC has the best characteristics of both chambers, its wear life is longer than in Super grip, and grip and overall performance is somewhat better than Quarry, making it very easy to recommend for trial in all applications. What is particularly impressive in CC jaws is how long they keep the round shape: typically, they don’t wear flat until the very end of the lifecycle, if even then.

Have you heard of “slabby” or “elongated” product causing trouble downstream, mainly blocking the secondary cone crusher’s feed opening? When this problem occurs, it’s typically due to having Quarry’s flat tooth profile, a tight CSS and a low feed level in the chamber. You can forget those issues with Coarse Corrugated, as the fixed jaw is thicker than normal jaws, thereby improving the nip angle by approx. 1 degree compared to standard Quarry, and just like with Super grip, the jaw profile helps to crack the rocks. Moreover, with this chamber, the CSS (C in below photo) is measured slightly differently, which also helps in making finer grading with the same CSS compared to other jaws.

Of course, the flagship jaw dies from Metso utilize MX technology, part of our Max Series Crusher Wears offering. The MX jaw is a hybrid product, in which the manganese steel acts as the matrix and the wear surface is covered by Metso’s special wear-resistant material (inserts) in the areas where it’s needed. It is possible to achieve double the wear life compared to manganese jaws – and sometimes even triple the wear life! MX technology can be used in all mentioned jaw profiles and more.

So, to summarize: The potential benefits of trying out other jaw die profiles than Quarry are many. Then again, if you absolutely love and swear by those flat-teeth jaws, you might want to try Quarry thick or Quarry with MX inserts.

If you need more bite, you can try changing the movable jaw die to Super grip. Quarry thick and Super grip is also a fantastic combo.

If you want to try a profile that is quickly gaining popularity and has the same all-aroundness as Quarry but a longer expected lifetime and higher estimated performance, try Coarse Corrugated. There is a good chance you will not be disappointed; some have even said that trying them has been life changing.