The chip bin conveyor carries wooden chips produced by a chipping machine to the top of a 50 metre (164') high chip bin or silo. To reach this height the scraper chain is elevated at an angle of about 30 degrees. Previously wood was used for scrapers but was not sufficiently flexible to go around the bends at the end of the conveyor.

Due to the lack of flexibility of the 40 mm (1.5") thick wooden scraper blades, wood chips trapped between the chain link and the hinge of a wooden scraper blade would cause the whole scraper chain to jump from the sprocket.

In some instances this would even lead to breaking of the sprocket or chain, which caused costly downtime.

After replacing the wooden scraper blades with blades made from Vescolene Ultrablack (440 mm x 150 mm x 15 mm) (17.3" x 6" x 0.6") the following improvements were obtained:

• Chain and sprocket breakages eliminated
• No downtime to replace scraper blades
• Noise reduced to a minimum