MCGINNIS

Lubrication is essential to our operation due to the massive tons moving throughout our facility. Every grease and lube we tried died out quickly or became saturated. Wear and corrosion quickly became enemy #1. Prior to 2005, all our applications were falling prey to downtime and costly equipment replacements. There was no grease or lube we have not tried, but the friction forces driven by weights exceeding 2500 tons coupled with environmental issues proved great losses to our operation.

In 2005, Les Lore was seeing tremendous success through consulting with Howie Damron and his Duravi technology. Les suggested we try the Duravi blended grease in our Trolly Carriage that submerges out and under the Ohio River within the l40-10 inch Timken railway carts. These bearings proved impossible to present any measurable sustainability due to water, mud, sand, and weights from the barges loaded on the trolley. Once loaded, the cable pulled up an 18% incline on 5 sets of railroad tracks within 35 rail carts all according to the size of the barges. At times, they're as big as a football field. The dangers are at a maximum level, staying far away from the entire unit. Five steel cables pulling extreme weight. In order to make the pulls, greasing these bearings was at least twice per day. We were losing these bearings at times as much as 5 per month.

The losses prior to 2005 were the costs for replacements, tremendous downtime in production, labor, and the risk to safety. We began using the Duravi blended grease within all the bearings and within days, we began to see tremendous results. The bearings were not extracting water during greasing. They were not heating up during pulls. We stopped losing bearings. As time went on, the bearings were using less grease and the water was hardly coming out. Failures on the bearings decreased. The greasing intervals went from 2 times a day to once or twice a month. We had finally found true sustainability for the Trolley carriage. From 300-ton to 2400-ton loads, the bearings were holding. It’s very difficult to understand the superiority of the Duravi until you take time and visit our operation. I am quite sure you will leave with confidence that the Duravi product line will work.

— Gary Gills, McGinnis Inc., Safety Director