Masses from crushed stone and minerals have a tendency to stick to conveyor belts, especially if they are sticky due to precipitation. If you don’t have a working scraper, you lose a lot of money on spills.

Not only do you lose money on the waste of saleable pulp, but you also have to pay to remove it. Seems a bit like a lose/lose situation, doesn’t it?

Avoid extra work with scrapers

When fine material ends up on the ground under the conveyor belt, it will be contaminated by roots, water, pebbles, etc. Then it loses all its marketable value and becomes a burden that must be removed.

You can decide how much of a burden this should be. Choosing a good pre-scraper and fine scraper can save you a lot of money.

The scraper does exactly what its name implies; scrapes away fabric that has stuck to the tape. This is to avoid it following the return conveyor belt and becoming a problem that requires resources to remove.

Let’s look at just how much a scraper can save you.

A true example

We’ve taken a real-life example as our starting point. One plant that our dear Olav “Professor Pukk” Gilje worked in had 20 conveyor belts and 0 scrapers.

Each month, they removed and deposited 10 tipper truck loads of spillage, which could potentially be sold. The tipper truck had a capacity of 15 tons.

Otherwise our poor professor – before he was trained as a professor, mind you – had to spa and rinse and struggle to get this out from under the conveyor belt. It took him an hour to remove one ton of spillage.


What does all this cost?
Scroll on… it’s far more expensive than most people think.

READ ALSO:

Avoid conveyor belt misalignment in 10 simple steps

By investing in a good pre-cleaner and fine scraper, you can avoid waste material.

In fact, you can use NOK 75,000 in labor costs per month to improve other parts of your operations. In addition, you can potentially sell the mass and earn up to NOK 18,000. These are figures for one month only, so we’re not talking about pickpocketing.


Is it really that much?

Scroll on…

And a little further… to see what you don’t have to spend time and money on…

If you have a scraper but still have spills, it is most likely not installed or maintained correctly.


Four scraper maintenance tips

  1. Loosen the scraper and knock off any mass that has built up on the hard metal that lies against the belt. It’s the metal that does the best scraping job.
  2. Ensure that the scraper lies evenly against the entire tape. If any scraper segments are not adjacent to the belt, they must be replaced.
  3. Ensure that all scraper segments have hard metal. If the tip has fallen off, replace the scraper segment.
  4. Ensure that the scraper is tensioned so that it lies firmly against the conveyor belt. If there are gaps or slack, this may indicate that the entire scraper has been installed incorrectly and needs to be adjusted.

How to mount correctly

Not sure if your scraper is installed correctly? Click below to download a free installation guide.

Note: these instructions are specifically designed for the Nordic pre-scraper, but have several general guidelines that can also be applied to some other scrapers.

Download installation guide