We finished up digging the cell at the landfill a month ago. Ive been helping our mechanic do maintance on the 5110 and the 605's, plus over seeing a little rock drill and shoot project that was given to us by the landfill. Thought I'd put up a few pics of the little 100,000 yard show we have going on. Jason
Some more pics of the shot You know its gonna be a good shot and a long day of loading, when a entire truck load of fertilizer shows up! 100 hours of drilling, 60 man hours of loading. All over with in a split second!
But...ain't it fuuuunnnn to blow something up! Nice pics JTL. I've worked beside a bucket of Coppercoat drill thread lube (pic 2) as well, just not on a track drill, I don't like dust.
ATCO, I agree! I love blowing stuff up! In all the years I spent around construction and rock crushers, the last few weeks is all the time I have learning about the 'science' of blasting. Ive helped packed powder, and stemed a few holes, and watched quite a few blasts, but was never really interested in it. Now since Im a super, I guess I need to learn something! I made the mistake of learning how to run the drill a few days ago.:Banghead The man in the pictures running the drill has been drilling for 30 years. There isnt much he hasnt seen, and is a very patient teacher!!:notworthy THANK GOD! I stuck the steel 6 times in 6 feet!! ointhead We have come to the agreement that I wont ask him to run a dozer or a hoe, and he wont ask me to run a drill!!:drinkup Jason
It's like Clint Eastwood said once in a Dirty Harry movie; "A man has to know his limitations...". It's all in the feed and blowing the hole bro. If you feed too fast for the air to keep the hole clean, the cuttings will clog the hole and make your rotary pressure go up. You have to feed drill at a rate that allows proper cutting removal. Listen to the engine (that being the drifter). If you feeding to fast, it will start to load from the rotation torque. Back off a little bit. It won't take long for you to figure out what the correct feed rate should be for the material your punching a hole in. But...I still don't like dust.
Sounds like you have done a bit of drilling! The listening thing is kinda hard. All I hear is noise!
Yeah brother...I've done some drilling! And yes, it is all noise. But the trick is listening to the changes in noise. It's all in the feed rate. You have to feed at a rate that allows the air to remove the cuttings that your producing from the hole. If you feed too fast, you produce more cuttings than the air can efficiently remove. Cuttings build up around the rod. Result; you "stick" the rod. At this point, you'll hear a change in the sound of the drifter. For those who are not familiar with this machine; the "drifter" is the component of an air drill that provides the rotation of the drill rod as well as the hammer action of the rod. The drifter make a noisy "click" when drilling, which is the hammer action. If the "click" starts to change (by slowing in rate), you know your feed is too fast because the cuttings are clogging the hole from high torque rotation. If your new at the drill, feed just fast enough to make progress. Then, as you get used to it, feed a little faster. At some point, you'll hear the drifter load, meaning, your feeding too fast. Back off a little. Now you've found your proper feed rate for the material your working. You can do this bro...if you can stand the dust.
I have watched a few drillers over the years with the old air track drills and I reckoned being a driller was just about the last job on earth, that I wanted to do. While I recognise that there is a lot of skill required to drill hundreds of feet into rock at all different angles, so as to create the perfect shot, they were always working up on some desolate rock slope, it was usally blowing a gale, it was either raining, or 40 degrees C in the water bag and they just stood there day after day, drilling, the dust blowing up out of the hole, straight in to their face. I can assure you, those old drillers had my utmost respect. Rn'R.
Hi JTL, Nice pictures. Is the rock going to be used to cover the land fill or what?
JTL "Proving" you could not drill is probably the best thing you could do. I have drilled a few feet as well, and it is one of the least pleasant jobs in this business. I do like to watch the whole process though, and blowing things up is great fun.
You boys are a hoot! But...your right. And that's why I stayed away from track drills Rn'R...I hate dust. The drills I ran used water to flush the cuttings, so, your absolutely right, we'd work in an all day downpour of rain. After all, the rain don't make anymore of a mudhole than the drill is already doing. But the one aspect of running a drill is the fact you can see what your working with. On any type of excavation equipment, you can see the material your working with and be able to determine the necessary methods to work it. When you stick a drill in the ground...your going into the unknown and unseen. Any number of obstacles affect the drill, like quartz rock, dang near impossible to poke a hole in with standard drill bits. The you have sandy soils, an absolute PITA because it's hard to keep water flushing the hole unless you use additives to stabilize the sand. And in these sandy soils it's not unusual to encounter plain old sticky red clay, that stuff is like drilling peanut butter, just clogs the drill bit. And it's not a problem when it's wet, but once you go back into sand and loose the water circulation, the friction of the turning rod dries out the clay. Ain't long after that it will lock the drill up tighter than Loctite. I had a roadway foreman ask me once "how long will it take you to drill the holes and install the drains?" I replied "that's hard for me to say...I didn't build this mountain...God did, and I have no idea what he put in there!"
The rock is for new cell construction; drain rock for the leachate system. It will also be used for the roads that run all over the place and for anything else they might need rock for. They made the decision to drill and shoot it this summer, cause this fall Waste Management is building 60 more windmills on the property. 4 of them will be within 1000 feet of this rock source. They wanted to get the rock shot now so they wouldn't have to go through all the seismic stuff, and worry about damaging a tower.
Cool JTL...send some more pics if the opportunity arises.
hey what size is your blast pattern. How deep was the rock and what mix did you run. Looks like ANFO. Awesome pics!
Those are great pictures, Jason. Looks like a blast.
We are doing an 8x8 pattern. The rock is running from 16 to 26 feet. They told us it was 30, but we have yet to find that! It is ANFO, using a non-nitro booster and non electric caps. The mix is about 1.25 to1
Hated drilling as long as we had the old style riggs. Standing outside in the dust is not funny at all... Love our D7's, nice cabin with a radio....And much og the stuff is automatic. Just adjust the max drilltorque and it retracts automatical iff u get in any trouble. Luckily most of our problems is related to cracks in the rock. Have been able to retract all rods till now. As long as u can keep them rotating, they will come up. But i have one where the threads on the rod is gone and the drillhead is somewhere inside the blasted rock.(nice blue colour on the rod..) Nice pics and very interresting to hear and see your type of rock and rockwork. Keep up taking those pics and posting. What type of detonators and system do you use?