(57) Kue Ken Articulated Jaw Crusher Restoration

The Kue Ken Articulated Jaw Crusher at the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association (MDHCA) in Goffs, CA is a very unusual machine. The following information is a discussion of the crusher design, history, restoration, modifications, and operations.

Machine Design This is not your usual jaw crusher. First of all, both the front and rear jaws move in opposition, meaning they come together and then apart in sync. This was designed to improve the crushing action of the machine. This Kue Ken rotates at 365 RPM whereas most crushers rotate at about 220 RPM. The additional speed negates the need for large fly wheels. There is only a drive pulley wheel on this Kue Ken. A shear pin device was incorporated to prevent damage to the equipment if the jaw was to become overloaded or a piece of iron or other hard items were fed into the crusher. It also has an oil system with a pump that sprays oil onto the bearing ports and has a sump that also allows for splash lubrication. The crusher is run with a 10 Hp motor that is smaller than most drivers for that size jaw crusher.

Patent Information This Kue Ken was manufactured under patent # 2341105, filed on March 13,1939 and issued Feb 4, 1941. The crusher was made from 1941 to 1948. I have not seen other crushers with this difference in design.

History Discussions I talked to a Goffs volunteer, Dave Givens, who was involved with transporting the Kue Ken Crusher to the MDHCA. He said it was transported to Goffs over 20 years ago. He does not remember the actual date, but it was brought to MDHCA in some time in 1999.

Where was the Original Location? The Kue Ken was at the Death Valley Mine, South of Cima, east of the tracks in the Mojave National Preserve on the North-East Slope of the New York Mountains. The Death Valley Mine was discovered in 1906 by J. L. Bright of Kelso. The large residence still stands, as do other buildings, headframes, ore crushers and quite a lot of scattered artifacts that was a result of mine reactivation during the 1950s. This is when the Kue Ken may have been used. The Kue Ken crusher was constructed between 1941 and 1948, so that makes this time period quite possible.

How did it get to MDHCA? Volunteer, Dave Given and several other individuals including Dennis Casabier, Charles & Mary Hughes, and Johnny Guerrero acquired the machine from the owners and moved it from the mine site to MHDCA.

How was it moved? This crusher is very heavy and we know that because our backhoe could barely lift the crusher up on to the new location at the American Boy Mill.  They used 12-ton jacks to move the crusher and the Big Tex trailer to transport it to Goffs. This was the only artifact that was obtained during that trip to Death Valley Mine. It was donated to MDHCA.

Restoration History We first thought about restoring the crusher on June 24, 2014 when we were considering using it for the primary crusher for the American Boy 10-Stamp Mill. At first it was thought that there were too many missing parts, but after some discussion we decided we would take a stab at it.

As Found Condition There were several missing or broken parts “As Found” on the two pictures below. The most important issues were as follows: main shaft seized, missing trunions, missing 2 ½” nuts on the front jaw shafts, seized oil system pump, and when we found it someone had removed the bronze bearings and all of the shims. They were laying in a pile in the sump of the machine.

Machine clean-out This machine was filled with degraded oil, rocks, dirt and broken glass. We found the broken glass to be unusual. It was all through the component and looked like someone had crusher glass with the machine. The bearings had been disassembled and were laying in the sump with shims everywhere. The picture below shows the condition of the crusher.

Machine Internal Issues The frozen bearing on the left side #1 and the seized oil pump #2 were the cause of the machine not rotating. The most obvious issue was the degraded oil, rocks and etc. in the bottom of the sump.

  

Modifications There were several things that needed to be performed to get this machine back in service.

A Stroke of Luck While visiting the Carissa Mine in South Pass City Wyoming I found that they have a Kue Ken Crusher exactly like ours. The pictures below show both crusher front ends.

Trunion Fabrication We had to fit up two new trunions to the front jaw rods. We contacted the folks at South Pass City, WY to discuss the status of their crusher as it was all together. We obtained several pictures of that machine to get an idea of how to fabricate new trunions. We also used the drawings in the Kue Ken Patent # 2341105 to determine the design on the trunions. The picture below shows the fabrication of the trunions.

Large Nuts Front Jaw Shafts The two nuts were missing on the front jaw shafts. We talked again with the folks at Carissa Mine and they actually had a spare nut. They sent it to us, but that size nut had 12 threads per inch (TPI) and they do not make that TPI any longer. After a lot of searching we found that the shaft would have to be turned down to a size nut that is currently made. We ended up with a slightly smaller nut with 6 TPI. We also had to make special washers to allow adjustment of the spacing on the jaws. They had to be specially cut to fit our machine.

Oil System to Grease System We did not want to use the oil lubrication system since it was not a good application for that machine since it was too messy and inefficient. We installed zerc fittings on all of the bearings and removed the pump and piping that was the old oil system. The grease lubrication should be satisfactory since we were not using the machine on a 24/7 basis. It was only for demonstrations.

 Grease System Access The cover on the machine weighed about 75 pounds. It was made of ¼” plate and was a pain to remove. We replaced the heavy cover with a 16-gauge cover that was easy to remove to inspect and grease the zerc fittings.

Other Repair Items We had many other less important items that had to be corrected including other zerc fittings, bent spring adjustment threaded rod, outlet screen, motor, motor pulley and a base to mount the motor on.

  

Operations The machine was finally brought back to running condition in October 2017 after almost 3 years of hard work. This machine will crush an 8” plus piece of ore down to 2” in about 4 seconds. The crusher has been placed into service supplying crushed ore to the American Boy Mill through the incline feeder system on the American Boy mill. The picture below shows the major work performed on the machine.

The picture below shows the Kue Ken Articulated Jaw Crusher in operation during the 2017 Rendezvous at Goffs. 

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