Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 16 December 2025

In just 2 days we see the kick-off of the largest and longest rugby tournament in the Southern Hemisphere.
WearCheck has made it easy for you to follow your team's progress with a viewing schedule highlighting all the matches and television times.

Click here to download

A tried and tested method of condition monitoring, oil analysis reveals a wealth of critical information about the health of machinery components, providing invaluable insight into what maintenance action should be taken. For example, the levels of contamination of the oil (or grease) can indicate certain potential wear problems.

However, although comprehensive wear tables exist that are useful in some circumstances, these should not be relied upon as the sole source of data for a preventive maintenance strategy.

It is always preferable to assess the oil analysis results in the context of all the circumstances under which the component operates, to gain a holistic picture and make more informed maintenance decisions. This is the approach taken by WearCheck's team of eight highly-qualified diagnosticians, who have a combined experience of over 150 years and 7.5 million samples.

Holistic diagnosis and some of the misleading interpretations of contaminants are explained in Technical Bulletin 57.
Click here to download issue 57.

How to change degraded oil effectively, a handy lube tip, and the latest developments in efficient plant performance management . . . read all about these stories, and many more, in the December issue of WearCheck’s Monitor newsletter.

Other news features the latest on the brand new WearCheck Mozambique laboratory in Tete province, and a host of information on international conferences on condition monitoring that WearCheck staff have attended recently.

And who won the iPad mini in the 2013 WearCheck customer survey lucky draw? 

To find out the winner’s name, and to read the latest issue of Monitor, please click here

A team of fleet-footed footballers from WearCheck entered the first maritime industry friendly soccer tournament in the Western Cape recently, where hundreds of players from a range of marine-based businesses exchanged their workplaces for a football pitch, for the day.

During a fun-filled, spirited day, the WearCheck Warriors team won all three group games, but, as scores were tied nil-all at full time in the knock-out rounds, penalty shoot-outs cost them a chance at the finals.

Making up the team were staff from WearCheck’s Cape Town office, along with friends and colleagues from suppliers, including Meter Systems, Calberg Lubrication and Calberg Hydraulics.

Team captain Werner Buys, WearCheck Cape Town’s branch co-ordinator, was delighted with the day. ‘We won 2:1 against Viking Life Saving Equipment, next we beat Dormac 1:0, and lastly, our 2:0 score a gainst SAMSA (South African Maritime Safety Authority) was a sweet victory.  Unfortunately, in the knock-out round against Maritime Review we lost 1-0 in the penalty shoot-out.

‘WearCheck was one of the sponsors of the successful day, which also saw R22 000 raised by the Maritime Industry Soccer Tournament, towards a bursary for a marine engineering student.

Main photo 
Players in the successful WearCheck Warriors football team were: Back row (left to right): Charlton Fortuin, Rendall van Ryhn, Hoosain Sydow, Bertram Snell, and Bradley Roode Front row (left to right): Ndiphe Gqolodashe, Werner Buys (team captain), Dominic Chanyan, Ashley Davids, and Kenneth Mubeti

Greased lightning! Rendall van Rhyn of the WearCheck Warriors deftly fights off the opposition.
Helping him defend are Dominic Chanyan and Werner Buys in the goals.

To all the WearCheck customers who took the time to complete our recent survey … thank you!  Through constructive dialogue, we aim to continuously improve and streamline the service which we deliver to you, our customers, making everyone into winners.

Each year, as a mark of WearCheck’s gratitude to customers for taking the time to give feedback, one of the respondents is randomly selected to win a prize.  This year, Guy Lombard from NPC Cimpor Port Shepstone was awarded an iPad mini in the lucky draw.

On receiving his iPad, a delighted Guy (pictured, right) commented that it was the first time he had won anything! Presenting the award is WearCheck’s Peter Carty.

We appreciate these positive words from some of the survey respondents:

·         Very satisfied, brilliant advice.

·         Great service that adds a lot of value to my ability to deliver reliable machines.

·         WearCheck has improved our machine availability

·         Keep up the exceptional standard of work

·         There is no going back from WearCheck . . .

·         Very impressed, satisfied because it is professional.

Customer survey 2013 lucky draw winner Guy Lombard of NPC Cimpor Port Shepstone (right) receives an an Apple Ipad from WearCheck’s Peter Carty.

One of the primary causes of transformer failure is sludge in the oil. Sludge is just one of the oxidation decay by-products, formed when the aging transformer oil oxidises as the hydrocarbons in the oil react with oxygen dissolved in the oil.

These decay products attack the solid insulation and the sludge affects the ability of the oil to act as a dielectric and to transfer the heat effectively. If the aging is left unchecked, the oil's ability to protect the cellulose insulation is also compromised, resulting in component failure.

WearCheck's newly-launched oil regeneration process restores the old transformer oil by removing the sludge and by-products of the degradation process and other soluble oil decay products. When our oil regeneration process is complete, the regenerated transformer oil has a lower acid content, improved tan delta and interfacial tension values.

Simply purifying the oil does not remove the by-products of the degradation process, such as acids, aldehydes and peroxides, which bind together to form sludge.

Some of the advantages of oil regeneration are that it restores the oil to “like new” condition; it extends the life of the transformer; the cost for regenerated oil is much lower than new oil; it facilitates the removal of suspended sludge particles and acids; and it is environmentally friendly as the old oil is re-used, reducing the dependency on fossil fuels.

Click here for further information on our regenerated oil programme, or contact WearCheck on (031) 700-5460

WearCheck's latest Monitor newsletter features a wealth of technical tips and other innovations in the condition monitoring world, in particular a discussion on the merits of sulphur testing, and an overview of reliability solutions.

Join us as we take a peek at WearCheck’s very first West African laboratory in Ghana, and meet some of the team members from around the world who are dedicated to maintaining international oil analysis standards.

A key to maximising investment in any condition monitoring programme is to ensure that your staff members undergo the correct oil analysis training – the latest newsletter features a comprehensive summary of WearCheck training courses, which makes it easy to select each level of training for different role players.

Click here to read more on these stories and many more in Monitor 66

WearCheck Africa will be showcasing their condition monitoring services at various exhibitions in both hemispheres in the coming months.  Our team members will be available at the expos to chat about oil analysis, reliability solutions, oil regeneration, wind energy and answer any questions on these issues.

Please come and see us - we will be represented at these shows:

• Africa Down Under: Perth, Australia. Booth number 90. 28 - 30 August.
• Coal Mozambique: Tete, Mozambique. 4 – 6 September.
• WaCA: Accra, Ghana. Stand 22. 17 - 18 September.
• Bauma Africa: Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg. Hall 2, stand 618. 18 - 21 September.
• Windaba: CTICC, Cape Town. Stand 15. 25 - 27 September.

For further information, please visit www.wearcheck.co.za, or contact WearCheck

on +27 (0) 31 700-5460.

The newest trend among modern day industrial operations is a focus on total plant health through the use of proactive maintenance services, which improves the availability of individual machines and boosts the reliability - and therefore the productivity - of the plant.

Key elements of any condition-based monitoring are oil analysis, vibration and thermography; while proactive maintenance enhances component health through alignment, balancing, oil filtration and purification.

With the recent formation of its reliability services division, WearCheck has positioned itself as the only company in Africa – and one of only a handful globally – that can provide a complete condition monitoring service to the mining, power, pulp and paper, sugar, manufacturing  and other industries.

The philosophy of optimal plant maintenance has evolved significantly over the years, with each subsequent approach ensuring longer component life, greater plant reliability and fewer breakdowns with a strong focus on being cost effective rather than cheap.

Originally, plant operators used preventative, or time-based, maintenance, where machine parts were simply replaced as soon as they reached their life expectancy, regardless of their condition.

The predictive maintenance approach came next, where routine monitoring of the real conditions of the machinery components could reveal early failure, giving plant managers the chance to react timeously and avoid breakdowns. According to WearCheck’s reliability solutions manager Philip Schutte, ‘If you can’t plan it, you can’t control it.’

The latest approach - proactive maintenance - is the search for ways to extend the life of components to prevent premature failure, thereby boosting general plant health.  Says Schutte, ‘Any good proactive maintenance programme will boost both plant availability as well as plant reliability.’

Some of WearCheck’s reliability solutions services include alignment, balancing, oil filtration and purification. Pictured here is WearCheck technician Shiven Brijlal taking a vibration reading on an industrial vent fan.

For further information on total plant health and reliability services, please visit www.wearcheck.co.za, or contact Philip Schutte on (011) 392 6322.