When the permits finally came through for Hycroft, a gold-mine startup based in Winnemucca, Ne-vada, the first thing the mining company did was go out and buy a fleet of haul trucks and front-end loaders. The next step was to buy a forklift capable of handling the tires on the trucks and front-end loaders, which, when combined with their 13,000-pound chains, weigh up to 32,300 pounds per tire. Every company Hycroft went to said they needed a 70,000-pound capacity forklift to do the job, which at best would retain only 32,000-pounds capacity. Anything above this capacity could not be done unless Hycroft used an 80,000- to 90,000-pounds capacity model. Meeting the rated capacity was very important because a unit that did not meet or exceed capacity re-quirements would not be allowed on mine premises. After coming up against a brick wall, Hycroft placed a call to Arnold Machinery Com-pany (Salt Lake City, UT).

Don O. Cole, director of mining & major accounts at Arnold Machinery, and Territory Manager Patrina Udy secured the $580,000 sale with their in-depth understand-ing of how mining and material handling intertwine.

“Mines are often overlooked by material handling distrib-utors because access is difficult, and safety qualifications to do business on site are usually at a higher compliance level,” explains Cole. “The only difference is that in a mine, everything is bigger and heavier. Strict safety rules need to be followed, and usually the load configurations are odd.”

Bigger were these tires indeed. The front-end loader tires are 147 inches tall, 65 inches wide, 65 ply and have 57-inch rims. To handle tires of this size, Udy and Cole called on their supplier partners at Hyster and Greenfield Products. Donald Hardee, Hyster application engineer and Herman Klaus, who was working as director of

S A L E S S U C C E S S S T O R I E S

Distributor: Arnold Machinery Company

Manufacturer: Hyster Company, Greenfield Products

Summary: Knowing how mining and material handling intertwine provides big solution to big challenge.

Arnold Brings Home the Gold

big trucks at the time, knew the Hyster H550HD 55,000-pound capacity forklift could do the job, given the right attachment and configuration. Together with the team at Arnold, Hardee and Klaus partnered with Greenfield Products Sales Engineer Dennis Niska to engineer the TH35 tire handling attachment, which works seamlessly with the forklift’s internal hydraulic controls. Utilizing the internal hydraulics rather than an add-on control box was critical from a safety standpoint, which is of utmost importance in a mining environment.

In September 2010, about ten months after Hycroft’s initial inquiry, Arnold Machinery delivered the new H550HD-TH35 to one very happy customer. For Hycroft, justifying the investment was simple. Cole estimates that down time for a single haul truck can cost a mine $26,000 to $72,000 per hour. “This is the largest retained capacity tire handler package of its class in the world,” says Cole. With the combined capacity, the H550HD-TH35 main-tains 34,000 pounds at pad center. Along with handling tires, the forklift is capable of handling flanges and rims, and can be used to break a tire’s beads. The machine can disassemble a tire without the need for a separate tire press machine. For Arnold, Hyster and Greenfield, this big truck was a big success.

Hyster H550HD with Greenfield's TH35 attachment is the largest retained capacity unit tire handler in the world.

This article originally appeared in the Fourth Quarter, Fall 2011 issue of The MHEDA Journal Copyright ©Data Key Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.