December 30, 2003 Opal Mining Update - No 28 No Opal, but lots of water and A Quiet Christmas Week

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A friend of mine asked me what type of compass I use underground, he thought it would be affected by the minerals in the ground, but as I told him I don't think there is any around here but I could be wrong, but here is the compass, it is a proper mining compass and is very accurate on top and underground.

To use this compass you look through the little eye piece you see here and you can see there is an oblong window in there, this you use with both eyes open, in the eye piece you see the compass degrees, it reads both forward and backward degrees and there is a little light inside that you operate via a button just behind the red cord so that you can see the degrees very easily when using in a dark place, like underground.

Because I blew the roof down at the same time as the main shot, I have to look for the level as I am pulling the dirt and when I get to it I have to keep a check on it to see if any material or opal should come in it, this slows me down in pulling the dirt but I have to check as I never know when opal might turn up and we don't want to loose any do we.

Here there is some material in the dump, this was about 2.5 feet out from the face so it took me a bit of time to check all of this as I was pulling the dirt, there was a bit of colored thin trace in from this bit, green blue again and this way is towards the main slide, but I have to do a couple more shots in this direction yet before I am finished.

Here is a unusual piece of sculpture, I don't see stuff like this that often, it is a hard piece of alanite that is laced with some gypsum and it must have had some softer ground behind it for it to blow this lump out in one piece.

Finished pulling the shot on the right side, there was more dirt in this shot as some dirt from the other shot got blown across to this one and piled it a bit higher, there was also some trace through the dump, but it was lower down, as I said earlier the level is all over the place on this left side so it going to be hard to drill for the level, will just drill as I normally do and hope for the best.

Went to look at a round tunnel machine that is for sale, but has no generator with it, the trailer is a bit rough and ready but will do the job, needs to have some more money spent on it to bring it up to scratch, how much, don't know but will keep it in mind. A round tunnel machine does what the name implies it makes a round tunnel, this one can make a tunnel about 7 foot in diameter and with the cutter on the front at the bottom cuts a square floor, so the machine runs straight and on a flat floor, where the square machine make a tunnel like a door way, the machines vary in width but I believe the cutters at the from go from about 4 foot to 5 foot wide and can cut as high as 8 foot or more I believe, but they are big machines that can 5 foot or bitter and weigh in at 5 tons and have to have a shaft 6 foot in diameter to put them down at a cost of about $1000.00 for the one shaft.

Where the square machine cost more to build and therefore to buy second hand, the round tunnel machine cost a lot less to build and to buy second hand, the square machine is more popular because when they find opal or colored trace they just lower the cutters and make a cut in under the level so they can then drop the level much like I do in drill and blasting, this is the easy way, but with the round machine although you don't lose much if any opal at all, as the machine creeps forward it cuts a quarter of an inch every revolution, so when you see opal or material in the wall you stop the machine with the cutting arms in the vertical position and pick the opal out of the wall with the hand pick or electric jack pick, slower they say but still does the job. You can see the square machine below has the one set of cutting heads that go up and down when operated with the control levers this creates a square drive as we call then in actual fact there are oblong, as I said like a door way, both machines make a nice and neat drive unlike me with explosives the drive is very rough and a lot more dangerous as I disturb the ground a lot more and things become loose and can fall down at any time.

This is the back of the machine, I have marked where you connect the telescope, the procedure is just the same for all machine and for me in pulling dirt, we all use telescopes to move forward as we get rid of the dirt, only with a machine like this or the square one it makes the job a lot easier and most important of all cheaper, the biggest cost is buying the machine in the first place, after that it is easier on the back and the back pocket.

At the moment it is costing me roughly $70.00 a shot and that is to go in only 4 foot, this is not including the cost of gas for the mining truck and generator for the day, so it costs me and my wife (don't forget Pat) about $17.50 a foot of drive and that is if I don't have any problems in pulling the dirt through blockages which you don't have with a machine and the cost with this machine that cuts about 8 foot an hour (slow) is about $1.65 a foot, so you can see why the machine is better if you can afford to buy one. Off, was very tired from pulling dirt two days in a row and I suppose I will be tired after the next 2 shots as I will have to pull both of them as well before I can do the last 2 shots in these drives, so I stayed at home and did a couple of jobs that needed doing, I am sure that you know there is more for me to do than what I show and tell you about underground.

I have the generator sitting on a board in the back of the truck and I had to make repairs to it, I also changed the oil in it as it was overdue, I had to mix 2 bags of Nitropril, above is the setup, the old concrete mixer, what would we do without them, just leave it like this mixing for about 5 minutes after I have put the diesel in and then pore it back in the bag and tie the neck up and it is ready for when I need it, also have to roll some papers and make up the fuses, but I normally do that after dinner when Pat is washing the dishes as it doesn't take long for them.

This is the face of the shot on the left, as I said the level is all over the place here, it has dived to the right or towards the next fault in front, going to be hard drilling this next shot, there was bits of potch all over the place when I was pulling the dirt, so that means all of the ironstone level here can be carrying material.

Below is where I found potch in the level after I had pulled all the dirt, but no color.

Between the two arrows is potch, I went in after it with the pick this morning but it did not go in too far before it disappeared again, so I started to drill for this next shot.

This is the level on the other side of the dive, more stable but going towards the main slide and the other shot is going away from it and down, but I did find some green/blue thin, very thin trace here and in the dump, so there may be a pocket around somewhere.

Here we are back on the left drive and I have drilled the shot, I have gone 7 bombs wide here and there is 4 in the roof and boy was they hard to drill, after I had drilled this shot it was to late to drill the other behind me and fire it, so as it nearly 11.00am, I quit and went up top, where I moved the truck back near the blower and put the rest of the diesel in the drum to the blower fuel tank and then came home, getting back here around 11.50am, will drill and fire the 2 shots tomorrow, there will be 31 bombs in the shots.

I went over to see how our friend was doing with the dozer cut and as you can see he is getting down there, I will check again in a couple of days time.

This is one of those old timers square shafts, the ones that they put down by hand, pick and shovel and a hand winch most of them used, this one has collapsed in a bit just under the rim due to the elements, but the top has stayed in shape, did it the hard way the old miners and we still complain today and we got it easy compared to them.

Took a friend down with me today who would like to know a bit more about what we do in this drilling and blasting to find opal, Dave is the Husband of Kathy who is the lady that does the inlay rings that we carry in the web site. Drilled the shot on the other side of the drive with 14 holes and then I made up 31 bombs of which I lit 28, 3 are still in the roof on the right hand side and will not be lit until I have checked the level, after the blast and when I had pulled the fumes we went up to the shot and Dave saw a bit of color in the level, it was a skin shell and again it was green/blue in color, I picked it out and put in (in pieces) in the bag and continued to check the level, but could not check to much as I had to get Dave back home by 1.00 pm was late in doing that as we got back at 1.10 pm. Will finish checking the level on the right side tomorrow, will have to drill another couple of holes, load and fire them first as I want to go a bit wider on the left of this shot on the right, should have drilled one on the left in the first place and forgot and on the right the top bomb under the level blew out the back of the hole into the drive behind it, so I will have to drill one next to it but at not as deep by a least 12 to 14 inches, so it will blow out sideways and will also blow out the back but this does not concern me as long as it blows out the ground sideways from under the level, so I can check it. Did not get a chance to go out today, we had a storm go through again last night, as usual we had our famous dust storm first, we always get this and the rain follows behind it, most times we only get a bit of rain and it makes a mess of everything, but this time we got some rain and was raining a little this morning when we got up, so if the weather is all right in the morning I will go out on the field and make up for having today off.

Off again, we had another storm last night or should I say early this morning but this time we have got some rain and I mean we GOT SOME RAIN, so here is some photos to show you how it looks around my place, the field and just at the top end of out town, the one and only main street.

More water, could almost throw a line in and expect to catch a fish, which would do me.

Plenty of water at this end of the yard, this is the low end.

Makes me think about Nora and the Ark, if it does get any worse at least I have the boat and have just finished charging the battery, so I am ready.

One of the entrances to the opal fields, this is just out of town about 10 kilometers, they wont be using this for a few days.

This is blower that belongs to a Greek fiend of mine, the road to the airport is straight across to the right of the photo.

This is also just out of town on the right as you go up to Alice Springs, this field is called Ryan's Hill and is the field where they have found the deepest opal, the main part of the field is to the right of this photo, but thought I would show you the water lying around.

This gate is just a couple of kilometers further out that the photo above, we certainly had some rain in a short time.

Here I am coming back into town, I could not get on the opal field to see how my claim was, lucky I did not get bogged, I did get stuck but I got out of it with high and low range in 4 wheel drive, took me some 20 minutes to get back to the main road to come back home, should not have gone out in the first place as Pat tried to tell me before I went, but I know better, right, yer right, the road on the right in front is where I turn to get to my place about a kilometer on the left.

This is the top end of town and the Ampol Garage, again I turn right here at the sign to get home which is about 5 hundred meters from there.

Here we are back at my humble abode, the rain is easing off now a bit and about 3/4 of an hour after I had took this and washed the 4x4 down of the mud, it stopped, still looks like it could start at any time out there, it will be a few days now before I will get out again and seeing as it will be Christmas day on Thursday, I will not be able to get out on the field until Friday or Saturday at the earliest.

Had the day off to give the opal field time to dry out a bit or I would have got bogged in my little truck for sure, so will work on the web site. Again I had the day off, got some small opal rough parcels ready for sale on the web site and took photos of them and then put them up on the site, that took all day so I did not waste my time, may go out tomorrow and check things. That storm dumped 35mm of water here which is a lot of water for us in one hit, a lot of people here would have got flooded with that amount, even people here living in dugouts get flooded if there driveways are below street level and the ones that have the driveways up to there dugouts cannot get in or out while it is wet as the cars cannot make it back up the driveways due to the tires slipping on the mud which is what the dirt here turns to when it gets wet. Below is one of the places that I got stuck when I went out to look at the claim after the rain, the other place is near Ivan's blower in front, as I said it took me about 20 minutes to get back to where I took this photo, anyway got to the claim and went to work as there was no damage to it, the water had run around the shafts just like last time and I finished checking the level and fired the 3 bombs in the roof and then came home.

There is still plenty of water lying around out on the fields in places, many years ago I remember seeing tadpoles in this water hole as it only fills up when we get a lot of water.

Day off as it is Christmas Day, overcast and looked like rain but I wish that I had gone to work as it is a boring day here with nothing to do when you have no family to mix with and nowhere to go unless you go out to other peoples places and want to drink all day, which is fine if you want to take a chance of getting picked up for drink driving which I don't, so Pat and I stayed at home watching videos until it was time to go out for dinner at the place where she works, which was a very nice evening as usual. Still very overcast and looking like rain, so stayed at home again with Pat as she has the day off, things are quiet here in the tourist trade at this time of the year, so Pats hours are down a bit, but wont be long before we are off and holidays and then we can have a good rest and we hope no problems this time. Did not rain again as it turned out and I could have gone out, but better safe than sorry as I don't like being underground when it rains, have been caught twice before so I try not to get caught again. Went out to work this morning and again it was very overcast and I got to the field and it started to spit when I got nearly there, so I was starting to set up over the hole and it started to get a bit worse so I packed it up and came home again, was a waste of petrol and when I got back it had stopped and did not rain all day, same old story.

Finally got to do some work at last this week, this is what I have to move and check at the same time to see if there is any trace in the dump, I found a bit of blue potch on the right hand side, just below that brown patch you can see on the right, apart from that nothing, I have not finished pulling this shot and will finish it tomorrow. This is the shot on the right side and again I found a bit of colored trace on the right side (what's with the right side) you can also see the shot holes in the roof, again the roof did not come down I believe this is because the bombs where in the hole to long, if you remember I took a friend down with me last week and as he had to be home by 1 o'clock I did not get to finish checking the level.

So I had to finish checking the level the next day and had planed to drill a couple more holes on ether side of the shot and fire them all at once, but then the rain came and I was off for that few days, this lets the diesel soak out of the bomb, even the when the bombs are about 10 hours old the paper is wet through with diesel, so I will have to fix this problem on Monday by drilling a couple more holes when I have pulled some of the dirt and can get close enough to drill without standing on uneven ground. 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!

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