Ståhl-Fredh brothers make their dream come true with new QE241

Swedish company Ståhl-Fredh decided to visit the Maskinexpo exhibition in May of this year. At the show, brothers David and Gösta Ståhl-Fredh intended to purchase a new mobile screen. Following a visit to the Sandvik booth the brothers spontaneously changed their minds, instead buying a QE241 scalper. "It's awesome, now we can take care of all the material within the company ourselves," says Gösta Ståhl-Fredh of his latest acquisition.

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Brothers David and Gösta Ståhl-Fredh own their own steel company, and planned to buy a new screening plant at this year's Maskinexpo exhibition held in Sweden this May. However, displayed at Sandvik's booth was the new QE241 mobile scalping screen, which so impressed the brothers, they changed their minds and bought the scalper instead (the first QE241 model in Sweden). The company already operates an extensive plant fleet, but this is the first screener they have purchased. "But we've had a dream of owning a screening plant for many years", says Gösta Ståhl-Fredh.

Ståhl-Fredh's activities are very diverse, and the brothers expect their new mobile scalping screen will complement their activities adding to the operational performance of the business. However, they feel no pressure in running it all the time. "We do not intend for it to be running every day of the year, but it is good to have and because it is mobile, we can easily transport it to where it is needed," says David Ståhl-Fredh.

Although new to the company, the QE241 scalper has so far lived up to expectations. The brothers were quick to acknowledge that they have been well looked after by Sandvik with an engineer commissioning the machine. "He was out here all day. I think that's professional," says David. "I didn't think it would be so easy to operate", adds Gösta.

The brothers note that their QE241possesses far greater capacity than the company needs at present. "It's the smallest plant that Sandvik has but for us it is actually too large. We don't have enough time to unload," says David. "We did the first 30 tons in the first 15 minutes it was up and running. That's 120 tons per hour and 360 tons in three hours, but you can easily double the capacity with a bigger machine loading it," says Gösta. "It's nice that it runs so fast because then you can avoid wasting a whole day," he continues.

The scalper is used to separate the processed material into three different stockpiles. "Everything over 60mm in one stockpile, then we have a 0-8mm fines fraction and a pile of rubble," says David, who continues, "but it's really easy to change sizes (using different sized screen meshes). It takes about half an hour and it is possible to change the mesh in the screenbox in all sorts of different configurations."

The QE241 comes fitted with a screenbox jack up facility and modular deck frames which enables easy access for maintenance and quick changeover of screen media. Another feature that has impressed the Ståhl-Fredh brothers is that one conveyor can be moved from one side to the other so that both conveyors are positioned on the same side. This has proved to be of real benefit in tight, confined spaces.

The company is currently preparing a parking lot of 200 spaces in Kista for the real estate company Klövern. This was a gravel site that, according to Gösta, looked like "an overgrown parking lot in the countryside," which needed to be rebuilt and widened. "We have to remove the surface and screen the material so it can be reused on site. There will be a total of approximately 1,000 tons of material," says Gösta who adds: "One disadvantage of recycling material on site is that there is less work for our own trucks, but of course it's good for the environment. The work should last for about a month. Right now, we are waiting for the permit which should come through shortly."

The brothers have been running their company since 2008. They started as a partnership in 2008 and became a limited company in 2010. At the beginning in 2009 they bought a snow plough for snow clearing operations which has expanded to sand separation and gradually to earthworks. At present, they take on the large construction jobs employing ten people full-time.

Their main areas of operation are the northern and western suburbs of Stockholm. "We have done well in the North but we also get a lot of requests to the South of the town. We don't mind doing the work but it is difficult to move the equipment so we don't do so much there today," says Gösta. The acquisition of the QE241 will however make taking on such work less of a problem, as key attributes of the machine are its transportability, rapid set-up, as well as its productivity when put to work on site.

A version of this article first appeared in Swedish Construction News, written by Klara Sinnerstad