Plastic Wear Parts & Components for Mining Operations
Mining wear parts fail fast when the wrong material is in the application. High-abrasion conveyor systems, chute drops with sharp angular rock, and processing equipment that runs 24 hours a day leave no margin for under-specified components. Pepco Plastics manufactures UHMW and engineered plastic mining wear parts from our Alberta facility — chute liners, conveyor wear strips, hopper liners, screen panels, and custom-machined components for mining operations across Western Canada. The case for plastic over steel in most mining wear applications is not complicated. UHMW outlasts steel in abrasion. It does not corrode. It self-lubricates. And it installs and replaces without welding.
How Mining Operations Use Engineered Plastics
Plastic wear components appear throughout the materials handling chain in a modern mining operation. The application list is specific enough that procurement teams usually know exactly what they need — but the right material specification for each application is not always obvious.
Chute liners and impact plates
Material transfer points — where ore, aggregate, or concentrate drops from one conveyor to another or into a hopper — are the highest-wear locations in most operations. UHMW chute liners absorb impact and resist abrasion simultaneously. Standard UHMW is the baseline; in the most severe impact zones, Tivar UHMW grades offer enhanced performance.
Conveyor wear strips and skirt boards
The continuous sliding contact between material and conveyor structure generates sustained abrasion loads. UHMW wear strips on conveyor skirt boards and contact surfaces outlast steel by a factor of four to ten in standard abrasive ore applications, while reducing belt wear and lowering rolling resistance.
Hopper liners
Fine material — especially wet or sticky ore — builds up on steel hopper walls and causes flow problems. UHMW's low surface friction eliminates adhesion, keeps material flowing, and protects the steel hopper structure from direct abrasion.
Sprocket guards and component covers
Plastic guards and covers in high-abrasion zones protect mechanical components from direct material contact. UHMW is the standard specification.
Screen panels and deck liners
In screening and classification operations, plastic deck panels and screen liners offer comparable screening performance to wire mesh with significantly longer wear life in fine, abrasive material streams.
Custom machined components
Beyond standard liner panels and wear strips, mining operations regularly require custom-machined plastic components — bushings, guide blocks, wear plates machined to specific geometry. Pepco's CNC plastic machining capability handles these requirements from drawings or samples.
Recommended Materials for Mining Applications
UHMW plastic
UHMW plastic is the standard specification for the majority of mining wear parts — chute liners, conveyor components, hopper liners, and skirt boards. Its combination of abrasion resistance, impact toughness, and low surface friction is the right balance for most applications.
Tivar
Tivar is specified for the most demanding applications where standard UHMW service life is insufficient — high-impact transfer points, extremely abrasive material streams, or cold-weather operations where low-temperature toughness is required. Tivar Antistatic grades are specified for coal and other combustible material handling.
HDPE
HDPE is occasionally specified in mining support applications — chemical handling areas, corrosive environments around processing reagents, and applications where UHMW's abrasion resistance is not required but chemical resistance is.
Advantages of Pepco Plastics
Our customers typically machine or cut the products we sell or products for their own use or for resale. Pepco Plastics Ltd. manufactures and supplies state of the art materials providing our customers with solutions to eliminate shock, wear, vibration, and impact for the following applications:
- Wide temperature range from -80 to 800 Fahrenheit (-62 to 427 Celsius)
- Resistant to corrosion and most oils, greases, and solvents
- Excellent electrical insulation
- Excellent abrasion resistance
- Excellent impact strength
- Excellent resilience, toughness, and cut resistance
- Excellent sound dampening qualities
- Low coefficient of friction
Why Choose Pepco?
At Pepco Plastics, we combine decades of hands-on experience with rigorous quality control to deliver custom plastic parts you can rely on. Our in-house facility in Nisku, Alberta is equipped with the machinery, testing equipment, and skilled team needed to meet your exact specifications, every time. Here's what sets us apart:
Pepco's Capability in Mining
Pepco regularly supplies wear components to mining and bulk-handling operations in Western Canada. Standard liner panels and wear strips are Pepco's bread-and-butter — the straightforward work that procurement teams need quoted and delivered reliably, without qualification conversations.
Custom work is also standard. Mining operations frequently encounter wear problems that don't fit catalogue solutions: non-standard chute geometry, replacement parts for legacy equipment, wear assemblies that need to be profiled to match existing mounting arrangements. Pepco quotes from drawings, samples, or descriptions — and we understand the application well enough to ask the right questions when the brief is incomplete.
