make - forge? - wedge for feathers-and-wedge rock-split Featured

Down the mine / in the mine... The dust would hang in the air and everyone would breath it in. Turning up your miner's lamp to full-brightness you can see glinting tiny particles in the air - highly likely to be silicate. Just a test little bit of drilling before everyone heading to surface. Not even "production-level" amounts of drilling. Absolutely cannot be.

Water flood (actually not a lot of water) to get a slurry. Nothing glinting in the air by same test of miner's lamp at full-brightness shining along the level so bright in the beam and no reflecting-back light (lost a hundred metres and more away). Completely effective in that regard.

But then yes how to get the adherent slurry out of the drilled sockets...

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The brief but important part of my post was how to connect flexible rubber or vinyl tubing to a drink bottle cap. In the USA threaded electric lamp tubing has the non-tapered "IPS, Iron Pipe Straight" version of 1/8" pipe thread, and brass lock nuts for lamps could reinforce the pipe thread joint into the bottle cap.

IPS female fits but usually requires a rubber washer to seal on NPT (pipe) male. Sink spray and shower head hoses may use it. The high pressure hydraulic equivalent is named "swivel" and seals with a metal cone.

But then yes how to get the adherent slurry out of the drilled sockets...

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Thanks - I was trying to get ideas for this.

Thanks - I was trying to get ideas for this.

--------------------------- The clear ones appear to be styrene, gasoline attacks them and they can crack if abused. The somewhat frosted ones may be polyethylene or polypropylene which is more durable and chemical resistant. A reinforcing swelling at the tip helps retain the extension tubing. If too small, vinyl tubing can be expanded by warming and stretching with needle-nose pliers.

Snag-free tubing clamping:

Follow-up, for what it's worth...

This is about my "10mm" (~ 3/8inch) rock-splitting feathers.

As-supplied, they need a 14mm diameter socket to fit-in in the rock you want to split.

I ground three wedges thinner so they will fit in a 12mm socket. Which I have been the "feathers" I have used for breaking up "rocks" lying-about in the hobby mine. The request is : preferably don't send rocks in the skip up the haulage shaft which are much bigger than a loaf of bread.

So I have been rapidly drilling-in a couple or three sockets in stones and splitting them "rapidly" - skip-loads to surface (given our "mine" is tiny and so is the skip in the haulage-shaft).

Recent finding for "boulders" which are bigger than two people could carry...

You need the stiffness of the wedges in the feathers-and-wedge's as-supplied. So that was got right as-supplied.

My SDS "cordless" battery-powered drill is fast at 12mm but definitely taking more than pro-rata longer at 14mm. Mustn't make dust down in the mine, as the fine silica dust would circulate around and be breathed-in by everyone. So must drill under water-flood (keeps the drill cool, too). Nett...

Go around your boulder with a pilot-drill size, doing the various planes along which you intend to split it, then go around again with the 14mm drill, then use the feathers lined along each plane to do the splitting.

Seems 7mm pilot-hole size would be ideal

• 6mm too small - the SDS cordless drill can "over-power" it into the hard granite and a moment's inattention can have it red-hot then destroyed.
• 8mm drills well but maybe unnecessarily large Unfortunately (?) masonry drill sizes go in 2mm increments. So I have to go with 8mm.

The one about water-flood - if the drilling is going at a good rate, it takes less concentration and you can be happily holding the water-bottle in the other hand, squeezing a fast fine jet through a small hole in the lid which sprays onto the rotating drill at the point it goes into the rock.

Yesterday a mining engineer and a civil engineer watched how I split a boulder... Seem to be doing something right...

Thanks for the help the nearly 3 months ago when I was trying for find my way with this.

Rich Smith

Yesterday a mining engineer and a civil engineer watched how I split a boulder... Seem to be doing something right...

----------------------------- Can a new way to combine and use existing equipment be patented?

As all the masonry bits I've ever had have the TC insert sticking out the sides of the shank I was going to suggest narrowing an 8mm bit to nearer 7mm with a diamond or green wheel, my 8mm bit measures 8.25mm across the TC insert and the shank is 7.1mm. That being said a quick search for 7mm masonry bits turns up plenty of them and they seem to be readily available from many sources.

------------------------- Your wedges are much larger compared to the shims/feathers than mine. Perhaps the seller mixed two sizes?

size.

Mine look identical as-arrived. My guess - same manufacturer - same "model". If so, they fit in a 14mm dia. socket.

Patent no way - I spotted that cordless tool battery powers now enable drilling sockets for feathers&wedge. Everything familiar already - it's just reaching a "cross-over point" where becomes economic.

Yes - cannot buy from tool-store - but do seem to be offered online. Even if could special-order in a good brand from a tool-store, not enough boulders to dispose of to make it worth-while.

Mine look identical as-arrived. My guess - same manufacturer - same "model". If so, they fit in a 14mm dia. socket.

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Can you start the wedge at all between the feathers in a 10mm hole?

Mine fit the nominal size hole with the wedge somewhat less than half way in. It scraped and gouged the feathers until I rounded and smoothed the leading edge corners of the wedges. I straighten the feathers on the anvil after use. Next time I might rub bar soap on them as a dry lube.

Patent no way - I spotted that cordless tool battery powers now enable drilling sockets for feathers&wedge. Everything familiar already - it's just reaching a "cross-over point" where becomes economic.

-------------------------------------- I asked because my hoisting tripod top connection is standard hardware store material arranged in a way I haven't found elsewhere, that leaves the legs free to move in all directions when unloaded but locks up rigid under load. I think the upper leg attachment counts nearly as pins equally loaded at both ends but due to the odd geometry the calculation is beyond me. The foot end is almost a ball joint, again using standard material.

Recently I bought a 2000Kg crane scale that will let me proof test them above the 1000Kg (2204 Lbs) that they support with no sign of stress. It cost $90 and matches the 1000Kg scale within <5 Lbs at 1500 Lbs, so far.

Fit - socket size in boulder - nominal 10mm feathers-and-wedge...

Can't remember. I think the pair of "feathers" alone would fit in a 10mm hole.

I think if you tried pulling the outer ends of the feathers apart, splayed, you could get the tip of the wedge in and start hammering, with result that the feathers would bend, splay and ruin the feathers - the wedge never getting under the level of the rock.

I think it's a "no way". Certainly it isn't useful.

- all nice. As I found - as boulders get bigger, the thinned wedge doesn't seem up to transmitting the blows of the lump-hammer.. The three thinned wedges - for small rocks lying-around one person can go along drilling sockets and a following person can split with the feathers. Can move along quite quickly leaving nothing much bigger than a loaf of bread. No reason for more that three of these thinned wedges, as never need more than a set of three feathers-and-wedge for rocks which only have to be halved split into 3 or quartered into 4.

Long answer, and memory doesn't go back to that first time I drilled with a 10mm drill expecting that to be the one needed.

I see the reason for the "10mm" (sic.) design. The stiff wedge protects the thin feathers. With my experiences with this hard granite - I doubt any smaller solution than the feathers fitting in a 14mm socket could transmit the effect of a lump-hammer to split bigger boulders more than two people could not carry. The feel as you go along the line of wedges tapping them with the lumpy... Is all very taut...