Block
Read the face before the wire goes in.
Keep holding. The clock does not stop.
READ 1 OF 2
Which stone is in this face?
Match the banding on the face behind this card. A correct read buys seven seconds and a wider kerf tolerance.
BLOCK ONE
Out on the pad
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Merestone Quarry · wire and shot
Quarrylight
The wire wants to follow the chalk, the chalk wants to follow the beds, and the charge is already cooking. Cut the toe free, clear the pad, set the hole on the bedding, and be behind the berm when it goes.
- 1 Read the stone and the bedding. Right reads buy seconds.
- 2 Drag the wire along the line. Steadier kerf, better block.
- 3 Shift the spoil, set the drill on the bedding, fire.
Drag on the rock, or A/D to feed the wire and W/S to trim it. Space holds the shovel and fires the charge. Escape pauses.
Wire parked
The charge is still cooking. Nothing moves until you say.
SHIFT ONE
Cut short
The face came down over the pad and the crusher ran an hour with nothing on it.
Working a shift
Everything is told in seconds. The charge is already lit the moment you walk onto the pad, so every question you answer on the face is a question you pay for twice.
- Read the stone
- Hard stone wanders less and is worth more. Seven seconds and a quarter more kerf tolerance for a right call.
- Read the bedding
- The beds on the face run at an angle. Find it, and the drill tolerance opens up. Six seconds.
- Cut the kerf
- The wire follows your hand, not your intention. Feed it fast and it overshoots, and the block breaks where the wire went, not where you aimed. Hold near forty per cent.
- Clear the pad
- Spoil under the toe keeps the block from tipping clear. Hold the shovel down until the pad is bare.
- Set the hole
- Line the drill with the bedding you read. Straight down the beds gives a clean break; across them splits the block.