Published in the June 2010 Australian Longwall Magazine
Development of the can claw started four years ago when DB noticed that a US-made clamp designed for moving large paper rolls was often breaking down underground.
DB managing director Milton Ruhi said getting parts for the American paper roll clamps could take up to 14 weeks to arrive. The clamps were also too light for the job, even breaking teeth off the gears.
With fellow Mackay-based company T&B Mine Service providing the fabrication and DB taking care of design, sales and support, the can claw units have made their way into the Broadmeadow, Kestrel, Newlands, Oaky Creek North and Carborough Downs longwall mines.
The claws can be mounted to the Eimco 913, 130, ED7 and ED10 series of LHDs along with all Juganaut LHDs.
Unlike the gear-driven paper roll clamps, the can claw uses a heavy-duty slewing ring with a chain-driven rotation unit.
The chain is rated at 7.5 tonne and easily takes care of the heaviest 2.5t cans supplied by Burrell Mining Products.
The Burrell Mining cans range in diameter, at 600mm, 700mm, 760mm and 915mm, while lengths vary from 1800mm to 5m with weights between 440kg and 2500kg.
A crew at Kestrel has best demonstrated the speed of using the can claw, setting a record of placing 30 cans over three hours.
Recent modifications are patented gripping teeth and an in-built load lock in the rams to prevent loss of grip on the cans in the event of any hydraulic pressure loss during placement or transport.
All parts are sourced locally, minimising any possible downtime for the purpose-designed can claw.
DB naturally has hire units available in Queensland while lead times for new can claws are 10-12 weeks.
Ruhi said the next step was to push the can claw into New South Wales, where DB was hoping to trial the unit in conjunction with Burrell Mining.
DB’s foray into equipment manufacturing does not end with the can claw.
The company is also developing a 2900-litre QDS Watercart, which is currently used to hose down roadways 3km underground at Broadmeadow with a 4m spread.
The unit was designed as a trailer with a water tank on it but now fits onto the front of an LHD and runs off the vehicle’s hydraulics.
Any LHD ticket holder can operate the water cart, removing the need to hire a $120 per hour water truck and a designated water truck driver.
To combat wet conditions underground, DB worked with T&B to come up with the QDS Swilly Buster Pod.
“I haven’t seen anything like it,” Ruhi said.
The unit also fits onto the front of an LHD but uses a 1500-litre tank and hydraulic pump to remove large pools of water and sludge, with suction capacity of 180 litres per minute.
On where the ideas came from, Ruhi said most of the workers at DB and T&B had worked underground for 10-15 years and the products were a result of what they had seen and thought of to make jobs easier.
