A big bang · AditNow Community

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spitfire
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

🔗Personal-Album-1228-Image-47639[linkphoto]Personal-Album-1228-Image-47639[/linkphoto][/link]
Workers pose on a block of granite in Polkanugga quarry near Penryn that was dislodged from the quarry face by three feet by a single blast.
The block weighed 2,738 tons and 110lbs of black powder in a 6" hole 20' deep was used to move it.
This in 1902 was a world record and was not surpassed for twenty eight years.
The record was then claimed by a quarry in the USA and that block weighed 3,702 tons

spitfire

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Phil Ford
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15 years ago

Not as big as one that MBZ did in Marchlin Mawr 1976, as part of the Dinorwig Pumped Storage Scheme.
The forming blast for the low-pressure tunnel mouth used 16 tonnes of High Explosives.

DougCornwall
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Newbie

15 years ago

Amazing. Thats quite a piece of stone they have moved there. Is that the quarry just north of Longdowns and to the east of Rosmanawes (Hot Rocks) quarry?
Do we know what they did with that piece once they had all had all sat down for their lunch on it?

[/center][/i]Always have a backup plan.[i][center]

Dave Kneebone
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Newbie

15 years ago

Aahh, but did it all come out in one piece?

spitfire
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

15 years ago

"DougCornwall" wrote:
Amazing. Thats quite a piece of stone they have moved there. Is that the quarry just north of Longdowns and to the east of Rosmanawes (Hot Rocks) quarry?
Do we know what they did with that piece once they had all had all sat down for their lunch on it?

The answer to your first question Doug is yes that's the one.
The second:- this type of blast was quite common, most blocks being between 1700 & 2300 tons. The idea being it gave two faces to work from instead of one. This saved quite a lot of time in a dimension stone quarry

spitfire

Graigfawr
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Newbie

15 years ago

A paper about 15 years ago in the Journal of the Newcomen Society set out the story behind rhe largest single block of stone extracted, transported to site and used as a single piece. It was an 1,800 ton boulder extracted from a Russian bog in C18, moved some miles on wooden ball races lined with cannon balls, and used as the plinth of a heroic statue. Appears to still hold the record.

ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

15 years ago

Ooops not the type of big bang I had in mind.... 😞

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!