Bird's-eye View: An Arizona-based Drilling and Blasting Contractor Serves Its Customers

Sometimes, a company's operations are so far-flung that the best way to see them is from the air, even if that means getting around a major forest fire while flying at 10,000 ft. That was the case recently with Rockbreakers Contracting Inc., a drilling and blasting firm with headquarters in Phoenix, and equipment in quarries and construction sites all over Arizona.

Founded in 2002 by Fred Moore and his son, Stoney, Rockbreakers has grown into one of the leading drilling and blasting companies in the state. The company has gained a reputation for going where the work is - whether it's a quarry on the Coconino Plateau north of Flagstaff or a rock-strewn housing development outside of Tucson.

Because of this, Luke Meister, Rockbreakers vice president, suggested that chartering a single-engine plane and its pilot would be the best way to cover the hundreds of miles between company job sites.

Creating a subdivision

The first leg of the tour from Phoenix to Tucson in June went off without a hitch. From the air, Meister pointed out sites where Rockbreakers and its Sandvik surface drills had already accomplished their tasks.

Landing at a small airport outside Tucson, Meister and his party were picked up by Nate Koehne, Rockbreakers' supervisor of drilling, and driven to the Canyon Pass subdivision, one of the new housing developments that dot central Arizona. There, two Sandvik drills, a Tamrock 700 RP and an 800 RP, were hard at work preparing an access road into the rocky hills that would soon sprout residential homes.

Todd Koehne runs the Tamrock 800 RP for Rockbreakers, and on this day he and fellow driller Kenny Brown were drilling 3-1/8-in. holes to a depth of 15 ft. in preparation for blasting the new roadway. In addition to its workhorse abilities, Koehne has been impressed by the Tamrocks' mobility.

"These drills go where other drills fear to tread," he says. Koehne recently tested his hypothesis by driving the Tamrock 800 RP up an 8-ft. slope at the work site.

Under optimal conditions - on flat ground and operated by a well-trained driller - the Sandvik drills can punch 3,000 ft. a day into the desert floor, Brown said. Operator comfort and ease of operation augment the speed of drilling, Brown added.

First choice

The Sandvik drills on-site are among the six owned by Rockbreakers; two more, a Tamrock 700 RP and an 800 RP, are on order. That will make half of the company's fleet of 17 drills will be from Sandvik.

"With our experience with Sandvik, when we're in the market for new equipment, it's our first choice," Meister says. "In addition to the equipment, we've been impressed with Sandvik as a company, particularly the company's financing arm. They really try to get to know you as a customer, and we appreciate that."

Rockbreakers is involved in over 20 projects in nearly every quadrant of the state. In addition to its drill rigs, the company has a dozen heavy-duty pickup trucks, two loaders, two mobile crushers, two excavators and five service trailers.

Self-sufficient employees use the trucks to get around the state's rugged terrain, which can change from parched desert to tree-lined ridges and mountains in a few minutes. The service trailers - outfitted with 500 gallons of water, diesel fuel, hydraulic fluids, steel rods and drill bits - are taken to job sites to augment the drills.

A forest fire rages

The flight from Tucson to Flagstaff required another Rockbreakers' employee to continue a tour of two additional quarry sites where more Sandvik drills were working. But time was growing short, so Meister asked the pilot if he could circle the quarries at the lowest possible altitude for some aerial photography instead.

At one quarry, Gray Mountain just north of the San Francisco Mountains and bordering the Painted Desert, a large blast was planned for 2 p.m. The skeptical pilot wanted to know how far rock from the blast would be thrown. Assured it would be no more than 50 ft., he agreed to an altitude of 500 ft.

But, between Tucson and Flagstaff was the Sedona forest fire, burning out of control in the famed red rock canyons north of Phoenix. The smoke plume rose 17,000 ft. and spread a haze across the horizon. The pilot skirted the smoke at 10,000 ft., landed at Flagstaff to refuel, and headed north to Gray Mountain. The fire was extinguished a few days later with casualties.

The entire time, Meister was speaking into a cell phone over the drone of the engine, coordinating the blast that would move 60,000 tons of volcanic rock at the Rinker Materials-owned quarry 45 miles north of Flagstaff. The blast went off perfectly. As promised, the plane escaped unscathed to fly over another quarry.

Rugged drills

Part of Sandvik's extensive line of surface drill rigs, the 700 RPs and 800 RPs are hydraulic, self-propelled, self-contained, crawler-based surface drilling rigs equipped with a ROPS-and FOPS-certified safety cabin and a rod handling system.

The Tamrock 700 RP drills vertical, inclined or horizontal holes with diameters of 2-1/2 to 4-1/2 in., utilizing 1-1/2, 1-3/4, or 2-in. extension rods. The Tamrock 800 RP drills vertical, inclined or horizontal holes with diameters of 2-1/2 to 4-1/2 in., utilizing 1-1/2, 1-3/4, or 2-in. extension rods.

Both models employ hydraulic top hammer rock drills and feature the intelligent Rock Pilot drilling control system, which automatically adjusts drilling power according to changing rock conditions, sending the optimal amount of power to the rigs' drilling rods. The rock drill and articulated boom are mounted on the turnable superstructure giving a drilling coverage of 189 sq. ft. or 248 sq. ft. optional.