By Allan Heydorn
Symphony Screed, Electronic Controls Focus
Attention on Mauldin 1750-C Paver
he
challenge for Frederick Hand Paving was fairly typical
of the work the small
family-owned contractor performs: Pave a 4,500-sq.-ft., L-shaped residential
driveway for a half-million dollar new home that fronts Chesapeake Bay in
Maryland’s Chesapeake Ranch Estates. A 160-ft.-long section from the two-car
garage was 20 ft. wide, narrowing down to 13 ft. before it curved 166 ft., and
10 ft. wide around the front of the house and yard. And it included a steep
uphill turnaround.
“We had no trouble pulling any of that with the Mauldin 1750-C,”
says Frederick “Mike” Hand, Frederick Hand Paving. “[The 1750-C gives us] more
power to help push our trucks up the many hills that we have in this part of
southern Maryland.”
Martin Paving, a family operated paving company in Ephrata, PA,
faced a challenge of its own, according to estimator Delmar Weaver: Pave a
wearing surface on a 1,500-sq.-yd. barnyard and driveway on a local farm. The
project required about 90 tons of PENNDOT Type ID-2 mix placed 1 in. thick.
The longest pulls, according to foreman Gerald Hoover, were no more than 300
ft. long and 10 ft. wide, with many passes between 8 and 10 ft. wide and from
25 to 50 ft. long. Martin Paving handled the chopped up job without a problem,
finishing the work in half a day and crediting the maneuverability of the
1750-C paver with a large part of their success.
“We looked at quite a few small pavers for our driveway crews
that were not built that way before we made our final selection,” says Leon
Roy Martin, vice president, who with his brothers Jerold and Galen agreed to
start the business with their father Leon Martin in 1974. Today Martin Paving
serves an area of about 50 miles from its headquarters, though according to
Jerold Martin they have done work as far as 150 miles away.
“The majority of our work is with
residential and small commercial projects,” Jerold says. “Two of our crews do
driveways and parking lots that may go up to 400 tons large. The other paving
crew works primarily for private developers.”
Redesigning
for the high end
Wayne Calder, executive vice president, Calder Brothers,
Greenville, SC, says the 1750-C is the company’s high-end paver, which
features numerous upgrades and uses the Symphony Screed.
“The original model 1750 had been
on the market for years, but three years ago we redesigned the paver based on
contractor comments and to upgrade the technology,” Calder says.
He says the 1750-C features dual
operator’s stations, electronic instead of hydraulic controls, an enclosed
engine for quieter operation, and extension controls and handles that allow
the operator to align extension height to the main screed and to adjust
extensions to either flat or angled positions. Calder adds that the engine on
the 1750-C was moved forward so its weight sits over the tracks.
He says the paver’s Symphony
Screed extends from 8 to 13 ft. and can be fully extended to 16 ft. It paves
to a depth of 6 in. and features four propane burners on the main screed and
an additional burner on each extension.
“The Symphony Screed weighs 4100
lbs., which is the heaviest in its class,” Calder says, adding that most
screeds on the market weigh about half that. Hand says the screed really has
an impact on the finished work. He says the family started Frederick Hand
Paving, Prince Frederick, MD, several years ago to supplement the family
income, relying on a Mauldin power box paver without a conveyor system or any
automatic controls.
“The 1750-C is the only mid-size paver on the
market featuring a screed with highway class controls,” says Wayne Calder,
executive vice president of Calder Brothers, manufacturer of the Mauldin
machine.
the job,” says
Alice, who does most of the compaction.
Hand says his crews work within a 40-mile radius from the office,
the company’s largest project being an 800-ton parking lot and mini-storage
facility in Mechanicsville, MD. The largest driveway they’ve paved was 800 ft.
long, roughly 7,000 sq. ft., and required about 125 tons of asphalt. He says
the smallest job they would consider is a 3 to 5 ton turnaround in existing
driveways.
“The new 1750-C’s screed really is a symphony in steel in that it
orchestrates a host of factors into laying an award-winning mat,” Hand says.
“That gives us a major advantage: It puts down a mat that we can be proud of
with far less effort and handwork.”
“It allows us to pave out seamlessly to any width,” Hand says.
“The quality of the mat is, after all, what most people see when we are
finished with a job. In many cases the quality of a mat is also what gets us
paid faster and generates those all-important word-of-mouth referrals.”
Martin Paving’s philosophy has
been to combine skilled and experienced paving crews with top-of-the-line
paving equipment for a particular application. It is company doctrine that
there are no unnecessary members on a Martin Asphalt crew. A typical small
project paving crew consists of a paver operator/foreman, another screedman, a
laborer, and a roller operator. Company truck drivers understand their
responsibility to assist the paving crew whenever hand
Contractors say the 1750-C helps reduce
the amount of handwork required on each job.
work help is needed. On larger parking lots the extra truckers
bringing additional asphalt make up the supplemental men needed to service
the paving operation.
Martin continually upgrades its
pavers to take advantage of every opportunity to lessen the amount of handwork
a project requires.
“We don’t run our machines to the
point where we need to do an extensive overhaul on them. Our goal is to move
them on and purchase a new paver before that time. That’s false economy to
keep it a long time. We plan on an eight-year lifespan for small pavers.
That’s about five years as a frontline machine and three to four years of
occasional use as a backup paver. Then it’s replacement time,” Jerold says.
Features to
reduce labor
Both contractors say the paver’s conveyor system is equally
important, enabling the crew to go up and down local hills without having to
stop and shovel asphalt to the augers.
“Almost every major asphalt contractor today has the power
extendable screed. Not all that many appear to get the power-extendable
augers, too,” Leon Martin says. “We find this feature on our new Mauldin
1750-C gives us a more uniform mat while again reducing the handwork for the
crew, especially when we have to go very wide. The asphalt comes out to the
end quick and evenly.”
Contractors say the paver’s conveyor and
auger system ease paving up and down hills.
Calder says the unit features two sets of 9-in.-diameter augers.
The first set is mounted in a fixed position in the center of the screed. The
second set is mounted to the extensions, enabling the paver to feed material
smoothly to a 16-ft. width.
“The extra set of augers is a big
selling point for contractors because it enables them to perform seamless
paving to 16 ft. wide,” he says. “And the slope handle allows the operator to
slope the extensions to improve runoff at the pavement edge.”
Hand says the material delivery
system is especially beneficial when paving downhill, where their old power
box machine would be level and not dump hot mix to the screed very well.
“Going into narrow hilly driveways is much easier as well,” Hand
says. “We don’t have as much spillage in front of the machine now. Once the
truck stops dumping we can pull the asphalt to the augers and, as a result,
lower the amount in the hopper so it doesn’t overflow.”
Wayne Calder says one of the most popular contractor features on
the paver seems to be a “pause” toggle switch that makes it easier for
contractors to pave a straight mat, and Mike Hand says the “pause” feature
has been a real help to his crews.
“The pause feature locks the machine in place. It stops the
machine from traveling backward or rolling forward,” Hand says. “It stops the
screed vibration immediately so no mat marks or striations are made. Then
toggle the pause switch once again and the machine resumes where it left off.
It remembers what it was doing. That’s nice when something comes up quickly
and the machine has to stop right then. Get the situation fixed and just hit
the switch and resume the paving operation.”
Hand says he also appreciates the
number of burners on the screed.
“There are four burners on the
main screed and one burner on each extension. This gives us a more evenly
heated screed with no warping,” Hand says. “The 1750-C operation 
Martin Paving replaces its pavers every
eight years — after five years on the front line and
three years as
a backup machine.
manual advises you not to heat the screed for more than 10
minutes and they’re right. It’s that quick.”
“One thing I especially liked about the 1750-C is that it is
electric over hydraulic as far as its operating systems,” says Leon R.
Martin.
Calder says that when the company redesigned the paver it made a
special effort to reduce the reliance on hydraulics. He says engineers managed
to eliminate 42 hydraulic connections in the redesign significantly reducing
the number of potential leak points on the paver.
“We also enclosed the engine
compartment completely, so if there does happen to be an hydraulic leak the
hydraulic fluid will remain in the compartment and doesn’t spill on the
pavement,” Calder says.
