Mine Cutting and Channeling Machine Operators

Operate machinery--such as longwall shears, plows, and cutting machines--to cut or channel along the face or seams of coal mines, stone quarries, or other mining surfaces to facilitate blasting, separating, or removing minerals or materials from mines or from the earth's surface.

Job Task

• Drive mobile, truck-mounted, or track-mounted drilling or cutting machine in mines and quarries or on construction sites.
• Move controls to start and position drill cutters or torches, and to advance tools into mines or quarry faces in order to complete horizontal or vertical cuts.
• Move planer levers to control and adjust the movement of equipment, the speed, height, and depth of cuts, and to rotate swivel cutting booms.
• Observe indicator lights and gauges, and listen to machine operation in order to detect binding or stoppage of tools or other equipment problems.
• Reposition machines and move controls in order to make additional holes or cuts.
• Signal that machine plow blades are properly positioned, using electronic buzzers or two-way radios.
• Charge and set off explosives in blasting holes.
• Cut and move shale from open pits.
• Cut entries between rooms and haulage-ways.
• Free jams in planer hoppers, using metal pinch bars.
• Guide and assist crews in laying track for machines and resetting planer rails, supports, and blocking, using jacks, shovels, sledges, picks, and pinch bars.
• Advance plow blades through coal strata by remote control, according to electronic or radio signals from the tailer.
• Cut slots along working faces of coal, salt, or other non-metal deposits in order to facilitate blasting, by moving levers to start the machine and to control the vertical reciprocating drills.
• Determine locations, boundaries, and depths of holes or channels to be cut.
• Monitor movement of shale along conveyors from hoppers to trucks or railcars.
• Position jacks, timbers, or roof supports, and install casings, in order to prevent cave-ins.
• Press buttons to activate conveyor belts, and push or pull chain handles to regulate conveyor movement so that material can be moved or loaded into dinkey cars or dump trucks.
• Remove debris such as loose shale from channels and planer travel areas.
• Replace worn or broken tools and machine bits and parts, using wrenches, pry bars, and other hand tools, and lubricate machines, using grease guns.
• Signal crewmembers to adjust the speed of equipment to the rate of installation of roof supports, and to adjust the speed of conveyors to the volume of coal.
• Signal truck drivers to position their vehicles for receiving shale from planer hoppers.

Looking for a job in Mine Cutting and Channeling Machine Operators? Check out these great job search websites. Thousands of job opportunities and reseach for a new career! Includes job search websites from Australia and internationally