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

On becoming a Doctor of Dynamite Part One

How on Earth do you go from working as a dock builder in Secret Cove to supervising the blasting on the hairiest section of the Sea to Sky Highway? I'm not really sure myself, and I'm the guy who did it.

Building the curved sections of main dock at Secret Cove Marina

Part way through the construction of Dick Clayton's boathouse for his 53' Fleming

 It began innocently enough with a need for more income. My prized gig in the marine construction business was slowing down due to a bump in the economy and I had four kids, a wife and a house to support. As fate would have it, one of the customers at Secret Cove Marina, was in the blasting business and wanted out. Don Fowler owned Thunderbird Drilling and Blasting, based on the Sunshine Coast. Don did mostly residential work, that is working close to houses and other structures, it requires a high level of skill to successfully work in this end of the game. He had enough of the drill and dynamite business and was looking for something new.

Don Fowler  the guy who taught me the blasting game

 The basics of rock blasting go like this. For whatever reason, a customer needs to remove or break up a solid piece of rock. Maybe they want to build a house on a rock bluff, or put in a road, sometimes the rock needs to be broken....just to make broken rock....what a concept ! The broken rock can be used for fill, or rock walls, road building etc.

Me pushing on a hand- plugger ... eating dust, right outside a log house to make room for an addition

 Now 99.999% of the time, this means that you have to drill into the rock formation, so that explosives can be placed down the borehole and then initiated to shatter the rock. Drilling is the hard and challenging part. Think of it this way, take a perfectly good drilling machine of any type, and then smash it against the rock repeatedly until the drill wins. Sounds like you might break a lot of expensive stuff, doesn't it? Welcome to the world of rock drilling. Holes of various sizes are used, depending on the restrictions of the job. Working close to houses and waterlines and such, demands small-bore holes, like 1 1/4" to 1 3/4" generally, and a lighter explosives load....with a bit more distance you could go to 2 1/4" holes and more explosives in each hole.
 The drilling can be done by air powered "hand-pluggers"  that look like a jack-hammer, but are actually percussion drills. From there, the sky is the limit, Air-tracks, tank-drills, various high speed hydraulic drills, excavator mounted drills and on up the line. The borehole sizes going up as well, 4" to 16" and even larger on special high volume shots. The name of the drilling game is to drill fast, accurately and get to the depth desired without destroying too much of the gear. The drilling pattern, depth and spacing is usually based on bore-hole diameter and the desired outcome. Holes too close together will create uncontrollable results when  detonated. Holes too far apart and not deep enough will result in shots that don't break at all and have high bottoms when dug out.

This is pretty close to real life in the drilling and blasting biz ... except these boys behave better than most driller/blasters.

Loading a shot for a house foundation

The owners decided that they needed more room after the construction began, so blast and split inside the form work

Working with Ted's blasting and Midway Power on a road improvement project

Logging road work for Sechelt Creek Contracting

The explosives part of the game comes in several distinct components. The "boom" part can be dynamite, which is a nitro-glycerin based explosive. An emulsion product or synthetic explosive made without nitro-glycerin or any number of fun goodies made from ANFO (fertilizer and diesel fuel).
 There are a variety of ways to initiate the explosives, depending on what kind of results are required, cost restrictions, or the conditions the work is being done in. Then it comes down to the method used to set off the detonator system and that in itself can take many forms. Reliability and safety is at the top of the list for all components.
 In residential or "controlled" blasting, the deal is drill it, load it ( with just the right amount ...not too much ....not too little )  then cover the shot with heavy rubber blast masts weighing several tons apiece, stand clear, take cover and press the "go " button. A heavy thud should be the result, with a good heave of the mats. And Shazaam! broken rock with no damage to the surrounding structures. How do some blasters manage to wreck things when such a good and reliable method exists? Awesome question. The mis-guided and delusional contractor that believes he can do the job faster and cheaper by using bigger holes and more explosives per hole. This will only cause excessive fly rock and seismic shocks. None of which the neighbors will appreciate.
 But enough about that, let's tell some stories.

Swinging blast mats on to the shot right beside the Squamish Highway and the power-lines with fiber-optic cable

Stacking blast mats in  the very early days of the Sea to Sky job

Don Fowler, you gotta love him. He tried desperately to talk me out of the blasting biz. His exact words were "Mike , you really don't want into this bullshit business". I didn't acknowledge a word he said, I wanted in so bad I could taste it. I was blinded by dollar signs. On many a shitty day after that, I wanted to phone him up and let him know how wise his words were. Days when every fucking thing went wrong and then you go home to find the tax department has left a nasty-gram on the answering machine, and a parts bill for a gagillion dollars comes in the mail.
 So, seeing that I wasn't about to quit this craziness. Don went about the chore of teaching me how to drill and blast. I must say that for the record he taught  me well, years later in much larger, complex and downright high risk situations, I used the rules and standards that he emphasized.  So Don, I haven't seen you in years, I hope you are well, and thank you.

Excavator mounted hydraulic rock drill, the highest point of the Eagleridge cut ... it goes down 110 ft from there

Tamrock Ranger 800 rock drill   fast drilling and comfortable for the operator   West Vancouver and Upper Levels highway in the background

A day for the record books.
 Every word of this next bit is true.
 In one of the previous stories, there is a photo of me and a crew building a boathouse for Don McLeod's powerboat. This occurred during that time, and Don McLeod becomes a player also.
 I was in the marina parking lot assembling the trusses for the boathouse. A local business man, a Coast mover and shaker drives in. I've known this guy since I was in high school. He pulls up and calls me over. We chat up a bit, catch up on the latest gossip. Then , out of the blue he says, "Michael my boy, we should go into business together. You want into the blasting game and I wouldn't mind backing you on that." yadda yadda...let's talk and away he goes. I'm stunned. Stunned and elated. woohoo! blasting biz here I come.! Oh no but wait . it gets better.
 No word of a lie, as that guy drives out, another old friend drives in. They pass each other in the marina parking lot. This fellow is older and retired,  and sitting on more money than God himself. He pulls up and calls me over to his car. He starts off slow with asking about the family and what not, before breaking into, Michael, you know if you ever need anything of any sort, anything at all, I'd expect you to call me first. I'd appreciate it if you asked. Now because this guy doesn't have a strong back or a pick-up truck, I'm thinking that he is offering me the use of his check book. with in reason of course. That goes with out saying doesn't it? Right. And the scene is set for big changes to come in my comfy little life.

A blasting job right smack dab in the middle of the Upper Levels Highway, just before the ferry terminal for a sign base

 I worked with Don Fowler for about two years, learning the biz and improving my skills. A meeting on the street changed the course of my intended plans, which was to buy  Don's blasting company and allow him to move on. An offer came to me from a local developer who was going to need extensive blasting work to put in roads and house sites. His deal to me was, get set up and come and do this project, but he doesn't want Thunderbird involved.  These local players all have there reasons for such decisions, some of them can be petty and downright mean. I went to Don and asked him to sell me his company so that we could both get on with things.