Been running finish blade for 13 years, subdivisions, commercial and highway. Last year I took a job in a coal mine, ran haul truck for 6 months than got a position on the road crew running blade. Who out there is running blade in a mine? What challenges do you think you face that someone in construction might not face besides that our roads are 120 ft wide .
Hell, just speak up if you run any kind of equipment in a mine.
I think you're going to find you have to give more than 11 minutes for a response. I'm not on grader anymore, but the biggest thing I found that you experience in our mine as opposed to a construction site, is almost getting run over by 400 ton haul trucks all day long.
That post wasn't impatience but rather an after thought. Funny how big those trucks are and you can still miss seeing one.
Hey Blade Miner, I don't actually run equipment for a living but I do build motor graders. I have a couple dozen Champion C86 compact graders in mines all over Canada and Alaska. The mines I am in are totally different than the coal mine you are in. We are in nickle, gold, and diamond mostly. Big difference is we are able to pretty much make slight modifications to an off the shelf contractor type machine and go under ground with it. I have been a mile deep watching our graders work. Our underground graders take a beating for sure. Its just impossible to grade a rock the size of a school bus smooth. Many of the mines have installed rock crushers so that they have material to actually spread on the roads. These mines have become a complete success for us.
hey mate.. about all your experience will give you is how to operate/use the machine.. I have been in the mines for years now and about all the graders do is just sweep rocks/mud off the roads. They can get involved in keeping the digger floors neat but unless there is fines to work with its useless.. the scrapers spread the gravel around, then the graders just scrape all that off into the drains when they move rocks off the roads that drop off the trucks.. Alot of the grader ops I have seen dont even use the rippers to fix blowouts on the roads...
Saw a big cat grader (maybe a 16?) in a salt mine in Windsor once when I was on a tour with our local roads association. Biggest equipment he had to work arouns was loaders with 18 yard buckets. Pretty hard to rip up a rock floor to have something to work with I would think.
Blade Miner, I think if you've run finish blade for 13 years, you can handle any scenario that comes your way, even in a mine. The machines are just bigger!
Motorgrader, interesting stuff just when I thought I've seen or heard it all with the blade. Got any pics of them? Not true in my instance. In the past in my mine, roads have went in with little regard for drainage. Where ever water collected they just dug a sump next to the road. We now have plans for engineered roads at least the permanent coal roads. I guess I should have specified I'm not in support type role, though I have to do it on occasion. My job is to build them. I'm confident I can handle anything out there but it's nice to hear from other miners.
I am not an equipment operator but the last grader that I saw in a mine was over 5000' down in a hard rock mine on Vancouver Island. We were walking from the hoist-way through the drift over to a underground maintenance shop built into the rock at that level with the only light coming from our lamps on our helmets when we could hear this rumbling coming toward us and then some light coming from the direction of the sound. We were instructed to go over tight to the sidewall of the drift until the equipment passed by. It was a full sized Cat road grader. I don't remember what model. I asked how they got it down and they said that it was brought down in pieces slung under the underside of the carriage. When the main frame came down they had to coordinate winching it out sideways into the drift while carefully lowering it. Needless to say that was the reason for having a large equipment maintenance shop underground as it was a major ordeal to bring in replacement machines. I was down there to design a fire protection sprinkler system for the maintenance shop and the adjacent fueling bay.
Ahh, gotcha! Sorry bout that. Hahaha, yeah, it's not a case of not being able to see them, it's more like them not being able to see you, or more importantly, not caring that you're there.
DonBC: What do they mine on Vancouver Island 5,000' down?
621_Rocker, it is primarily a zinc and copper mine with some precious metals. Google Myra Falls mine. It was probably 15 years ago that I did some engineering for them.
Ive ran Graders in Iron Ore and they cop a hard time especially doing drill preps over toe in the floor, used to give the shovels cleans ups over lunch time cutting and filling getting a level floor, graders shouldnt really be used for that but they do the job, we have had two 16H's crack at the gooseneck now, havnt had the same problems with the M series........yet , but its always down for electric gremlins, what Alco said about nearly getting run over by Haultrucks made me laugh, aint that the truth, especially at 3 Am in the morning, which is a good time to stay out of haul patterns!
Here is one link to some pics I posted before:
Here is another link where I posted some pics: HeavyEquipmentForums