Conflow produced this demonstration model of a cutting disc with dust suppression sprays and stainless steel spray jets. It would have been used from around 1960 to 1985 to show the mining industry how their products worked.
Modern cutting equipment created vast amounts of dust, which was known to be a hazard in mines. Coal dust could be ignited by a spark from a cutting tool and create an explosion, or affect the long-term general health of the mining workforce with lung problems like miners' asthma.
In the 1950s Conflow started to work with the mining industry to try to solve the problems of frictional ignition, dust suppression and fire control at what had become a fully mechanised coalface. Conflow worked with mine equipment manufacturers to produce a variety of dust suppression products that used water to reduce some of the dangers caused by modern mining machinery.
