Oh the places we go and the things we learn

Good Morning All,

This is Matt and I wanted to tell a story from my trip to California meeting with customers and dealers last week. As I have always said, if you get a chance to learn something, and have a few minutes, take all the free education you can get. This is a part history lesson and part sometimes the universe provides for a reason.

I will go through and add notes to the pictures and see if I can get them in an order if I can, not very FB educated.

I took a call a couple of weeks ago from a customer telling me he had a "wood in his ore" problem and requesting to know if our Wood Rock Separator would solve his problem. As we talked, it became clear that the Separator could only solve part of his issue. But the part it appeared it could not solve was going the be the larger part of the problem. I let the customer know I was going to be in California and would stop by if that fit his need and schedule. Together we decided I should visit.

So that is the set-up and now I will let you know that the Customer is US Borax. US Borax is owned by the Rio Tinto Mining Company and mines boron. Some older folks reading this may remember the Borax Twenty Mule Team and maybe even the TV show they had. The notes on the pictures will give a better understanding of education learned on the site that day by taking a few minutes out to visit their museum.

One of the things learned that day was that Boron (element #5 on the Periodic Table) now goes into lumber for termite and insect control. In 2004, I believe we outlawed on environmental grounds the way wood used to be pressure treated for this purpose and switched to Boron treatment. I did not know that fact.

Later after leaving US Borax, I had dinner with a customer who is in the wood waste recycling business. Conversation got around to where I had been that day. The customer said "boron, I am having a problem with my compost with high boron levels." And the connection was immediately made that could help him. He uses some clean recycled lumber in his bulking process. What we learned shortly online thereafter is that the boron that is injected into the lumber will leach out of the lumber when water is added. The manufacturers even recommend that boron treated lumber not be used anywhere it comes in contact with wet weather.

Boron is a nutrient for plants and in the pictures you will see it is even added to Miracle-Gro and such products. But there comes a point that too much of anything is a bad thing. The boron turns toxic to plants in higher concentrations. The compost process adds water to the ground wood, leaching the boron out of it and when the compost is screened to a smaller size the boron levels are more concentrated. Now that the customer is aware of where his high boron levels are from, it is possible to adjust his process to control the available boron.

Friday I sat down with the customer and his partners to discuss an alliance to create a new machine/system that they want. Their CEO looked and me and said we want to work with RD OLSON because you take the time to understand our business. Always a good feeling to hear such things.

Oh and what happened to the original customer you ask. I think once we talk it over in the office this week, the customer will find they may already have their answer in the fact that their ore is water soluble and they have a process in place to recover the ore from the water. Maybe a few small tweaks to what they do, a few conveyors and they are on the road to happiness.