AASHTO re:source Q&A Podcast Transcript

Season 1, Episode 38: Sieves & Sieving Sufficiency

Released:  April 13, 2021

Hosts: Brian Johnson, AASHTO Accreditation Program Director; Kim Swanson, Communications Manager, AASHTO re:source 

Guests: Jim Bibler, Gilson Company

Note: Please reference AASHTO re:source and AASHTO Accreditation Program policies and procedures online for official guidance on this, and other topics. 

Transcription is auto-generated. 

[Theme music fades in.] 

00:00:02 ANNOUNCER: Welcome to AASHTO resource Q & A. We're taking time to discuss construction materials testing and inspection with people in the know.  From exploring testing problems and solutions to laboratory best practices and quality management, we're covering topics important to you. Now here’s our host, Brian Johnson.

00:00:21 BRIAN: Today on the podcast, I've got a guest with us today. It's Jim Bibler, the technical development manager from Gilson Company Inc. Jim, welcome to the podcast.

00:00:32 JIM: Thank you, Brian.

00:00:34 JIM: Thanks for inviting me.

00:00:35 BRIAN: Now let's start just with some basic information about Gilson. The company you work for. What exactly does Gilson do?

00:00:43 JIM: We manufacture, distribute construction materials, equipment first and foremost, but we really try to help solve customers problems and qualifying their construction materials. Aggregate asphalt, concrete, soil.

00:00:59 JIM: So ultimately, that's our goal is to try to resolve those problems. We do that through manufacturing and distributing the products.

00:01:07 BRIAN: So. So, Jim, what what are the common pieces of or most common pieces of equipment that Gilson sells and provides customer support for?

00:01:15 JIM: I'm going to start with aggregate equipment primarily because that's where we got our start with the larger testing screen and then we've got the smaller side shakers themselves, splitters.

00:01:28 JIM: LA abrasion, those are our core products that we started with back in the 30s and 40s. And then from that it was just a demand for other things, construction materials testing wise, but mostly aggregate equipment is where we get most of our questions for the maintenance and the upkeep of of that equipment, yeah.

00:01:47 BRIAN: Sometimes when we talk to people and and this is, this goes for anything in any industry, you always get the they don't make them like they used to kind of.

00:01:56 BRIAN: Comments. What? What kind of changes have taken place in equipment manufacturing in this industry and and do you think things are getting better or worse from your perspective?

00:01:57

Mm-hmm.

00:02:08 JIM: I could go either way on that. Here's.

00:02:09 JIM: The.

00:02:09 JIM: Thing I think we've had some changes in the quality of steel and some individual components or the raw materials maybe have taken a small dip, but then you add in to it the fact that we've added the automation with the CNC mills and the lays.

00:02:28 JIM: All the components have become more dimensionally accurate. All the parts are dimensionally accurate. So ultimately that should create higher quality of product for the customer. However, I really do believe that some of those raw materials that influence that could be affecting that overall perception.

00:02:47 BRIAN: Yes.

00:02:48 JIM: I suppose.

00:02:49 JIM: You know what I mean?

00:02:49 BRIAN: Yeah, that makes sense. That now you you are really involved in committee activities within ASTM and Ashton and so are some of the other Gilson employees. But you don't seem to approach it from the perspective of hey, let's try to make that standard match what products we're selling and I appreciate that about about Gilson and and.

00:03:09 BRIAN: The staff there as well as there's some other companies that do the same thing, but since it seems like selling is not the main objective there, what is the strategy there for being so involved in standards development? Why is it so important to you?

00:03:24 JIM: Well, Ben backup.

00:03:26 JIM: Started in our technical department and had 20 years lab experience. Jen Handley had eight years lab experience. I had 17 years lab experience, so inherently we're just kind of aware of not only the procedures, but the procedure process.

00:03:45 JIM: The importance of the quality, the condition and the calibration of the equipment used and we kind of understand how all that kind of ties in and and affects the results of the test. So the only way that we can really make sure that we stay on that path.

00:04:01 JIM: Of supplying quality equipment that meets all those qualifications is to completely understand procedures and the only way to do that is to attend AASHTO Committee on Materials and pavements. ASTM stay involved in TRB the resource technical exchange.

00:04:22 JIM: I mean, those are just key components of us keeping our hand on the pal.

00:04:26 JIM: Of what's going on in the industry so that we can supply the best product we.

00:04:30 BRIAN: Can. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I imagine when you're at those meetings, you're you're finding out, you know, the latest news and information as well as what kind of issues other people are running into. But what what kind of questions do you get from your customers the most?

00:04:45 BRIAN: I imagine that they've got questions about maybe some things that.

00:04:50 BRIAN: You you may not be expected to be able to answer. They're more specific to the materials that they're testing, but do they ask those kind of questions or is it mainly just about the equipment itself?

00:05:01 JIM: They do ask those questions. They they ask what equipment they need for the procedures. They ask how to run the procedure, they they they don't understand the certain.

00:05:12 JIM: Part of the procedure and they want clarification on that. Things that aren't identified in the procedure, they'll ask how often should I calibrate my sieves? You know, how do I know if they're calibrated? Do I send them back? I've got an old piece of equipment that's 20 years old. Do you have parts for that? You.

00:05:30 JIM: Know or this is?

00:05:32 JIM: The fee angle I'm getting on my test result. How can this be for this material so you know we do have to kind of understand material properties and and all that stuff.

00:05:44 JIM: I I answer those questions a little hesitantly because I don't want to get into the design or the prediction of how a material is going to act in.

00:05:53 JIM: The.

00:05:53 JIM: Field. But we do try to do our best to kind of steer them towards good information.

00:06:00 BRIAN: Yeah. Now, I'd like you to answer that one question about the old part.

00:06:05 BRIAN: If somebody has really old equipment, I mean, do you guys have a stockpile of old parts?

00:06:05 JIM: Yes.

00:06:11 JIM: Yeah. For items like testing screens and old shakers, we do have an inventory of parts that we can supply them with. It's easier to repair something that's old and.

00:06:21 BRIAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can unscrew apart, screw a new part back in. How much is computer operated equipment changed the way you guys operate? Are you guys replacing motherboards instead of gears and springs now?

00:06:37 JIM: Yeah, we do supply motherboards and other computer controlled components for some of the.

00:06:42 JIM: Equipment. There's still a lot of spring round timers out there.

00:06:45 BRIAN: People always ask about that time or requirement in R18 and that's why it exists is because of those spring timers that were so prevalent back in the day. I like to revisit that issue regularly and see OK is it time to stop making people standardize their quartz timers? Because usually it's more of a.

00:07:07 BRIAN: A test of how fast their reflexes are.

00:07:10 BRIAN: OK, they can start and stop those timers, but if they have a mechanical timer it it could be pretty far off, yeah.

00:07:18 JIM: I agree we we encourage using the digital timers whenever we can.

00:07:22 BRIAN: Yeah. Now let let's get into sieves and savings efficiency, because I think that's one of the main things that we want to talk about today. Now, obviously, Gilson sells a lot of sieves and she.

00:07:32 BRIAN: Acres we see the the 8 inch sives. The 12 inch sieves well, even sometimes the little 4 inch sieves and those are diameters. For those of you listening, can all those sieves? Well, I guess not. The four inch one, but can all those other sieves be used for the same purpose?

00:07:49 JIM: Yeah. For the most part, I mean we, so we have recommendations where we'll try to to guide the customer to maximum size.

00:07:57 JIM: To be used on a particular sieve in a particular shaker. Obviously sieve height has something to do with it. If you have a 2 inch sieve and you only have an inch.

00:08:08 JIM: And.

00:08:08 JIM: 1/2 above the top of the cloth. Then it would obviously come in contact with the other cloth above it. That's not going to work.

00:08:16 JIM: Out very well.

00:08:17 JIM: That's a situation where you would encourage somebody to go to a larger screen shaker and then the same right down to you might have that problem with A1 inch particle where you have multiple particles lying on top of each other. We might encourage them to use a 12 inch diameter 6 which has a little taller.

00:08:34 JIM: Frame as opposed to the 8 inch diameter sieve, you also see intermediate height sieves, half height sieves that comes into play. Those are fine for your smaller #4 materials and below, but really I wouldn't encourage folks to use those on the larger particles.

00:08:53 BRIAN: Yeah. And you've got those deep well 200 sieves for wash.

00:08:57 JIM: Yep.

00:08:57 BRIAN: Right, those exist too, but I think the biggest confusion.

00:09:01 BRIAN: And that that I've heard about in the industry is that transition between the 12 inch diameter round sieves and the big tray sieves that go in the totally different kind of shaker. Can you talk about some of the issues related to those?

00:09:16 JIM: So the larger shakers, really dirt designed for anything that's 2 1/2 inches to about a #4 #8 people do use them down all the way down to a #200, but it's rarely for qualifying grain size down to that size.

00:09:32 JIM: We would recommend that a customer use that anytime they're using a bulk material that has a top size of of two inches for the 12 inch diameter. While it might handle a 2 inch particle, it's not going to handle 8/2 inch particles. So I guess at that point if you're talking about having 1/2 inch.

00:09:52 JIM: Article that you can easily scout out of your saving process and weigh it separately. 12 inch diameter zip might be alright in that case, but I would not be recommending it for anything over really about an inch and.

00:10:03 JIM: A.

00:10:03 JIM: Half.

00:10:04 JIM: Size.

00:10:05 BRIAN: Yeah. Another issue that we hear about with those big traces is when people try to check their sieving sufficiency with that. Because if you look at the standards, you've got specific practice that's described and defined and people have to adhere to where you're using an 8 inch round.

00:10:25 BRIAN: Sieve and tapping it so many times, rotating it, tapping it to check it out. How in the world are you supposed to do that for the big traces when you've got so much material on those?

00:10:36 BRIAN: And then transfer it to an 8 inch said. What do you recommend when people call? I imagine that's a common question. Do you get that one?

00:10:42 JIM: Yes, uh, quite often as a matter of fact, it often enough that I actually call that the nemesis of the construction materials, particle size problems. And you're right, it's because we're trying to qualify every single tray and some trays just have it such a large amount of material.

00:10:45 BRIAN: That's what.

00:11:02 JIM: That you have to.

00:11:04 JIM: Transfer it from your screen shaker to your 8 inch diameter sieve. I mean a 12 inch diameter sieve is really hard to do hand sieving with.

00:11:14 JIM: So most of them move that over to an 8 inch diameter sieve and now your sieve area is so much smaller you have the opportunity to lose material between the transfer process. You have to run multiple tests.

00:11:31 JIM: Which means that even if you have a cup of particles that get stuck in the 8 inch sieve and you don't get them out, that's transferred to the next sieving sample. Those are some real problems with the transferring of the material. You also have sieve opening tolerances in M92 and E11.

00:11:51 JIM: And while the tolerances I would call relatively tight, they do allow for different size openings and those different size openings can yield, you know, a different percent retained, that gives the appearance of inefficient mechanical shaking.

00:12:06 JIM: In my mind.

00:12:07 BRIAN: I agree, and I hope people caught that as they were listening, but let I I wanna explore that one a little bit more because I think that's probably the biggest issue that people have is that they're expecting those screen openings to be exactly the same between the tray and the 8 inch diameter sieve. But I mean if you look at those.

00:12:28 BRIAN: If you just look at the manufactured screens that you have between those two, you see a really thin diameter wire mesh on the 8 inch one compared to that in the tray. So.

00:12:42 BRIAN: So it seems unreasonable to expect those to be the same, because they're probably coming off at different manufacturing process. Is that correct?

00:12:50 JIM: It's all woven the same.

00:12:52 BRIAN: MHM.

00:12:53 JIM: But they're seldom from the same bolt of cloth, if that makes sense. So they weave this cloth in large quantities, and then you know you can match a sieve to a screen tray. And we have had customers request that before.

00:12:56 BRIAN: OK.

00:13:09 JIM: But even then, you still have the potential for two different size openings, both meeting the the M92 or 11 requirements. So it's not foolproof.

00:13:22 JIM: Even even to get those matched up.

00:13:25 BRIAN: Uh, so the general process of the manufacturing process you are using sometimes the same screen.

00:13:31 JIM: Exactly, yeah.

00:13:32 BRIAN: On the tray and the 8 inch. Oh no.

00:13:33 JIM: Yep, Yep.

00:13:34 BRIAN: Kidding.

00:13:35 BRIAN: Wow, so I didn't. I didn't realize that because it seemed like from the ones I've seen and maybe it's because of the age of the traces that I've seen where they look ostensibly different.

00:13:46 JIM: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you do have that because I think that customers look at those screen trays and they do not inspect those or have them certified or verified as frequently as they do the round ones. I don't know why that is, but they don't do.

00:14:02 JIM: It.

00:14:03

Hmm.

00:14:04 JIM: We do offer that calibration and certification process to 11 for both the screen trays and the round sibs.

00:14:11 JIM: But I can tell you that the round sifts are verified tremendously more often than the the screen trace.

00:14:18 BRIAN: OK. So that's interesting too, because I think what happens a lot of times is people get the if I buy a new sieve, I get it and it has a slip of paper that says it's in conformance with the 11, but that's not a calibration record with individual measurements, but you do offer a calibration.

00:14:37 BRIAN: Service where you you actually?

00:14:40 BRIAN: Will check an individual sieve screen and and the sieve in accordance with the 11.

00:14:45 JIM: Yes, all of them are manufactured according to that Main 11 specification or M92 specification where we we certify that all the cloth is made. The cloth is measured and then it's cut and placed in sites. We do offer the service of actually measuring.

00:15:05 JIM: The certain number of openings based on the two different levels that ASTM the 11 have as a service which actually measures the the cloth inside the frame of the sieve, be it the tray or the 8 inch diameter or 12 inch diameter sieve.

00:15:20 JIM: We also do the three inch diameters. We also supply some mesh that's in accordance with the 161, which is an electroform mesh, which is more accurate, but those are expensive and we sell those primarily to pharmaceutical industries or paint powder pigment industries where it's a little more.

00:15:40 JIM: Critical whether something is 30 Micron or 35 Micron, let's say.

00:15:45 BRIAN: Thanks for mentioning the three inch. So I think I referred to those as 4 inch earlier. I appreciate.

00:15:50 BRIAN: Clarification. People are going to start asking for four inch diameter says. Do you guys sell 4 inch diameter sieves?

00:15:57 JIM: Not if I can avoid it.

00:15:58 BRIAN: OK, that's good. So don't start asking Jim for four inch diameter sieves. That was just a mistake I made earlier.

00:16:02

Yeah.

00:16:04 JIM: We do sell a lot of three inch, a lot of three inch.

00:16:07 KIM: Yeah, I have a question. I'm going to just jump in here. You said you calibrate the sieves like how do you fix it? If it's wrong, you just have to replace it or like what's the actual act?

00:16:16 KIM: Of calibrating it. If it is out of spec.

00:16:20 JIM: It's it's actually not a calibration, it's actually a verification of size openings, the what's called calibration grade inside the 11 spec. It's really just a measurement of a certain number of openings and the number of openings that are measured or based on the opening size of the site itself.

00:16:38 JIM: And it just gives the customer a higher level of confidence in the particular openings on that sieve. So yeah, there's there's really no changes that can be made if customer were to send in a SIV, if they were sending in a 8 inch shift, 12 inch shift to have recertified or re verified. And it was out of spec.

00:16:58 JIM: What we would do is we would not charge him for that verification process, but encourage them to buy a new SIV and then verify it and then charge them for the new SIV and the verification, rather than, say, oh, well, this one's.

00:16:59

You.

00:17:09 JIM: Too old and believe me.

00:17:12 JIM: Because of the use and the abuse of some of these sieves, they they are out of spec. Even you know that's just the way it is. I mean, they take a lot of abuse banging on the counter and banging on the frame and just they're a little more sensitive than.

00:17:28 JIM: That.

00:17:29 BRIAN: They take a beating, but they hold up pretty darn well. I mean, you see some really old sieves and laboratories, and they still look great and you check them.

00:17:37 BRIAN: When you're an assessor and and most of the time they turn out looking pretty good and and yeah, as far as the the terminology is concerned, in Ashton R18 those are referred to as checks. I think I called it a calibration which is like unbelievable for me to make that mistake.

00:17:55

I was really.

00:17:56 KIM: Confused. And I'm like maybe I'm misunderstanding everything. Like maybe I'm just don't know. But I was very confused.

00:18:01 KIM: By that terminology confusion. So thank you for clarifying all of that. Thank.

00:18:07 KIM: You.

00:18:07 JIM: Well, that's part of E 29 is where and that's where 11 falls and they do use inspection and calibration a little differently than we'd use it in the D18 or D4C1C9 construction materials. But E 11 does use that terminology. You know, they do solid. They do call it a calibration.

00:18:24

Mm-hmm.

00:18:27 JIM: Grade 6 and then they go through and they defy.

00:18:29 JIM: And you know what? That calibration with the level of confidence is if you use that calibration grade sieve. So I mean, yes, it's it's confusing and use you know by us but in other industries and you'll find this throughout the world is you know in other industries it's perfectly acceptable and understanding. But yeah, calibration, there's no change in it.

00:18:50 JIM: Once the cloth is weaved, it is what it is.

00:18:53 BRIAN: Yeah. Now, now you talked earlier about sometimes people call with questions about practices or procedures of how to use the equipment or test the specific thing as far as that saving sufficiency practice is concerned, does Gilson have any videos or any other information that people can have?

00:19:15 BRIAN: Access to from your website.

00:19:16 BRIAN: Right. Other than what's already in a standard like ASTM C136?

00:19:21 JIM: We don't really. I've tried to crack that nut several times with many, many customers. To me it comes back to you've got a lot of things that are influencing that test result and that verification process. We've touched a little bit on the civic opening tolerances. We've touched a little bit on transferring the material.

00:19:41 JIM: From the large screen to the smaller diameter set.

00:19:45 JIM: And another key component in that is the aggregate variability particle shape, roundness, angularity what I call near sized particles that are likely to be lodged in the cloth during the sitting process. You know, these are all factors in the sufficiency equation that are really difficult to take out.

00:20:04 JIM: The fact that some of the materials are softer than the hardness of the cloth, I mean stainless steel has a most hardness of about 6.6.

00:20:13 JIM: 6.8 that might be fine for your carnets and your silicas, but boy, you put limestone or dolomite in there and you're starting to upgrade the material and it's going to start to reduce its particle size on its own during the process. So you know, by that very definition, I'm running it longer trying to get it to meet that one person.

00:20:33 JIM: Dent. And I'm actually degrading the material during the process and I think oh, that didn't work. It's still wrong. I'll put it in there longer and then I braid it more. And, you know, it's a factor. So if I had something to give the customer and I do try to try to get them to.

00:20:48 JIM: Do.

00:20:48 JIM: That it's almost like the micro default test where I try to get them to come up with an aggregate that doesn't.

00:20:54 JIM: Trade that isn't super angular and they can put in there and run and say my shaker needs to run 10 minutes in order to get it satisfactory particle size and how?

00:21:06 JIM: And I think that once we start qualifying it like that and we just say I'm going to run it 10 minutes. You know, I think that would be better and even that's not going to work for all materials. I mean that would work fine for round materials, but angular materials, yeah, maybe you need to do 12 minutes. We need to qualify the Shakers separately.

00:21:26 JIM: I believe from the materials and the wire cloth or the sieve mesh.

00:21:31 JIM: Summer.

00:21:31 BRIAN: Yeah. And I think that concept has been covered in ASTM C1077 too, where they clarify that laboratories need to establish different shaking times for different aggregates, composition and shape, I think are some of the things that they might mentioned, but like you were talking about it really it really is the composition is critical.

00:21:52 BRIAN: Because of the hardness difference between the screens and the aggregate being shaken, if somebody has a really delicate aggregate that they are regularly running, are there any other kind of mesh sieves or screens out there that are soft?

00:22:10 BRIAN: That are like more like a delicate cycle for the Shakers.

00:22:14 JIM: Yeah. You know, we could change the amplitude of the shaker so that it was a little less violent. We have offered that to other industries, primarily seeds and foods that, you know, don't want that agitation that's inherent to the large.

00:22:30 JIM: Makers and the small shakers, where it's, you know, designed for 2 1/2 to.

00:22:35 JIM: The 22.5 and 2.8 specific gravity type.

00:22:38 JIM: Cereals.

00:22:39 BRIAN: Wow, I've never really thought about changing the amplitude on the shaker. I imagine only certain bottles would be able to be tweaked that way. Is that?

00:22:47 BRIAN: Correct.

00:22:48 JIM: It's actually something that we do at the time of order where somebody will say, hey, I'm testing Kohl's, another one where it's a lot lighter than some of the construction aggregates where they want something a little less violent and there's a low amplitude attachment for those shakers. The large shakers.

00:23:04 BRIAN: That is really interesting. I I never considered that before. What other things do you think are the most questions not asked, but things that you want people to know about regarding sieves and shakers?

00:23:17 JIM: You know, from a manufacturer's perspective, you know there's a lot of tolerances that are affecting the shaking process. That's the reason we try to get away from from the handshaking, in my opinion.

00:23:30 JIM: One of the things that Gilson does and and has done is we have a laboratory here and we go through and we test the processes and we adjust and we tweak until we come up with an amplitude and a characteristic that meets with the materials that our customers are using. And that's why I say, you know, 2.5 to 2.8 specific gravity.

00:23:50 JIM: Mineral aggregates is what most of our customers are using this for, so we've actually designed these to meet the criteria of what they're testing.

00:23:59 JIM: And that's something that's difficult to repeat in a hand sieving process. The mechanical process requires a certain size motor, a certain sized pulley, certain size belt, connecting rods and bearings that all in part drive on this in a frequency that.

00:24:19 JIM: Achieves what we're trying to do.

00:24:21 JIM: You and it's difficult to replicate or verify that by hand sitting. It's almost like measuring a length by caliper and then verifying it with a ruler truthfully, but the placement of the motor, the size of the motor, the size of the pulleys, the Cam.

00:24:33 BRIAN: Mm-hmm.

00:24:41 JIM: The Hammers, I mean, all that stuff is specifically designed for the aggregate industry and we verify it in our laboratory and we don't make changes unless it's verified. We try to qualify all this and that's why I invite you guys to come and see what we got at some point.

00:24:56 JIM: We take it kind of serious.

00:24:58 BRIAN: Yeah. And and.

00:24:59 JIM: Particle size is our business really.

00:25:02 BRIAN: I appreciate that. I'd love to check it out as far as where technology is taking us these days, what kind of changes do you see coming down the road for Gilson as far as manufacturing or what kind of new products are you selling?

00:25:17 JIM: You know, most of the new products are in the soil industry for us and some of the asphalt products. So we do do some development in that arena. We also have a couple of exciting new products that hopefully will be hitting the website here in the next month or so that are concrete related, which hopefully will.

00:25:35 JIM: You know, make our customers happy. I think just improvements, you know, improvements on things that we see give our customers headaches.

00:25:45 JIM: Just another way for us to resolve their problems and improve their ability to qualify their products, I think is our mainstay right now is just trying to help our customers improve what they're doing and and the procedures and that kind of.

00:26:00 BRIAN: Alright, that sounds good. Kim, before we wrap it up, I always have to ask you. You've been listening to me, Babylon with my questions and and listen to some of the things Jim said. What I always missed things. What did I miss today?

00:26:15 KIM: I don't know if you missed anything. I'm not a technical person, so I'm not in the laboratory, so this could be a really easy and obvious question. When you're transferring material from your big sieve to a little SIV, how do you not lose material? Like I'm very confused by that process.

00:26:31 JIM: Yeah, I've done thousands of sives over the course of my life and and I can tell you that it's almost impossible not to lose.

00:26:39 JIM: Some fraction of material you try to limit it, but it's it's difficult and that I mean you can turn it over in a in a.

00:26:47 JIM: Pan.

00:26:48 JIM: You can turn it over on a piece of butcher paper and then put the butcher paper in a in a smaller sieve. I mean, there are ways of limiting it, but I don't know if there are ways of.

00:26:59 JIM: Of eliminating it.

00:27:00 KIM: Yeah. OK, that's. I was just trying to like picture that process in my head and I'm just like I don't understand how that you can do that. So thank you for clarifying. I could probably have also just gone into our laboratory in the back and seeing some see someone try to do it as well but.

00:27:15 KIM: I just thought I'd.

00:27:16 KIM: Ask about that.

00:27:16 JIM: No, it's a good it's a good question and it's not an easy process. I can assure you that. Yet you know, your question is something that has probably come across the desk of every lab manager that's trying to meet this specification. Is the technicians gonna walk in there scratching his head? OK. You want me to put this in here? And how am I supposed to do that?

00:27:36 JIM: Yeah, good question.

00:27:38 KIM: And another question is is just floating around in my head as we were talking. I've been picturing like the bigger cities are square or rectangle, correct. And then the the hand sieves I've seen are round. Yeah. So is there a pros and cons benefits not for having corners versus round edges on the side?

00:27:46 JIM: Yeah, rectangular.

00:27:58 KIM: Like does that change the testing? Does that change the material that falls through like or did I just open another can of worms and we?

00:28:04 KIM: Don't need to talk.

00:28:05 JIM: About that now. No, I don't. I we could talk about it. I know that there are some fractionated openings around the perimeter or.

00:28:13 JIM: That could be eliminated and we do some of that with the screen trays using some material that goes around the outside to kind of cover those.

00:28:21 JIM: Up.

00:28:22 KIM: Thanks. That's all I had that I I think you covered everything else, Brian, for the most part, those were just kind of as you were talking. I was just like oh, I.

00:28:28 KIM: Wonder about this and I wonder about that so.

00:28:31 BRIAN: Yeah, there's a pizza place around here that says that their pizzas are square because they don't cut corners. That if if you'll send everyone to an all square rectangular.

00:28:40 BRIAN: Shape method. You may want to talk to those pizza people about.

00:28:44 JIM: May want to may want to employ that marketing. That's nice. I like that.

00:28:48 BRIAN: Yeah, that's pretty good. If anybody wants to know more about Gilson and their products and services, where can they find more information?

00:28:57 JIM: I mean our website has got a lot of information on site shakers. We include blogs, product descriptions, videos and we have a tech support e-mail on there. If they don't see something that they'd like to see, we certainly encourage people to request that and.

00:29:14 JIM: We put it on our docket and try to get to it as quick as we can. I guess that would be the most useful resource would be that we also have ASTM publication for for saving.

00:29:25 JIM: That we offer, we've got the aggregates handbook that we also offer that gives us a lot of detail.

00:29:30 JIM: On.

00:29:31 JIM: How to process materials? How to split materials? So that's a great resource and and of course the ASTM and Astro methods themselves are just a great resource for anybody trying to determine particle size.

00:29:45 JIM: Or.

00:29:46 JIM: Asphalt components, concrete components, soil. I mean really those procedures will give them a lot of information as well.

00:29:55 BRIAN: Yeah. Now if people wanted to reach out to you directly because of some of the interesting insights you provided and they want a little bit more detail, can they e-mail you directly?

00:30:04 JIM: Ohh yeah Yep, my e-mail is jaybibler@gilsonco.com and.

00:30:11 JIM: I'd be happy to, you know, try to answer any questions that we didn't cover today.

00:30:16 BRIAN: My my experience though is that no one ever emails the podcast at ashtonresource.org e-mail address, so I'm not sure you're going.

00:30:23 BRIAN: To get much.

00:30:24 JIM: OK, guys. OK, well, shoot.

00:30:27 BRIAN: Yeah, but I I really appreciate your time today, Jim. Thanks. I I know I learned a lot and I'm sure other people listening did too. So thank you for your time today.

00:30:36 JIM: Well, I appreciate you guys giving myself and Gilson the opportunity to speak on this and certainly if there's something else that needs clarified to reach out.

00:30:43 BRIAN: All right, thanks. Sounds good.

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