Rochdale-based Renold Gears (www.renold.com) has designed a heavy-duty custom gearbox for a manufacturer of ‘log washers’.

These are large rectangular troughs — usually fabricated from steel plate — containing two parallel steel shafts (known as log shafts) with paddles attached to them. They are commonly used to wash cemented aggregates, gravel, various ores, limestone etc, with the intermeshing paddles conveying the material along the trough.

The custom gearbox designed by Renold has an input shaft and two counter-rotating output shafts to drive the log shafts.

The internal gearing was designed to ensure that the log shafts are perfectly aligned and the paddles do not come into contact with each other. As well as providing the torque to drive the machine, the gearbox also acts as a bearing support for the log shafts. It is available in two sizes.

Renold has supplied gear units to this industry sector for over 20 years — a primary reason for the company being chosen to provide this solution. The company’s ‘log washer’ gearboxes are among the first items to be produced on its new ‘state of the art’ Burkhardt + Weber machining centre.