What’s new

North Safety Products

Rexdale, Ont.-based North Safety Products is selling two new items: an improved Model 9880 air-purifying respirator and the LSF 2075 style full-body harness. The respirator is equipped with a lighter, compact lead acid gel battery that gives up to eight hours continuous use before recharging. The respirator, which is NIOSH/ MSHA certified, provides more than the NIOSH minimum of 115 litres per minnute when used with HEPA filters. It protects against dusts, fumes and mists, and has a time-weighted average of fewer than 0.05 mg per cubic meter, including dusts and mists containing asbestos, radionuclides or radon daughters.

The LSF 2075 harness is available in nylon webbing, or polyester webbing where acidic conditions exist. It comes with a sliding buckle chest strap with friction or tongue buckle leg straps; and because it requires no waist belt, it can be put on quickly, the company reports. It will be useful for work or for rescue, for lifting or descending and will find many useful applications in construction and in those industries wherever liquids are processed.

Pallets Contain Spills

A series of spill-containing pallets has been developed by Justrite Manufacturing of Des Plaines, Ill. The pallets, which can accomodate four US55-gallon drums or nine US55-gallon drums, have a steel frame supporting a removable, coated steel grid. Their spill capacities are US375 and US760 gallons respectively. They are designed specifically for the transportation and storage of hazardous liquids and are most useful in central storage areas where liquids are regularly transferred to smaller containers.

USGS Data on Disk

The U.S. Geological Survey’s MRDS-database is now available on 5 1/4-inch, 1.2 mb, high-density floppy discs. MRDS (or the Mineral Resource Data System) maintains information on more than 80,000 mineral occurrences and deposits worldwide.

Geodata has completed the processing of the MRDS data for the western U.S. These data are in the form of more than 250 disks that contain a wealth of information, and the user can run a quick search on deposit name, commodity or any of 59 other items. It is possible to import latitude and longitude data into a mapping program and make plots of MRDS occurrences. For field geologists who do not have access to a computer, Geodata offers the same data in paper form.

Location/Direction Finder

Telefix Canada of Richmond Hill, Ont. has introduced a compact location and direction finder. Known as the Teledix GPS, the unit will display current latitude, longitude and altitude positions anywhere in the world to a typical accuracy of better than 100 metres. Accuracies better than five metres are also possible using additional equipment and precise techniques. The devices make use of a constellation of Earth-orbiting satellites to determine their position continuously.

The units can be used to navigate from one location to another, displaying steering guidance and the distance and time required to go to a given destination. Up to 60 intermediate waypoints can be navigated to in sequence. Two hundred locations can be stored directly in the unit for later download into a computer. The units may be mounted on a vehicle, hand-held or pole-mounted with a remote antenna.

Gardner Denver Long-hole Machine

Gardner Denver (Canada) of Sudbury, Ont. is testing an underground long-hole machine at Inco’s Birchtree mine in Thompson, Manitoba. Developed by Gardner Denver with input from Inco’s mines research department, it is intended for drilling holes 2.5 to 3.5 inches in diameter to depths of 100 ft. or more, depending on rock conditions. The “top hammer” machine is Gardner Denver’s electro-hydraulic HPR1H, capable of drilling through 360deg. The machine has a maximum pull-down pressure of 3,000 lb. per square inch and 3,000-p.s.i. pull-out. It is powered by a 75-hp motor with incoming power at 575 volts. Headroom for down holes is 12 ft. and drift width for horizontal holes is 10 ft. Gross operating weight is 20,000 lb. and one very useful innovation is the designed capability for removing the transverse feed which then permits the machine to fit into a 58-inch-wide cage; caging weight is 15,000 lb. and tramming requirements are met by a Deutz F6L 912W diesel engine.

Emulsion Flocculants

Drew Industrial Division of Boonton, N.J. has introduced a series of emulsion flocculants for use in industrial sludge dewatering and waste water clarification. The flocculants constitute the Drewfloc 2400 Series; they are highly active products formulated to work at lower dosages than typical emulsion polymers and they employ a new cationic monomer. They are compatible with any existing feed system and are claimed to be responsible for significant chemical savings as well as reduced sludge disposal costs.