Drill Bits and Dynamite Part Five
The first major blasting job in Segment One ( West Vancouver ) of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project. On the south side of the Upper Levels Highway, we need to blast and dig a road, so that a large retaining wall can be built. The interesting factors are.... a very busy highway right beside us....and a steep drop off that leads directly to houses and a road below us. The first of the Tamrock Ranger 800 drills has now arrived, and this is the first test. No one on the crew has even touched one of these hi-tech machines before. The vendor, Traxxon is with us constantly during the early days of breaking in the drill and operators. Because we are so close to the highway and bridge structure, we dial down the hole size to 1 3/4" and use 1 1/4 dynamite for a kinder, gentler blast. Large rubber blast mats are used on every shot. We over-did it with the mats on most shots, because we were only waiting for gaps in traffic before pushing the go button. We really couldn't afford ...