Summary

This review describes hoisting technology. Several definitions of the term hoist are given and hoist safety is discussed. A list of hoist and hoist-related equipment suppliers, as well as a job description for a hoist operator/mechanic are given.

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INTRODUCTION

On rare occasions my father would take me into the hoist house of the East Geduld Mine. It was a large metal frame, corrugated iron-clad structure with shining green machines that spun round and round moving that gleaming rope we knew went all 6,000 feet down the shaft.

Presiding over this mighty array of machinery and controlling the lives of the men in the cage was the hoistman. Generally he was a taciturn fellow with a perpetual cigarette in his mouth. My father always greeted him as though he were a god sitting high in Olympian heights, and maybe he was, for one slip of his concentration and they would all be at the bottom of the shaft, or at the very lease bounced up and down in a most unbecoming way. Thus it was I watched every day as they installed the hoist for the Cannon Mine - it helped that I had to go past the shaft and headgear each day on my way to the site of the tailings impoundment I had designed and was helping construct.

DEFINITIONS

Here is the InfoMine dictionary definition of a hoistman:

In mining, a person who operates steam or electric hoisting machinery used to lower cages (elevators) and skips (large, metal, boxlike containers) into a mine and to raise them to the surface from different levels. May be designated according to type of power used, as electric-hoist person or steamhoist person. Also called cageman; cage runner; hoist engineer; hoist engineman; hoisting engineer; hoisting engineman; hoist operator; operating engineer; shaft driver; shaft engineer; shaft-hoist engineer; shaft hoistman.

The InfoMine dictionary has eight definitions of the term hoist, namely

1. The windlass mechanism incorporated as an integral part of a power-driven drilling machine used to handle, hoist, and lower drill-string equipment, casing, pipe, etc., while drilling, or to snake the drill from place to place.
   
2. The act or process of lifting drill string, casing, or pipe out of a borehole.
   
3. A power-driven windlass for raising ore, rock, or other material from a mine and for lowering or raising people and material. Also called hoister. Syn: mine hoist
   
4. The mechanism by which a bucket or blade is lifted, or the process of lifting it.
   
5. A drum on which hoisting rope is wound in the engine house, as the cage or skip is raised in the hoisting shaft.
   
6. An engine with a drum, used for winding up a load from a shaft. See also: winding engine
   
7. The amount of ore, coal, etc., hoisted during a shift.
   
8. See: draw works; elevator