The stone blasting process is carried out by adopting following operations.
1) Drilling holes in the stones: Holes are drilled upto the required depth of the line of least resistance manually by means of a knife-edged steel bar called as jumper or by rotary drilling machine.
2) Charging the hole : After drilling; the holes are cleaned properly and allowed to dry. Then gun powder or dynamite or blasting gelatin or any other suitable explosive is inserted into the drilled hole along with fuse as shown in fig.
3) Tamping: After charging the hole by the explosive powder, the remaining portion of hole is filled with clay or ash and compacted with the help of tamping bar. Care is to be taken at the time of tamping, the one end of the fuse should be at the bottom of hole completed merged in explosive powder and other end should be out from the hole so that it becomes easy for firing.
4) Firing: For the purpose of firing, a fuse is inserted throughout the hole. The free end of fuse is finally fired either with a match or electricity. Detonators are being used for firing if dynamite is used as explosive. After blasting, disintegrated blocks of stones are collected and transported to the required site under construction.