Opal Mining Newsletter December 31, 2002 on Mining Underground for Opals in Coober Pedy

G/Day Folks, It's that time again.

Sorry I have been a bit slack, but I had nothing exciting to tell you.

Well all I have done since the last update was to blow off the corner on the left of the shaft that I had broken into with 6 bombs, which is just under the back of the truck on the left side.

Yesterday I took the dirt out and it took me 2 hours and 40 minutes and bloody near killed me, it came out in some big lumps and the roof above the level came down in big blocks and I had to break these up with the electric jackpick, which makes you sweat a little.

This old body is getting tired but the lure of opal keeps me going, so after I had finished I decided that I had enough for the day and I went home.

I have a chap with me underground, he is visiting our town for a while (second time) he is my age (60) he asked me if I worked by myself and when I said yes, so he asked if he could go down with me and watch what I do so he might learn a bit on mining, so he is.

Today I will be drilling I think 16 holes and taking that big block out, this is to the right on the shaft on the left, I am now back to drilling 4 foot holes so a lot of dirt will come out and I will probably take 2 days to take that amount out, but we will see when the time comes.

Don't forget that there was material (potch) here in the wall in the first place, this has gone and now it is just gypsum there mixed in with the level, so today who knows what is in the next 4 feet, and on the corner to the right of the shot, I still have color in the wall and have that potch running for about 3 feet or so.

I will not be going mining after today until next Monday, as I will probably need the rest, but my new camera has arrived and on a quick trial last night outside and inside it takes beautiful photo's, so I will be playing around with this and replacing a few items in the Web Site that have been sold, have been doing well just lately on the web, but have to restock a few items on the site.

Well again I have told a little white lie, today I went to work and I drilled in total 22 holes, 13 are for the shot, three rows of 4 holes and a hole for the opening bomb to go in and 3 holes were for me to put my shovel and 2 picks in, so I can leave them underground and keep them out of the way of the explosion, getting a bit sick of keep bringing everything back every time I do a shot.

The other 6 I drilled as relieve holes, because the ground is so wet, I feel that the spacing that I gave the holes might be to wide for the wet ground, so these will help the shot come out and help the ground break up into smaller pieces, as wet ground tends to come out in big blocks if drilled to wide as I did today.

It took me between rests I might add, just over 3 hours to drill that lot and I can tell you that I had no energy left to pick down a roof or level that has this strong gypsum in it, I could spend up to 3 hours or more taking down this roof if it is hard enough or has some opal in it, and I did not have the energy or strength for that.

So first thing in the morning before I go to work I will make the bombs here, all 13 of them ( like 13, lucky Number for me) then when I get there I go down straight away and load the shot and fire it, if I have the room to take a good pic I will, to show you how it looks with the shot loaded and the fuses hanging out of the holes.

Late as usual, but I have been busy taking photo's over the weekend with the new camera while we had some sunshine, it has been getting overcast quite often just lately and this morning again it was like a blanket out there and about an hour ago it did rain, but not much, only for about 10 minutes, I thought that we were in for a real storm as the it is very windy as well.

Anyway the shot on Friday went well and came out clean, so I started to take the roof down with the electric jackpick and as I have this gypsum in the roof which is part of the level at this stage, I started to just take the sandstone away from under gypsum so I could make it easier to break parts of the gypsum down as it is strong in the form it is in.

Anyway I had just about finished taking the sandstone from underneath it and the gypsum fell down in a large piece, it was only about 4 to 5 inches thick and covered about 18 inches deep and 3 1/2 feet across, but it had caught my arm, as I had it still underneath with the jack pick working.

You can see from the pic that it took a bit of skin off, but being a tough opal miner I carried on, thinking of the opal that I might get sort of dulls any pain that there might have been in the arm.

Well the material that was in the wall on the right of the shot, that's the potch that is running along the wall at the back of the No 1 shaft, the left hand shaft in the pic at the top of the photo.

The shot was drilled in 4 foot as I told in the last update and was drilled in towards the blower, so if you look at the pic you will see the shaft with the pipes going down, from there go left towards the blower and that is where I am, in 5 1/2 feet in from that shaft.

The next shot will be to knock the corner off on the left of the last shot, then I will be drilling 4 foot in towards the top of the photo, between the shaft and the blower, and I will have material all the way across the width of the face, so if it runs for the 4 foot depth of the shot there will be a lot of material in there could be some opal as well if I am lucky, as I am not sure how wide to make the face on the next shot, but it will be somewhere between 5 1/2 and 7 foot wide.

I did get 44 ounces of material out of the last shot and of that, there was 18 1/4 ounces of color, but nearly all of that is potch and color, I don't think there would be 2 ounces of full opal (skin to skin) in there, and there is a still a faint trace of green color in the wall at the left again towards the fault or slide, so who knows what is in the next shot.

I did take some pic's underground for you, but I erased them by mistake, so when the next big shot takes place I will have some nice photo's I expect.

Apart from that I hope I can go to work tomorrow, don't know how long it will take to remove all of the dirt from this last shot, so I will not send an update until I can do the shot with all of the material in the wall, should be exciting them for all of us.

But with some problems, no that's not true, a lot of problems.

Well yesterday was as we say here a *%$#@ of a day, from the very first thing in the morning things went wrong and only got worse, you know one of those days that you wish you had stayed in bed.

First the guy I am taking out with me (Dave) showed up, nice and punctual as usual, so off to the opal field we went, got there no problemo's as usual and set the truck up on the hole as usual and started to set the winch up over the hole so it is central and put the seat on it, went to start the blower and the generator stopped working.

It just cut out as if it had been switched off, went to start it again and it started, but it would not start, I have just put a new plug in it on Sunday because it did this on Friday last week and we did a oil change on it on Monday but did not go out because of the weather.

Anyway it would not start this time so I figured it was electrical, so of back to town we come to find a auto electrician, we got one and at first he thought it was the new plug, it was a dud, so he got another plug that was similar to mine and put it in and pulled the cord and it fired up (bitch) but that was not the problem, so it could the end of the sparkplug lead where the sparkplug cap (special cap) screws in or the cap it self, who knows, this guy didn't.

So off we went back home with the generator working and I changed the spark plug for the old one after I had cleaned it up with the wire brush, as is was not that old really, just that I have had 3 1/2 years off mining and had only run it a few times in that time.

Now it was running fine, so off to the field again, this is 22 kms (13 3/4 miles) out of town and again set everything up on the hole, managed to start the blower and Dave said that he would stay up top just in case the generator packed it again and he could start it, good idea I said and off I went downunder to pull some dirt.

Pull some dirt I did for about 1/2 hour and I got to the point that I needed to get a small elbow that I use when opening up like this and have no room as yet for the proper big 90% elbow and pipes so up I came up and after I had lowered the elbow down on the rope, I said to Dave as the Generator seems to be working well, did he want to come under, yes he said, so on the winch he gets and down he goes.

When he is about half way down I notice that he has got the winch cable somehow over the top of the cable pulley and out of the pulley and it is working in-between the pulley and the pulley housing, this might ruin the cable so when gets to the bottom I have to switch off the blower and the generator so he can hear me shouting to him.

I tell him what has happened and that I am trying to fix it, but this has happen once before and I had to come home to fix it then, but I tried for about 20 minutes with no success, so I make his day for him and tell him he has to climb the ladders to get out after he is out of the hole, I bring up the cable and seat with no weight on it so not to cause any damage to it.

After I had brought up the seat, he comes up and in a good time I might add, so we pack up and come home, where I have to take the pulley apart to fix it and then to clean all of the grease off the cable, that done I tell Dave who is a little upset about what has happened, probably because of all the church words I was saying and me not going to church on Sundays, so I tell him its not his fault but mine as I should have been watching him more closely as he got onto the seat.

Anyway off Dave goes, saying he will see me in the morning (today) after he has gone I go to take my jacket off, you know the one with a zip up the front and yes you are right the zip will not unzip, was only zipped up about 4 inches, I tried with a pair of pliers and succeeded in breaking the little puller on it, so I figured this was going to take some brains to fix this, so I just pulled the jacket apart and that fixed it but good, lucky it was just an old jacket for mining.

Boy what a day, got zip done and could not get a zip undone.

Today we went to work and that bloody generator cut out again right on schedule, so I cut a 1/4 inch off the end of the lead and screwed the plug cap back in and it did not miss a beat after that, but tomorrow is another day.

I have pulled most of the dirt before I got a blockage up in the top elbow due to the dirt being wet it builds up on the corners and restricts the gap until a large rock gets stuck, well by this time I was worn out so I said that's it we are off, so I quit for the day.

Tomorrow I will put some shots in and we will see if there is anything there, but I am only knocking off a corner as I said to the right of the last shot after that we go for gold.

Went to work today, all by my little own lonesome me as usual.

Dave that guy who was with me has got a job with another miner as an offsider on a percentage, for which I am happy for him as I do like to work by myself, for the time being anyway.

But as I was by myself now and the generator was or had been playing up I thought that I would check it out before I went to work, smart thinking you might say, dead right says I.

So before I start to put my socks and boots on I start up the generator and let it run as it normally quit on me within 5 minutes of starting up, so anyway I get the boots on and then I have to go down to OME (opal miners enterprises) to but some oil, so I leave the generator running as I drive down there, this takes about 8 minutes and don't for get I have already had it running while I put my boots on.

So this thing did not miss a beat all the way done to OME and was running sweetly when I got there, so I stopped it and was happy to go to the field and do some work, hey we need some opal right.

The hole as usual got everything ready started the blower for the fresh air underground bit and drill the 9 holes that I needed to have to blow this corner off, then I brought the drill back up, switched off the blower and the generator and proceeded to make the bombs for the shot.

After I had finished making the bombs I put them in a bag and lowered then down the hole on a rope, then I started the blower which I needed to pull the fumes with along with the fresh air bit then I started the generator and went downunder and yes you got it, the bloody generator quit just as my toes touched bottom, I could not believe it, what a bastard it had just worked for over an hour and never missed a beat.

So I had to climb the ladders, thankfully I have them, but I have to tell you that when you are not fit and carrying extra weight like I am, it bloody near kills you which is what happened to me, by the time I got to the top I thought I was going to have another heart attack, did I not tell you that I had one before well I did in 1988 and had a heart operation in 1989, double bypass, now you know why I don't like to climb ladders.

Anyway we wont tell what I said to or about the generator, except to say that it was sacked on the spot.

I drove straight back into town, that is when I had had a rest and got my second wind back, went straight down to the OME and ordered a new generator 2.5 KVA, the old one was a 2.2 KVA, cost is $1050.00 but hey we need this equipment and if you cannot rely anything in this game get rid of it as it could cost us our live, no opal is worth that.

The generator will not be up here until next Thursday as that is when the truck comes up here with the weeks groceries on, we do have 2 trucks a week but this is the main one and I could not get the generator on the Saturday one as the order was put in to late.

So I am off mining until I get the new generator, that's life, up here anyway.

Well I did not get to work as promised.

Due to the weather being very overcast again, I decided to stay at home again as I have plenty other things to do like taking some photo's of jewelry (earrings) as I am putting some in the site for another shop here in town.

As I have already taken quite a few photo's and put most of this jewelry in the web site, but it takes a bit of time to do as I have to build new pages for all of this new stuff and then put them on the net.

Anyway I though I would return all of the items that I had finished with as this shop has some of these on display in there show cases in the shop, plus I had some items from a friend of mine who is one of the Manageress at the Mud Hut Motel, so as the Mud Hut is closer to me (for this I am thankful) I thought that I would drop her items off first.

What I did not realize was that when I started my 4x4 up out side the house, the cylinder head blew a small oil gallery plug out of the cylinder head, which I did not notice here as I was backing up to turn around and drive out of the yard and when I got to the Mud Hut I normally park outside on the road, only this time having some jewelry in there nd not wanting to lock the vehicle up I drove inside and turned the vehicle so I could park it against a wall in the shade.

I also forgot to tell you this happened yesterday Friday the 13th, not that I am suspicious.

When I got out of the vehicle and was walking towards the office I noticed a trail of oil on the ground from a vehicle that had driven in like me it was only when I got to the point that I had stopped and reversed up that I saw a large oil patch and realized that it was me.

So I had to have Dave, Kathy's Husband who is the manageress tow me home, but not before he had to clean all of the oil mess up that I had caused, me I got the easy job of handling the hose.

So that put the 4x4 out of action for a while, until I could get a new plug up from Adelaide from the Nissian dealer, this means that I have to use the mining truck to run around town now, not that this is a problem as the truck is alright but not as comphy as the 4x4 for running around town.

thought was a nut that had come loose at the manifold as it had before, because this pipe is not that old, but when I got under to tighten the nut up it was already tight, which meant that the flange gasket had burned out.

So I went to a local mechanic here and ask him to help me out ASAP as is what almost Christmas and he was flat out trying to finish the jobs he already had in, but I explained to him that I now had both vehicles in trouble and I really was in the you know what, so he said if I brought it back at 2pm he would look at it for me.

It turned out when he removed the exhaust pipe from the manifold that where the flange gasket sits had burned off, due to the exhaust pipe not having a bracket fixed up to the gear box by the first guy who put the new pipe on and so the pipe was moving around and this helped to break the flange off.

Anyway it will be back sometime tomorrow when it is fixed, so now I am house bound as I have no transport at all for the moment, will have to stay on this computer.

The joys of living in the outback, here in Coober Pedy.

Schitt happens again, got the plugs (2 as I wanted a spare one) that I ordered from Adelaide, I ask the guy for oil gallery plugs and I told him that it was about 1/4 inch in Dia, that was by looking at it, he was looking at a parts book, I asked if there was a size in the book for the part number he was looking at and he said no, so they have sent me up 2 welsh plugs that are for the water holes in the head that are 1.400 inches in Dia, what a dickhead.

So I rang them just before they closed and he said that he never got to see them as they are ordered in and then shipped out to me, now he tells me that there is one more listed in the area that I told him (why did he not see that before) and that this plug (no size) is listed as a screw in plug, there is no thread in this hole, so I told him that when he gets the next lot to have look and if there is a thread on them he can keep them, as they have to order these in as well, from Sydney.

So I have just been out (its getting dark outside now) to see if I can get my vernier caliper in there to measure the hole and I can, just, so tomorrow I will measure it and go to this workshop that I use and see if he has the right metal I need and I will make up 2 of them and then the test will come to see if I can get it in without taking the head off.

I got my new generator today, after I got the mining truck back from having the exhaust fixed at a cost of $80.00 thank you, if the first guy had put the bracket on as I asked him when I had the new pipe put on this would not have happened, not the same guy who fixed it this time.

The generator cost $1070.00, $20.00 was for the freight up from Adelaide which is very good, boy are they a bit lighter now, which is good for an old feller like me, not that I have to lift it to often as it just sits in the back of the truck until I have to do a service.

Should be going to work tomorrow, but seeing as I have to see if I can get myself out of the schitt so to speak, I will have to stay home, just that I have the bombs in a bag down the bottom of the shaft where I left them after dropping them down on the rope and the generator failed, so I would like to go and put them in the shot and fire them, just to make things safe.

If I cannot fix the plug in the head myself, as the engine is getting to the end of its life I will not spend big dollars on a repair as I was considering putting a new engine (reconditioned) in there a couple of months ago, but changed my mind and thought that I would try and get another year or so out of this one and spend the money on a new bigger boat (2nd hand) in February in Queensland when I go fishing.

I will still but a bigger boat, but if I have to put a new engine in the 4x4, it might not be as big as I would like, and I might have to put the 4x4 on the truck down to Adelaide as I will not be able to drive it if I cannot fix it and I will try to get a lift in the truck.

Will try for Saturday, as tomorrow night Pat and I are going out to her workplace for there Christmas party, they are having the old Barbie which I like very much, not a lover of the fancy food, I like a plate of food not a work of art if you know what I mean.

Also have to reregister the claim tomorrow before we forget and lose a million, the claim is in Pats name and this time we have to do it for a full year, the first time it is for three months only.

Of well, better go the bottle of wine is just about finished and so am I.

G/Day Folks Here we are again, today's is a good one

Where have I been you ask, well as I told in the last update on the 19th about us going to a Christmas Party at the Mud Hut where my Pat works, we had a late night or should I say early morning, we did not get home until 1.15am in the morning, so need that day off to recover.

A good time was had by all, plenty of food and of coarse Drinks, they are a great bunch of people who run that place and as I said before Me and Kathy, the one who does the Opal Inlay do some business together on the net with her rings, earrings and some pendants.

Was going out on the field in the morning, but the drink got the better of me last night (again) so for safety sake I thought I had better stay at home (bullshit) I have put a couple of pics of the new generator and one of the old one, it quite a bit lighter than the old one, they have made the generator part smaller and that was where the weight was.

This next shot that is already drilled (9 holes) as you know and the bombs are at the bottom of the hole waiting for me, as I said before it is the corner right next to the 3rd shaft (to the left of opening-up pic) and I pulled out some opal right next to this shot so who knows what might be in there, although there is no trace in the wall that does not mean anything as opal comes and goes without a trace, just have to keep the fingers crossed.

Well I went out yesterday and put the bombs in the holes and fired the shot, all went well as the bombs were a week old and a lot of diesel had soaked out from them into the ground so I was not sure how they would go, but they went off terrific and the shot came out perfectly, I took down the level, there was little traces of material up in the roof but nothing to take a pic of this time.

That afternoon (yesterday) the plug for the 4x4 cylinder head arrived, I think that I forgot to tell you that I had one made up special in Adelaide by a cylinder head specialist, it had to be a tapered plug, so this morning I fixed the head with no problems and did a oil and filter change as well, within the next couple of weeks I will grease up the front end ready for going on holidays.

Well tomorrow is the big day, Christmas Day, if you love it or hate it, does not matter it is here.

It is mainly for the kids and for bringing family and friends together, if you are religious or not, I and my wife Patricia wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year and we hope that you enjoy yourselves in the company of your family and friends and stay off the road, because I need to send you all this newsletter again next year, or sooner.

I will be back down the hole I hope on Friday, but I will only be removing the dirt from the last shot and I hope to be drilling and firing again on Saturday, under the material in the wall, so the next shot should be interesting I hope.

Until the next update, please take care.

A Special mention to a excellent customer and I hope friend now, Istvan in Sweden, who rang me this morning to wish me a Merry Christmas, I was very surprised to get this call and it made my day, week in fact, at the moment it is -20C there and is not snowing as yet but they expect some soon, so Dick, is quite warm where you are in Quartzite compared to that.

Another day gone and no richer (again) than the last time, hope everybody had a great time over the Christmas Day period, I did I went out to Lunch at a friends house. (dugout)

I also have told another little porkpie again, I did not get al of the dirt out from the shot, by the time I had gone to O.M.E (Opal Miners Enterprises) and bought 4 liter's of oil for the new generator (spare) and got to the field and while I was getting set up on the hole, I was putting some diesel into the blowers fuel tank.

Don't forget I had to lower the 5 foot pipe that I use to pull the dirt with, also the electric jackpick that I need to break up some of the hard block's or lumps of dirt with gypsum in them, time was getting on and by the time of 11.30 am I was feeling a little sick in the stomach and as I had only half of the dirt out, I decided to come home and finish it tomorrow.

So I will pull the rest in the morning (another hot day forecasted) and will probably drill some holes as well if I can, then it will make it easy for the shot on Monday.

What I have done today is to take some photo's for you all to have a look at, to give you some idea of what I am doing at the moment.

As you can see the pipe now has the elbow fitted and this makes my work a bit easer (just) the depth of the dirt at this point is about 3 feet, makes it hard because I have to drag this dirt in the elbow from as far as the wall is, and at this point the wall is 5 1/2 feet away. I cannot take the large elbow down yet, as when it goes down it stays down and I don't have the room for it yet or anywhere to hide it when I do a shot, wont be long.

This is my electric jackpick, you can see it from the side angle in the photos above, this save me using the hand pick on the hard jobs and also saves me some time and energy, because as it is very humid down there due to the wet and damp ground and I sweat a lot so any time I swing a pick or shovel it just drains the energy out of me in a very short time, so it pays to use this when necessary.

This shows you the level where I might find opal if I am lucky, there is no material as yet here and the shot that I will be doing next is if you look at the jacket Photo you will see just under the lamp where the white switch is a brown line on a slight angle from left to right, this has potch in it and the line runs just past my jacket, so there may be a chance in there, this will now be blasted out on Monday.

But it shows you how the level does not always run straight and when it dips like you see it here if it makes opal it can give us a nice pocket.

Next Update will be on Monday after the shot, I will try to take some pics of the holes loaded with the fuses sticking out for you all, but that is all you will see is the fuses as the bombs are 3 feet in the hole.

Bye, Bye or as they say T.T.F.N. (ta-ta for now).

G/Day Folks, Got some good oil today!

Well here we are again, finally got the shot done although I drilled a bit deep this time 4' - 6 inches and the ground is very wet so the shot did not come out completely on the left hand side, but I will straighten it out as soon as I have pulled some of the dirt, next year, sounds a long time off.

Well as I promised I took a coupe of photo's of the shot after it had been drilled, there are 9 holes in the wall in a 4, 3, 2 pattern which is what I do when I am making a drive and there are 3 in the roof which you cannot see here, in the first pic the bombs are just sitting in the holes ready for me to push them to the back with a broom stick that I use, that is also marked off in 6 inch increments for measuring with.

This is after the shot and part of the roof where the level is has fell down and there was material all over the dump which I had a hard time finding it all soI could put it in the bag, what you can see here is potch in the level, the pic in not to good as I tried a new method with a 500 watt spotlight, look good to the eye but the light turns out to be very yellow to the camera so I wont be doing that again, but the material is running from the left side all the way to the right and the face is 6 feet wide.

For those of you that have never seen how the opal is formed or how it comes out of the sandstone, the next 3 pics show you a piece that was on the ground, so I thought I would show how it looks, this is only potch as it would have been in the wall, the bottom part which is brown is the ironstone level and is quite thick, this is a very good level and anything could happen here in the future, here you can also see the backlight light that I use.

This is a better photo of the material and some opal (potch & color) in the roof, this photo was taken with just the normal hand 100 watt light and is a very good pic, that large material on the left had some color in it and you can see that the material is on the far left and goes right across the photo, this material made 2 lines, if you look carefully you will see one line at the bottom of the pic that goes right across the photo and the line above with the thick material also goes right across the photo.

I got home late yesterday afternoon, having to pick material out of the dump (this is what I call the dirt for the shot) and finally checking the level and knocking down of what was left and bringing up the tools etc that I don't leave underground, so I did not get home until just on 5 pm.

Then I had to put the material in the tumbler and it stays there for 2 1/2 hours so it gets very clean, so the time was 7. 30 pm when it came out, then Pat and I go into the cutting room and see if we have made any money, we spent about an hour in there until we are tired but by that time we have all of the big stuff out and have a fair idea if we are rich or not, this time we are not.

There was some very nice big pieces of potch in there, pity it did not make color, I said when I came home that I had about 200 ounces in the bag, you get a fair idea over the years of approx weight.

This is a photo of 60 ounces of the potch (material) as you can see by the American Quarter which is almost 1 inch across, that there are some very nice pieces in there, had it made color as the some of it did this parcel could have been worth in the region of $250,000.00, but not to be Mother Nature is not that kind to me this year.

This is of some of the pieces that made some color, in this pic there is only one piece of skin to skin opal, this is the piece on the far left, second from the top, again this opal has tried to make Green/Orange Crystal of a very good quality, in all there was 189 ounces of material that came out of the tumbler and out of that I have some 17.5 ounces of color, almost all of it potch and color, but anything is better that nothing at all I can tell you.

There is still Material in the wall on the left and the right, although thin at this time and it is still in the wall at the back, but I feel that the color is on my right towards the slide, but I have started a drive now and will continue straight ahead until I have finished then I will make my mind up which way to go next, I feel that I could strike it lucky here in any direction as the ground is very good and opal could be anywhere at all.

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of Patricia and myself to wish all of our friends and family, both here in Australia and overseas in Sweden, USA and England, all the best for the New Year, I hope that you all have a good time and get home safely and that we will continue this opal saga in the new year and hope that it will be a prosperous New Year for all of us.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Hope you have enjoyed this issue and look forward to the next one, hopefully I will have some more good photos to show you in the next issue and maybe some of Good Looking Opal and lots of it, I am still hoping that this will be a good year for us in mining, so stay with us over the next few months and find out what goes on in our part of the world as far as Opal Mining goes.

Stay Tuned for the next Issue, who knows what I will have to report.

Until the next issue.........

and wish me lots of LUCK.

Cya Later, Stuart Bird.

To return back to the Archived Page for more Updates click, Here!