Crushing river rocks for road sub-base

21-02-2022

There is some controversy in using river rocks for road construction.

On one hand, the rocks are durable and plentiful, inexpensive and relatively easy to obtain. On the other often they are not deemed suitable aggregates in road construction as they are too large and rounded.

Pebbles can be directly used as landscaping stones or for paving gravel roads, however, to create aggregate suitable for road sub-base ideally the bigger rocks need to be crushed down.

How do you crush hard rocks?

This is the real dilemma, as river rocks are very tough. Where a small quantity is needed for home it is feasible to use a sharp chisel, safety glasses and hammer away little pieces but to build long roads the amount needed is huge.

The reason why river rocks are not largely used -despite their low cost and constant availability- is because people think that to crush them a large crushing plant is needed.

But this is not entirely true. To crush a large quantity of river rocks an excavator and an MB Crusher bucket are all that is needed.

Do you have an excavator and would you like to know if you also can crush hard rocks with it?

will it work with my excavator?

This Rumanian customer bought a mobile jaw crusher from MB Crusher the model BF120.4 as it fit perfectly with his Caterpillar 329 excavator.

He has triple advantages by having this attachment:

The flexibility to use it anywhere in his yard, along the river bed or even working directly on a construction site in the middle of nowhere.
The savings: reducing the stones by using the excavator means fewer costs for the company.
The safety: to reach this river bed area the roads are full of potholes, sending the river stones to be crushed on a processing plant and bringing back the aggregate to do the job would have meant many truckloads driving the bumpy road, damaging the suspensions and jeopardizing drivers safety.