How things have changed

[alinwa]

I've throwed hundreds of bags of mixed anfo, and the last time i checked, i'm still here.

Later
Dave

I agree.... without a stick and a cap it's just stinky fertilizer.

So Dave, when you said "burned"......... you must not have meant burned....

Are you ditching or what?

al

 

[Dave Coots]

Al

I agree.... without a stick and a cap it's just stinky fertilizer.

So Dave, when you said "burned"......... you must not have meant burned....

Are you ditching or what?

al

I guess when i say burned, i mean it as when the contained powder column
explodes, it actually is burning(very fast). Any how it goes up in smoke. I see in a couple of our blast reports that one blast used over 11,000# of anfo and an other one from this year used over 13,000# of anfo. We blasted around 20,000 tons of Limestone and 22,000 tons respectively. You can only use Anfo P in dry blast holes because water kills the explosive traits. I'm in the crushed stone business, but i used to do a little fishing back in the 70's.

Also you are correct about a stick and a cap. Anfo has to have something to get it started.

Later
Dave

 

[alinwa]

I guess when i say burned, i mean it as when the contained powder column
explodes, it actually is burning(very fast). Any how it goes up in smoke. I see in a couple of our blast reports that one blast used over 11,000# of anfo and an other one from this year used over 13,000# of anfo. We blasted around 20,000 tons of Limestone and 22,000 tons respectively. You can only use Anfo P in dry blast holes because water kills the explosive traits. I'm in the crushed stone business, but i used to do a little fishing back in the 70's.

Also you are correct about a stick and a cap. Anfo has to have something to get it started.

Later
Dave

My experience with anfo is limited to hobby and farm stuff but quite a lot of blasting goes on just next door to my home. (actually over a mile away but I've got a looong driveway )

This new stuff is fascinating. I live adjacent to a new rock pit, they're projected to mine down 700ft from a hill top while leaving the sides intact like a cinder cone, so they do a lot of pit floor mining. I'm a concrete contractor. I was forming and pouring the scale deck in the new pit while the Dynamit-Nobel guys hammered for days.....in three spots over 200ft apart in a rough triangle, pit floor/pit floor and a 60ft rock face. Finally the hammers shut off and we were asked to leave for 20min while they popped a charge. We came back to see an IMMENSE elongated cone of rock, like 55ft tall, a whole bunch higher than any machine-stacked pile. With only 3-4 dice scattered over the pit floor!! Comment was made that it was more hassle than it was worth to fire up a trackhoe to go get the stray bones....... I disremember the tonnage although they told me.

I talked with the (lady) blasting boss and this was just a run-of-the-mill setup. All computer designed/actuated with the result being an enormous stack of sized, moved and placed rock, ready for the crusher. A FAR cry from the days of huddle-and-wait. No we were NOT allowed a vantage nor even to watch the slo-mo video reruns...... not even they could actually watch the blast, (altho they always do ) but what an eye opener! (To me anyway...) Very scientific. Saved tons of machine time. The only down side I could see is that the rock can't be taken from the top of the pile... ??? ..... I never did remember to ask how they deal with this. My guess is that the equipment is so big that being jostled by a roller is just part of the day.

I think they use mainly liquid, I know they did here. The main truck is a tanker with (obviously!) no storage boxes A'tall..... The box truck looks like something off a movie movie set inside, a surveillance rig or something. Full of screens and antennas. A real-life Command Center. And no sympathetic, all individually timed and I think rad controlled. We didn't find any wire.

Ohhh yeahhh, and no smell (I missed it actually)

I think they call this rock basalt.

I hope to sneak up there one day....... the pit boss has, the accepted method is, "you just don't ask anybody, you were hiking......"

And of course pick a safe spot. As we learned when we started shooting HE targets on our range.... "If you can see it, IT can see you"....

al

 

[Big Al]

I've throwed hundreds of bags of mixed anfo, and the last time i checked, i'm still here.

Later
Dave

You might want to look in the morgue files of the Arizona republic for the story and the front page picture to see what can be done to a highway, a vary impressive creator was the result, did he have det cord in the back? I do not know, did he have caps that were set off by stray voltage form a radio signal, again I do not know?

 

[Dave Coots]

We came back to see an IMMENSE elongated cone of rock, like 55ft tall, a whole bunch higher than any machine-stacked pile. With only 3-4 dice scattered over the pit floor!! Comment was made that it was more hassle than it was worth to fire up a trackhoe to go get the stray bones....... I disremember the tonnage although they told me.

I talked with the (lady) blasting boss and this was just a run-of-the-mill setup. All computer designed/actuated with the result being an enormous stack of sized, moved and placed rock, ready for the crusher. A FAR cry from the days of huddle-and-wait. No we were NOT allowed a vantage nor even to watch the slo-mo video reruns...... not even they could actually watch the blast, (altho they always do ) but what an eye opener! (To me anyway...) Very scientific. Saved tons of machine time. The only down side I could see is that the rock can't be taken from the top of the pile... ??? ..... I never did remember to ask how they deal with this. My guess is that the equipment is so big that being jostled by a roller is just part of the day.

I think they use mainly liquid, I know they did here. The main truck is a tanker with (obviously!) no storage boxes A'tall..... The box truck looks like something off a movie movie set inside, a surveillance rig or something. Full of screens and antennas. A real-life Command Center. And no sympathetic, all individually timed and I think rad controlled. We didn't find any wire.

Ohhh yeahhh, and no smell (I missed it actually)

I think they call this rock basalt.

I hope to sneak up there one day....... the pit boss has, the accepted method is, "you just don't ask anybody, you were hiking......"

And of course pick a safe spot. As we learned when we started shooting HE targets on our range.... "If you can see it, IT can see you"....

al

If it looked like a cone and the shot was done on level ground, it is called a "sinking shot". They will start on one edge and ramp down into the shot material on about a 6% slope and this will be the ramp that will actually be the haul road into the quarry--i think. That's how we do it at a new location.

Later
Dave

 

[Old Gunner]

I can vaguely remember a news report of a double tractor trailer load of dynamite (maybe 80,000 lbs) going off on an interstate and blasting a crator 25 feet deep through all the under lying layers. A house several miles from the blast had its wooden floors rippled and all windows shattered. If I remember correctly the blast was blamed on a disgruntled miner or trucker shooting the truck with a high powered rifle, some sort of union dispute.

Nitroglycerin based explosives can sweat nitro especially if it gets old, and AN fertilzer, even without fuel, can spontaneously ignite.
I've heard of powdered explosives that ignited simply when a near empty paper bag was shaken to get out the last few grains. The individual grains rubbing against each other can set those off. I forget just what that explosive is, its obviously not a common choice for industrial use.

Also static electricity has been blamed for explosions at propellant factories.

PS
I just remembered a massive explosion of AN was once ignited by a simple leakage of grease that fell in a vat being mixed. It happened near the time of the Texas City explosion, the plant was on the Tennessee/Kentucky Border.