On leaving school and going to work at the new mill at Collin’s Cap, both Gordon and I learned to handle the machinery, drive the log hauler, and deploy the logs in the bush with a thousand yards of steel cable and large pulley blocks. We also worked on the breakdown saw and on some other benches. At times the logs would be too large to go through the frame of the vertical frame saw and we would have to blast them. This was no child’s play. We would study the grain of the log, then with a two inch augar we would cut a hole some 18 inches or more into the heart of the log. Turning that large auger was hard work, especially in Tasmanian hardwood.
At the required depth we would put in the fuse to the bottom of the hole, leaving approximately 6 inches of fuse out to light. Then we would pour in the blasting powder to within a few inches from the top. A wad of paper, followed by clay, would be tamped on top of the powder, and made very firm. Now we would light the fuse and get for our lives behind a tree. BOONG! The explosion would go off like a deep-throated cannon, quite different from the sharp, shattering sound of gelignite. This was gentle, and the log would fall apart without shattering the rest of the log and spoiling the timber. Most important was to use the right explosive.
