The Boulder Buster
Okay, maybe I got a little ahead of myself in the last entry. For some reason, I just supposed you all would know what a "Boulder Buster" is, but now I'm thinking there's probably no way. So allow me to explain . . .
First, a 1-1/2" diameter hole is drilled into the boulder at least 3/4 of the way through the rock. As 1-1/2" is too large for any of our standard rock drills, this jackhammer-of-a-rock-drill -- weighing in at 50-60 lbs -- has been brought into play to fill in. After a full day of drilling holes with this obnoxious thing, I count my teeth before retiring.
Here is a fellow trail worker, Zev, drilling away. Due to the extreme tilt of the rock, we've had to use climbing rigging to keep ourselves from falling off while drilling with this thing. I was a bit worried at first, but it's really quite safe and comfortable.
After the hole is drilled to the proper depth, it's filled with water and "the unit," as we call it, is placed into position. Basically, a Boulder Buster is a heavy cast iron device that uses what amounts to a .22 blank to fire off a shotgun shell-sized charge that vaporizes the water. If the boulder is too big for the shotgun shell-sized charge itself to handle, a booster charge is inserted into the water first, then the unit is placed in the hole on top of it. This is what we've had to resort to with this particular hunk of rock. Even with the extra power of the booster charges added, it's still a helluva lot safer -- and far less destructive -- than using regular explosives.
Here we are loading it up for a blast. The chain you see here goes through a hole in the side of the unit and down to a firing mechanism that touches off the .22 shell initial charge. Our first attempts were pretty miserable, as the rock was just too much for the primary charges alone, but with the addition of the booster charges, big stuff has been happening.
And BOOM!!! Thar she blows! Actually this was taken in our first attempts, as we didn't use the black plastic "blanket" that came with it to cover the unit. With the addition of the booster charges for our latest attempts, it was felt we needed the added protection to keep rock chunks from flying out at us. With the boosters, this thing literally jumps out of the hole and heads downhill, as you'll see in the video.
And here we have what we've been trying to achieve -- the blowing off of movable chunks of this rock. We knew when we got started on this project that some movement of the slab was inevitable while trying to "chunk it up," we just didn't quite expect the amount of movement in the video. That was probably what it looked like when this thing let go after the earthquake back in October, although on a somewhat smaller scale, I imagine. I've never witnessed an actual landslide in person before, and I'm not sure I'd ever want to again, either. I mean, it was really pretty cool to watch, but the potential for disaster is right up there.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you all a visual account of the Boulder Buster and what goes on in this little project of ours. Today's work went really well, with the slab chunked up in doable pieces and with very little movement of the slab. I really don't think we'll have that kind of excitement with the rest of the project -- at least I hope not.
First, a 1-1/2" diameter hole is drilled into the boulder at least 3/4 of the way through the rock. As 1-1/2" is too large for any of our standard rock drills, this jackhammer-of-a-rock-drill -- weighing in at 50-60 lbs -- has been brought into play to fill in. After a full day of drilling holes with this obnoxious thing, I count my teeth before retiring.
Here is a fellow trail worker, Zev, drilling away. Due to the extreme tilt of the rock, we've had to use climbing rigging to keep ourselves from falling off while drilling with this thing. I was a bit worried at first, but it's really quite safe and comfortable.
After the hole is drilled to the proper depth, it's filled with water and "the unit," as we call it, is placed into position. Basically, a Boulder Buster is a heavy cast iron device that uses what amounts to a .22 blank to fire off a shotgun shell-sized charge that vaporizes the water. If the boulder is too big for the shotgun shell-sized charge itself to handle, a booster charge is inserted into the water first, then the unit is placed in the hole on top of it. This is what we've had to resort to with this particular hunk of rock. Even with the extra power of the booster charges added, it's still a helluva lot safer -- and far less destructive -- than using regular explosives.
Here we are loading it up for a blast. The chain you see here goes through a hole in the side of the unit and down to a firing mechanism that touches off the .22 shell initial charge. Our first attempts were pretty miserable, as the rock was just too much for the primary charges alone, but with the addition of the booster charges, big stuff has been happening.
And BOOM!!! Thar she blows! Actually this was taken in our first attempts, as we didn't use the black plastic "blanket" that came with it to cover the unit. With the addition of the booster charges for our latest attempts, it was felt we needed the added protection to keep rock chunks from flying out at us. With the boosters, this thing literally jumps out of the hole and heads downhill, as you'll see in the video.
And here we have what we've been trying to achieve -- the blowing off of movable chunks of this rock. We knew when we got started on this project that some movement of the slab was inevitable while trying to "chunk it up," we just didn't quite expect the amount of movement in the video. That was probably what it looked like when this thing let go after the earthquake back in October, although on a somewhat smaller scale, I imagine. I've never witnessed an actual landslide in person before, and I'm not sure I'd ever want to again, either. I mean, it was really pretty cool to watch, but the potential for disaster is right up there.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you all a visual account of the Boulder Buster and what goes on in this little project of ours. Today's work went really well, with the slab chunked up in doable pieces and with very little movement of the slab. I really don't think we'll have that kind of excitement with the rest of the project -- at least I hope not.
posted by Highroad at 4:24 PM
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