Company chief executive Tony Caruso said Mastermyne recognised the need for a drill rig in its fleet that was smaller than what was currently available, yet also offered more power and consumed less air.

Gary Banks, a Mastermyne employee who also owned his own company, Fleximech, was already well advanced on developing such a rig having identified the same need.

Banks worked on developing the drill rig, supported by Mastermyne, for two years before Mastermyne recently bought his company – giving it the exclusive design and manufacture rights to the new machine.

Mastermyne has already established itself as a strong secondary support contractor having worked for several years at the Kestrel and Moranbah North mines.

“What we were not happy with was the quality and reliability of our equipment, which in turn was putting unrealistic expectations on our employees, so it was time to either get in or get out,” Caruso said.

“After a short period of consolidation and reflection, what we plan to do now is ramp up our secondary support services, and with the right equipment we are confident we can now offer our customers surety of outcomes.

“Therefore, the manufacture of our own drill rig has become integral to building up of a sustainable secondary support service.”

The strategy is already well underway with one rig already on the ground working at Moranbah North Mine and producing solid results to date, Caruso said. A second unit is under construction with the major components purchased for a further three.

“At this stage the strategy is to manufacture for Mastermyne and to utilise our people and our contracting experience to do the secondary support. However, if there was interest from a coal company we certainly would look at that.”

The drill rig, dubbed “the Ferret” following an employee naming competition, has been designed to install long tendon supports, but also has capacity to install rib bolts and standard roof bolts as well.

Rig inventor Banks said the unit was physically smaller than what was currently on the market, with operating dimensions of 1320mm wide, 3040mm long and 1625mm high. The unit was deliberately made smaller so it could sit alongside a roadheader in stone drivage operations or alongside conveyor belts or in shafts.

“The rig is small enough that it can work in travel roads and allow machinery to pass around it, which is important if it is bolting in a main travel road and vehicles like your PJBs and Eimcos need to get around it. It doesn’t interrupt the traffic flow, which saves a lot of down time for both the contractor and customer,” Caruso said.

The Ferret also doesn’t have the air requirements of the standard rigs currently on the market. It can run at lower air supply volume and pressures of 11cu.m/min (400Cfm) and 450kPa (65psi).

“This is better than using a rotary pneumatic bolter, and with the advantage of having 17Kn of thrust this far outweighs the capabilities of other bolters,” Caruso said.

The rig is a high torque drill head that is rated at 260Nm at 165 bar. It features a two-speed piston motor and inline planetary gearbox.

It also features its own unique water housing. Banks said the design of the housing made it an on-the-job repairable item as opposed to having to rotate the unit out for offsite repairs.

“This saves time and money,” he said.

While the rig parts are manufactured mostly by Mastermyne, the rig drill mast is a Joy HFX 240 feed unit and it also features an ASV rubber track undercarriage.

The unique design also contributes to low ground pressure, machine stability and smooth operation combined with minimal maintenance and long life.

Banks said the biggest challenge during the design stage was getting the stability right on the machine. He said the machine has a very small footprint, and stability – when the rig was lifted to its maximum bolting height of 3.85m – was always going to be difficult.

To overcome this, Banks employed a mechanical engineer to model the design from the beginning, using the latest 3D CAD software.

The information was able to be assessed quickly when testing the effect of design changes on the centre of gravity of the machine.