Drill bits and Dynamite Part Two

So here we are, I've been approached by a developer who wants me to do his blasting work on a new subdivision. Don, the fellow schooling me in the art of blasting for whatever reason at this time, decides not to part with his company at the moment. Now I'm a bit surprised because I thought the whole point of this exercise was to pay a fair price for the existing business and hit the ground running. I tried a few more times to get a commitment, but on each occasion a vague answer would be the only thing that came back. Now to be fair, Don had his hands full with other things going on in his life and maybe this deal wasn't at the top of his agenda.

 The time came to piss or get off the pot, so I met with the business man who offered me the partnership deal in the marina parking lot. We decided to move ahead on starting a brand new blasting company instead of purchasing the existing one. The upside is that it was actually cheaper to fire up a new biz than it was to pay for Thunderbird. The reputation end was a bit of a balancing act. Starting off new in a high risk game like blasting can be challenging , but dragging around someone else's reputation can be a hazard also. My new partner guaranteed the loans and promised to do some behind the scenes legwork to find some work. With the banking, legal and accounting people all in place, all I had to do now was find drilling equipment and explosives storage magazines.
 The first round of gear came from a logger who wasn't going to be doing his own blasting any longer so he sold me all of his goodies. I had to go all over Hell's half acre to track everything down, including a boat trip to a remote log dump. That was memorable in that we were met at the beach by a guy who was running a piece of heavy equipment wearing only extremely filthy torn white underwear and sporting a toothless smile (   banjo music maestro please, ).  He didn't seem to mind showing us around the jobsite in that condition, and was very cheerful and happy to be of help. I think that's pretty much the definition of "bushed", been out of touch for too long. That deal netted me air compressors, hand pluggers, tons of miscellaneous tools and two mini magazines.

Yarding the explosives storage magazine ( powder mag ) out to the road at the Northair minesite

Everything loaded up for the trip from the gold mine to the Sunshine Coast

 For the large storage mags, I called my old friend Don McLeod, the fella that I was building the boathouse for a while ago. Don M is a legend in the gold mining business for a lot of reasons, but one of the big stories was his success with Northair. It was a gold mine that he got involved in and nursed into a huge success. Located just south of Whistler, on a mountain that looks like all the other ones, he made a fortune for himself and all the people that went in with him. Lucky for me, the explosives mags for the mine were still in place and by simply asking about them, Don M agreed to sell them to me. So that required hiring my then brother in-law and his four by four crane truck to go and get them from the mountain side.

Blasting pole holes in rock for BC Hydro, Extremely tough work with a potential great payday

Using compressed air to blow out water filled holes , to be a blaster ... all you need to do is work super hard in all weather and abuse the living crap out of your body and take big risks

Harness and rope suspended hand drilling ten foot deep holes in rock for a house site

Loading the powder mag onto MacKenzies barge at Earles Cove for a job at Deserted River..The tug "Kinnaird" is the same one as in the "Mexican Billionaire" story ..... .sorry about the double exposure

I went out on my own in the late nineties, had I known all of the trials and tribulations ahead, I think that I would not have been so eager to get out there and prove myself. The eleven years previous were spent doing mainly marine construction work for wealthy people, who were happy to have the work done and would fall all over themselves to pay the bills. The perks were boating, fishing and drinking with some super people that I still call my friends to this day.
 The blasting business is physically harder, demands more hours of work and a large outlay of dough before any comes back. Now some of the money coming in was phenomenal, more that I had ever made previously, but the bills coming in through the mail slot were just as big. And every once in a while just for fun some prick would decide that he wasn't going to pay his invoice. That took a lot of the fun out it, having to chase people to get paid. It was hard on the bank account and mental health, getting stiffed or conned. Some customers actually had no money at all, it wasn't like they had it and wouldn't pay, they had NO money. After a while you learn to spot the bullshitters and con-artists who are trying to make their dreams come true by using others.
 Working for B.C. Hydro was in those days, a sweet deal. Contract prices for the work, but if you did it right, it was a great profit maker. The crews were great work with, some of the best. It was actually fun to go to work with those guys, and the best part was that the company paid within ten days after invoicing. I seriously wish that I could have spent my whole career working beside those boys.
 In the days when I was just getting going, there was very little drama or concern when the blasting crew showed up in a neighborhood. Most people were comfortable having noisy drills and the "thump" and rattle of small covered shots going off all day. I would knock on the neighbors door and tell them that I would be working next door for a few days. Next was a mandatory inspection of their basement or crawlspace to look for pre-existing cracks for insurance purposes. The last detail was to ask then to take down anything breakable that the vibration might knock down. 999 people out of a 1000 didn't even bat an eyelash at the whole scene. Most were captivated by the whole process and usually someone on the block would bring out coffee and snacks at break time.
 A major component of the residential blasting gig is working with the excavating company that is doing the digging and lifting the rubber mats. This virtual partnership can be fun, easy and very profitable, or it can be hellish and downright unsafe. You can't always choose who is going to have their machine on site, but if you can, of course you want the guy whose going to take good care of you ( meaning...not hitting you with the bucket and squishing you ) You put your life in the operators hands when placing the three ton blast mats on top of a wired and loaded shot.
 You know all in all.there some fantabulous ( new word ) days. Everything went right, got to work with fun people and as a bonus, you actually got paid as you were wrapping up the tools. Those were the days that kept me hanging on to the dream.
 Along the way, a local logging contractor decided that I was finally good enough to come a do a bit of work for him in the bush. Blasting for logging road construction didn't pay as well as residential work, but there were a lot more days of work available. And besides, it was simple and straight forward. On road building, move forward as fast as possible, while making the right sized rock for the construction crew. When drilling and blasting quarries for large volumes of rock, same deal move fast and get it done cheap.

Video of loggers drilling and blasting a small quarry ........not the best narration, but it is decent overview of loggers loading and shooting a small lifter quarry ( horizontal holes ). Not my video

This is definitely not the the Sunshine Coast!!....however it is good footage of blasting in soft rock. Blasters call it "Hero Rock" because it's so easy to break and it doesn't fly very far when shot uncovered. 

A bonus of working for Hydro, flying into a remote site to drill anchor holes for a new communications tower with my friend Robin MacGregor of Goldwing Helicopters

Rocking Robin lifting the tower sections into place ... Skip Reeves doing the hook up and comms ...

BC Hydro communications tower site

A commercial from the guys at Traxxon for their excavator mounted hydraulic drill, similar to the ones you will see in Sea to Sky stories and upcoming story on blasting a reef in the ocean. I bought all my gear from Barry and the boys after I got going. They also supplied a ton of technical help and connections to other driller/blasters