In the old days, the blaster would puff on his cigar until it was red hot, touch it to the fuse and "run like hell."

Before the rackbar machine, (a plunger that generates an electric current), that's how blasters set off their charges. Drilling wasn't any more sophisticated: Hand chisels were employed to make the holes in which the charges were packed.

As for explosives, black powder, first used for blasting in Hungary in 1627, gave way to dynamite in the mid 1800s when Alfred Nobel of Sweden saturated porous earth with nitroglycerin. The resulting solid lacked the volatility of "nitro" but could still be detonated by a blasting cap. In later years, sugar cane and wood pulp replaced earth in his formula.

Today, technology has turned what was once an art into a science. Maine Drilling and Blasting is on the cutting edge.

Non-electric blasting techniques permit the blaster to program a series of small explosions, thousandths of a second apart, reducing risk and increasing control.

Stable explosive gels, known as bulk, packaged in "sausage" casings or pumped into the boreholes, provide the blaster with powerful precision tools.

Computer-aided blast design and test-blast practices have replaced trial-and-error, providing a controlled environment. Of course, any blast design is only as good as the data. For the most reliable data, the designers at Maine Drilling depend on a couple of high-tech tools:

Boretrak System: A driller may have an idea what the borehole looks like beneath his feet, but with his senses alone, he can't be absolutely sure. Did the drill "wander?" Does the angle match the desired plan? If not, safety can be compromised. Boretrak provides the answers. A stainless steel probe containing gravity sensors and attached to carbon fiber rods is lowered into the hole. Data, regarding pitch, roll and depth is fed into the laptop and produces a three-dimensional view of the actual hole, taking guesswork out of the process. And when a free face is in question relative to bore hole wander, laser profiling is interfaced.

Laser Profiling: Some rock faces are not easy to read for a blaster deciding where to drill and how to load explosives. One misread situation can mean fly-rock and the kind of noise that makes for unhappy neighbors. Another kind may result in poor breakage and high vibration. In these situations, Maine Drilling and Blasting relies on the Laser Profiler, which bounces pulsed laser beams off the rock face, providing a precise three-dimensional "read" for use with the loading process.