The clean up

In order to understand the clean up we need to understand its purpose.

What is its purpose?

To remove all the dirt from the face?

No, its not to remove all the dirt from the face.

It is to create enough room for the jumbo operator to get their lifters in and to make a clean and stable work area for the machine and operator.

Under normal circumstances this requires the removal of all dirt at the face.

This is why your understanding of grade is important.

Cleaning up a Heading

Paint the grade line up on the walls if it has not already been done.

Get as much dirt out as you can. Try not to start pelican picking too early as this will only lead to tears and a clean up that will take hours to finish.

Back blade the face a couple of times both left and right then pelican pick the remaining dirt back from the face to a position were it can be back bladed back out of the way. This dirt is normally small and should be used to build the road way.

This process is to be repeated until there is enough room for the lifters to be installed.

Pelican picking the face

The reason you will have to pelican pick the face is because the leading edge of the bogger can get into the area to pull it away from the face. The best technique is simple, work out what is stopping the leading edge getting in ( a toe), then move the dirt back past this point and back blade.