Patents

There is provided a device for use of sand as stemming material in horizontal blast holes in underground excavations, wherein the device is filled with sand and a rope, passing through a hole in a resisting block and a pulley arrangement, when pulled enables to pull out the device from a blast hole while simultaneously pushing sand into the blast hole by means of the resisting block. The novel device constitutes a non-obvious inventive assembly of a two-part integrated stemming pipe with one part of lower diameter and the other part of blast hole diameter; the larger diameter part of the two-part integrated pipe having a longitudinal slit along its length for passage of a non-metallic resisting block with pulley arrangement for a non-metallic rope having one end fixed in the mid-section of the said two-part integrated pipe and passing through a hole in the resisting block and the pulley arrangement. The pipe being provided with a removable lid on the outer non-explosive end.