Rethinking Mining Equipment

How Schlam Optimizes Payload Productivity with the Davi MCB

Davi and Schlam Helping you Rethink and Reinvent Since 2010

Story overview

We produce the world’s best mining truck beds and mining buckets for all hard rock mining environments and support them with the very best product life-cycle care in the industry.

Website

schlam.com/

Location

Australia

Industry

Mining & Earth Moving

Bending Ultra-Hard Wear Plates Without Structural Failure

Fabricating high-performance excavator buckets and dump truck bodies requires working with premium, high-yield wear plates such as Hardox®, Xar®, and Dillidur®. While the physical thickness of these plates typically does not exceed 40 mm (1.57 in.), their extreme mechanical resistance presents major manufacturing challenges:

Extreme Material Spring-Back: High-tensile, wear-resistant steel alloys exhibit massive elastic recovery, making precise, repeatable curvature profiles difficult to achieve on standard rolling equipment.
Excessive Deflection and Tonnage Demands: Bending highly resistant materials requires a machine with a nominal rolling capacity far exceeding the physical plate thickness. To safely process a 40 mm (1.57 in.) wear plate, a workshop requires a machine with a nominal capacity of up to 90 mm (3.54 in.).
Risk of Workpiece Surface Damage: Traditional linear rolling guides can cause the hard plate to slip, leading to surface marking, inaccurate profiles, and costly test-run material scrap.

To support their engineering and design requirements, Schlam needed a heavy-duty rolling system that combined extreme pressing power with precise electronic control.

The Solution

The MCB R30 Heavy-Duty 4-Roll Plate Roll

To overcome these severe fabrication boundaries, Schlam established a long-term partnership with Davi, culminating in the integration of the Davi MCB R30. Boasting a massive rolling capacity of 3,000 mm (10 ft.) x 96 mm (3.78 in.), the MCB R30 is the largest machine of its kind ever deployed in Australia.

The Davi MCB 4-roll plate roll delivers specific technical advantages for wear-plate processing:

Continuous Clamping Control: The MCB’s lower roll firmly clamps the material, ensuring absolute control over plate position throughout the pre-bending and rolling cycles. This eliminates the risk of plate slippage when feeding hard alloys.
High-Leverage Planetary Guides: Actuated by Davi’s exclusive planetary guides, the side rolls swing around a pivoting point rather than moving vertically. This leverage multiplier delivers maximum bending force close to the top roll, achieving tight radii and minimizing flat ends.
Patented Servo-Tronic Parallelism: Driven by an integrated dual-control system, the rolls remain perfectly parallel even under highly unbalanced loading conditions. This keeps forming tolerances incredibly tight across the entire width of the plate.

The Results

Slashed Production Cycle Times

The structural rigidity and automated rolling controls of the MCB have optimized cycle times, allowing Schlam to meet tight delivery windows for major mining OEMs.

Scrap-Free High-Tensile Rolling

With the built-in material logic, operators can easily compensate for the massive spring-back of Hardox® and other wear-resistant alloys, delivering first-part-correct accuracy without trial-and-error scrap.

Expanded Custom Manufacturing Capabilities

The massive capacity reserve of the MCB R30 enables Schlam to safely roll everything from heavy dumper bodies and excavator buckets to softer, medium-duty mining assets like water truck tanks and air processing equipment.

In the highly competitive heavy mining sector, payload efficiency and equipment durability directly dictate operational profitability. For Welshpool, Western Australia-based Schlam, engineering high-performance mining assets is a core specialty. Known as an industry innovator, Schlam designs and manufactures custom dump truck bodies (such as the Hercules) and heavy excavator buckets engineered to withstand extreme on-site abuse.

Operating in Australia's demanding mining landscapes, Schlam’s equipment must survive continuous, highly abrasive impacts from iron ore, coal, and overburden. To maximize payload potential and extend service life, Schlam must roll ultra-hard, wear-resistant steel alloys into complex, high-precision geometries. Achieving these results while maintaining quick delivery timelines requires structural bending technology of the highest caliber.

A 15-Year Partnership Fueled by Localized Support
Schlam’s investment in the MCB R30 is the continuation of a highly successful relationship with Davi that began in 2010. Over the past 15 years, Davi has supplied numerous plate rolls to support Schlam’s growth. This long-term operational continuity is secured through the prompt, on-the-ground technical assistance of Ottotech Services, Davi’s trusted regional partner in Australia, working in perfect synergy with Davi’s Italian headquarters.