WHAT’S NEW Drilling equipment Swiss Jacklegs & stopers

Maclean Engineering & Marketing of Collingwood, Ont., is marketing a line of jacklegs and stopers which it considers to be a good alternative to the hand-held drills that are now in wide use in the Canadian mining industry. The company’s opinion is based on tests performed on the units which are manufactured by sig Construction and Mining of Switzerland.

Advantages, according to Maclean, are that the sig drills:

* are 29 lb lighter than drills of comparable speeds;

* use only 150 cu ft of air a min at 90 lb per sq in — 30% less than comparable drills; and

* have 2-3 dbA better noise attenuation, at 106 dbA.

The drills also have good availability and the supply of parts is good for 10 years after the sale of a machine, MacLean says.