*FAQ's*

*Frequently Asked Questions*

WHAT IS THE CRAZYCRUSHER DESIGNED FOR?

The CrazyCrusher is designed to crush and grind ore for sampling, either in the lab or out in the field. Since it is manually operated, there is no need to haul gas or a generator to run it. It is nice and quite and can be operated where there is a fire ban from running gas operated equipment. It is not designed as a “production” unit although it can be used to crush down high-grade ore to extract fine free-milling gold, or hi-grade silver ores for processing.

WHAT ELSE CAN IT BE USED FOR?

Other than crushing ore, the CrazyCrusher has been used by geologists for mineral testing as well as those who have small batches (100 or so) CPU chips to crush and liberate the gold pins, etc. It has been used to break up rock into sizes suitable for tumbling for jewelry and arts and crafts. It has been used to make “frit”: that is, rice sized colored glass used in the process of coloring glass for glass-blowing and glazing. It can also easily crush clear clean glass to be used in smelting operations. It can also be used to re-grind hardened chunks of clay. Others break minerals to make mineral collection and sample sets. Some have ground up colored minerals to produce special artist paint pigments. It's being used to crush charcoal for garden soil, and the list goes on!

WHERE IS IT MADE, AND OF WHAT?

The CrazyCrusher is 100 percent Made in the USA. It is made of 100% steel. All bolts are of 1/2-13 in size and Grade 5 for strength. The side plates are 3/16” and the jaws are of 3/8” steel. We are located in Bullhead City, Arizona.

HOW DO YOU HARDEN THE JAWS?

Each jaw plate starts out with welding stringers across their faces, using 70,000lbs tensile strength for hardness. The welds not only make for a harder surface, the welds also act as something to help grip the rock edges and bring it down further into the jaws. The upper 3-1/2” inches of the moving jaw has angled teeth welded on in a vertical position to help with getting that first “crack” of a rock easier. It is then fired in an oven to 1650 deg F, and then quenched in a brine called “super quench” which gives the jaws a hardening of about a Rockwell 45. (or about a 7.5 on the Mohs scale). The welded stringers also is the first thing that would wear down, instead of the actual jaw material. In the grinding stages, when the moving jaw actually scrapes across the bottom of the adjustable jaw, there will be some wear, but since the adjustable jaw "is" adjustable with a 1/2” bolt, the jaws will always be a tight match.

WHAT SIZE ROCK CAN IT HANDLE?

This depends on what the rock is. The harder the rock, the better it is if it is smaller than larger. Even two pieces of the same host rock can crush differently, depending on existing cracks, inclusions or impurities. Things like marble and caliche` can crush very easily, where quartz with little impurities or inclusions will crush harder. As a general rule of thumb, rocks crushed should be the size of, or less than the size of a standard ice cube or chicken egg. It's easier to crush just a couple at a time with the jaws ½ way open, and then re-run the material a 2nd or 3rd time, until the desired size is achieved.

WHAT IS THE OUTPUT SIZE?

When the adjustable jaw is fully open, you will have about a ½ inch gap. This does not mean that everything that passes will be 1/2”. Some chips will be, others will be far less. Two or three passes will take the ore down to a maximum of about 20 mesh, and some of the material will be so fine it will be air-borne dust. When grinding, the particles actually crush against each other, as well as with the jaws.

TEST RESULTS FOR GRINDING WITH THE CRAZYCRUSHER
Scale used: Lyman Ohaus D5 Balance Beam grain scale (Measures down to 1/100th of a grain) Sample weight: 451.2 grain (Crushed to minus 1/8th inch to start) First grind: 226 gr. did not pass through the 20 mesh screen 117.4 gr. passed through the 20 mesh but not the 100 mesh 53.4 gr. passed through the 100 mesh. Difference in weight is 107.75 gr which accounts for: 1: Powdered material that was so fine to be air borne and did not settle in the catch bowl. 2: Powdered material that did not come loose from the pan while tapping it into another pan. 3: Powdered material that remained inside the crusher on the welds of the jaws and other parts. I did not do a second grind pass, and I did not have a screen finer than 100 mesh, however if one is getting material so fine to be air borne, there is the assumption that perhaps 25 percent of that which did pass through the 100 mesh screen is in the range of 200 to 400 mesh.

WHAT IF I WANT TO USE IT FOR SOME OTHER PURPOSE?

If you have an idea as to using the CrazyCrusher for something other than ore, or anything mentioned above, just contact us with your intentions for the use of the CrazyCrusher. By contacting us first, we may be able to tell you if it will work or not for your intended purposes. We strive for customer satisfaction and would rather lose a sale than have an unhappy customer!
We get requests all the time, and some even send us samples of what they need to crush. If we think if will not work well, we inform them and actually make suggestions of what they may need to process their materials.

WHAT IF THE JAWS WEAR OUT, OR SOMETHING BREAKS?

Good question! As stated above, every effort has been taken to assure the durability of the CrazyCrusher. Since the crusher made its debut in September of 2010, several changes have been made. One primary change was in the way that the adjuster worked. The early models had a weakness and that has been addressed and now has a adjuster box with a ½ inch bolt for adjusting and have not had a re-occurring problem with it since. If something should break on the crusher we WANT to hear about it! This is the only way we can learn of any weaknesses, and to correct it, should one arise. We stand behind our product, and want you, the customer to be satisfied as best we can. We do not stock “spare parts”, since now, we have had no reports of anything failing on the Crazycrusher. However, if needed, we can easily manufacture a part as a replacement.

HOW LONG WILL THE JAWS LAST?

This depends again, on how often it is used, and what is being crushed. Crushing a quart of marble stone once a month, the jaws will last forever. Crushing quartz for an hour every day will show wear on the welds first. The crusher is designed to be dis-assembled in the event at some time down the road the weld stringers on the jaw faces wear off. At that point, it would be far easier and cheaper to remove the jaws and just run some welding stringers across the face again. Your option would be be remove the jaws and ship them back to be re-welded. Should the vertical teeth wear down, they would either have to be replaced if the crusher fails to crush as well as it did. Earlier models did not have the teeth, but just stringers welded on the face of the moving jaw, and it still worked quite well.

I have seen what happens when one falls off a truck on a gravel road at about 50mph. It still worked fine, other than a leg was twisted 90 degrees and scratched up pretty bad. I think it will last for your kids and grandkids to grow up and use it!

HOW CAN I MOUNT IT MORE STURDIER?

The CrazyCrusher, in order for it to work properly and effectively, it needs to be mounted to a sturdy work bench when in the lab or garage. If there is movement of the whole rock crusher (or the bench) when moving the handle up and down, that movement will take away the effectiveness of the crusher,and lose resistance, which makes it harder to use. We do sell a hitch mount for the back of a vehicle with a 2 inch receiver. (If you want one, and your hitch is smaller than 2 inches, we can special make one for your crusher.) Even with the hitch mount, you may well be bouncing the whole vehicle up and down. This is not good, and the hitch mount must have an additional support between the hitch mount and the ground to avoid the movement. A piece of 4x4 wood between the ground and hitch mount works wonders! Other methods while in the field is to mount the crusher to a parallel set of 2x4's leaving a couple of extra feet longer, and you can drive your vehicle tire on to the extended 2x4's, thus using the weight of your vehicle to make the crusher sturdy. Others have used large spikes and temporarily mounted the crusher to a tree stump, or even a dead downed tree. If you are in the field and packed in the crusher, and there are no stumps or downed trees to use, again you can use the 2x4's and roll the largest rock you can move on to the extended 2x4's, or someone can stand on the end.

HOW DOES THE CRAZYCRUSHER WORK?

It works on the simplest ancient method of the “lever”. There is a pivot point and a guide point that is very close in relationship to the overall length of the arms. The guide pin follows an arc in the path of the radius from the pivot point. When the handle is in the down position, the jaws are at their closest. When the handle is fully raised the jaws are further apart at the top of the crusher, but remains nearly the same at the bottom of the jaws. Raising the handle and them coming down with it, the movable jaw moves slightly forward but mostly downward, putting both pressure on the rock in a horizontal plane, and also in a vertical plane. It's always suggested to leave the handles in the down position, place the rock in it, then slightly raise the handle to “grip” the rock, and the downward movement exerts enough pressure to crack and break the rock in to various sized pieces. Starting in the full up position, and with a very hard dense rock, it may not break as easily, if at all. It's not perfect, but by far easier and safer than the old pipe in a pipe method, or a big hammer, (you're gonna take an eye out!), or the small pestle and mortar).

HOW DO YOU SHIP, AND WHAT DOES IT COST?

Shipping to the lower 48 states is FREE! We ship FedEx Ground. Shipments to Alaska and Hawaii are very discounted, and we discount to Canada and Mexico and everywhere else in the world via U.S.P.S., Given the shipping weight, (38 lbs for the crusher, 48 lbs if you also purchase the hitch mount), we will always opt for ground carrier. Since we give free shipping in the United States, it is only fair to discount shipping to everywhere else.

We ship Monday through Friday with FedEx, and International orders can be shipped Monday through Saturday (excluding Federal Holidays). Shipping manifests are done by 6pm for the next day. Orders placed after 6pm on Thursday does not make the manifest in time and will be shipped the following Monday. In some cases there could be a 1 to 3 business days delay, depending on workloads. Fedex Ground is 1 to 6 days delivery, and International shipping is 6 to 10 days "after" they are transfered to the carrier.

We always request an Adult Signature with every delivery. With FedEx, you will receive a recorded phone call to your number given in your order that you are to have a delivery the next day. You will also receive all tracking information and updates in your emails.

. WHERE DO YOU SHIP TO?

Most anywhere actually. If it's legal to ship there.


OUR IMPORT FEES AND TAXES ARE HIGH IN OUR COUNTRY, CAN YOU PUT A LOWER VALUE ON THE CRUSHER?
NO. We are an established business with a very good corporate rating and we do not falsify shipping documents. Also, with not reporting TRUE value of our products, in the event they are lost, damaged or stolen during shipment, the carrier will ONLY replace the stated amount of the value for insurance purposes. To say on paper that your shipment is only valued at $100usd to save you money, that is the amount we would receive from the insurance claim if it were lost or stolen.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS? 

Send us a message!