GOLD KING MINE & GHOST TOWN
Jerome, AZ
5-Stamp Mill
Shoe & Die Machining
If you are thinking about obtaining shoes or dies you should pay particular attention to this article. The Gold King Mine & Ghost Town 5-Stamp Mill in Jerome, AZ, needs all new dies and shoes. This is becoming a common sight since shoes and dies are hard to find, especially if you have a number that need to be replaced. You may find some shoes, but they may be of significantly different dimensions.
Finally, after over a year of research and comparison with the various ways to fabricate Shoes and Dies we came up with an answer. There were two options, casting or machining. The task was finally completed through the machining process.
Casting Option We contacted (3) foundry's; Anaconda Foundry in Anaconda, MT, Star Foundry in Salt Lake City UT, and Kits Foundry in Shelley, ID. We only received feedback from Star and they wanted $4,200 to do the shoes and dies. That does not include the food, 2 days travel to and from Salt Lake, 2 days on site and 3 days lodging. That would run about $500 at a minimum. The total cost would be around $4,700.
Machining Option We did some shopping around Arizona and found J & J Ray Machining & Fabrication who could do the machining for $65 an hour a very good price. The machining would cost $975. We looked at steel suppliers. We got a couple bids on the round stock and the best came in at $2,029 for the round stock, reduced from $3,600. The flat stock ran $149 reduced from $300, so we ended up with cost for material of $2,178 and $975 for machining for a total of $3,153. We saved $1,547 by shopping and we didn't have to spent four days away from home. The numbers are approximate.
The rest of the story is right now it is definitely cheaper to go with the machining process.
I have attached a PowerPoint below of the process to machine shoes and dies. It is a long process with the shoes taking about 2 hours a piece to machine. The dies are significantly less time. We limited our material removal to 0.1" of material per pass. We did not have a C&C machine so there was significantly more action on the machinist part to complete the shoe cones.
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