The Future of Iron Ore: What It Means for Wear Plate
The future of iron ore is changing, but perhaps not in the way many expected. China is approaching peak steel consumption, while India is emerging as a major source of future growth. At the same time, new high-grade supply such as Simandou is entering the market, while established mining regions including the Pilbara face gradual […]
QME Reflections: Wear Plate Reliability and the Shift From Reactive Repair to Predictive Maintenance
Just back from an informative week at the Queensland Mining & Engineering Exhibition (QME), catching up with customers and having great conversations with coal industry peers — everyone from procurement and maintenance engineers to general managers. Those conversations also highlighted how choosing the right wear plate can directly influence equipment reliability, maintenance intervals and total […]
Weld Overlay Plate Technology Across Australia and Canada: Reflections from CIM Connect 2026
A weld overlay plate can solve the same wear problem in two mining markets, but the way people understand its value is rarely the same. That was one of the clearest reflections from FuseTech’s conversations at CIM Connect 2026 in Vancouver. The event was a useful meeting point for mining professionals, suppliers and technical teams. […]
Why Material Hangup Is Costing You More Than You Think
Walk into almost any bulk handling operation, a coal port, a cement plant, a hard rock mine, and you’ll find the same problem hiding in plain sight: material that won’t move. It builds up in chutes. It bridges across hopper outlets. It cakes onto liner surfaces until someone has to stop the line, grab a […]
Why Hardfaced Steel Plate Fails Prematurely in Chutes and Hoppers
Early Failure Is Rarely Just a Material Problem Hardfaced steel plate is widely used to protect chutes, hoppers, transfer points, and bins from abrasive wear. But many sites still experience liner life well below expectations. The instinct is to blame the plate — not hard enough, not thick enough, wrong grade. Sometimes that is true. More […]
Stop Unscheduled Wear Liner Changeouts in Chutes and Transfer Points
A high-performance wear liner is not just a replaceable plate inside a chute or transfer point. It is part of a wider wear protection system that directly affects shutdown planning, material flow, production continuity, and long-term maintenance cost. Unscheduled liner changeouts are rarely caused by a single “bad plate.” In most cases, they result from […]
Introduction: Why Hardness Became the Default Metric — and Why It’s Misleading
In mining and mineral processing, hardness is often the first number people look at when selecting a wear plate. It’s simple, measurable, and easy to compare. But in real-world applications, hardness alone rarely tells the full story. Many operations have experienced this firsthand — materials with high hardness still suffer from premature failure, cracking, or rapid […]
Meet FuseTech at CIM CONNECT 2026
FuseTech will be exhibiting at CIM CONNECT 2026 at the Australian Pavilion, and we look forward to connecting with mining professionals across Canada. We are not new to this market. FuseTech already supplies smooth-surface CCO wear plates into Canadian oil sands operations, supporting wear solution providers and maintenance contractors in severe abrasion and high-throughput environments. Our footprint in oil sands continues […]
What Really Determines CCO Wear Performance?
Hardness is often treated as a defining benchmark for wear resistance, but in reality, it is a simplification, and in many cases, a stereotype. Comparing hardness values only makes sense within the same product category, where the underlying material system is broadly comparable. For example, hardness can be a useful reference when comparing: QT steels against […]
Is a Smooth Surface Only Cosmetic?
At first glance, a smooth surface wear plate looks… well, better. But the real question is whether that smooth finish delivers a reliable wear life beyond appearance. The Limitations of Traditional Cracked Wear Plates In material handling applications, surface condition plays a direct role in material flow. A flatter, smoother surface helps reduce hang-up, carryback, and […]
