Opal Mining Newsletter December-31, 2004 on Mining Underground for Opals in Coober Pedy

Well just to start off from where we left off last month, the new cutters that I put on with the gussets (backing) work just great, they cut trough everything now with no trouble, if I had done this before in the first place I would not have any trouble, but that is what experience is all about, cant buy it, got to experience it first hand, so I suppose there some other things that are in front of me that I will have to learn the hard way when I get to them.

Here you can see that the ground is slowly changing and that the level is coming back in, that is the brown line under the white Alinite, there is some potch also coming in the level also on the left hand side, will have to hope that it may change into color soon.

I did not put that piece of rubber back on the end of the cutting head, this I took off to put that lug on so I could lift the extendable cutting head, I had made this rubber so I could put it back on if you remember as I drilled and tapped a couple of holes in the end when I had cut it off, but I thought I would try it with out it.

This shot shows that I am in around 30 feet now and you can see the level traveling along the side of the drive on both sides, you will also notice that above the brown line it is more white with the Alinite mixed in it and the different full sandstone ground underneath, this is called a change of ground, there does not have to be a ironstone level for us to have a chance to find opal, but we look for this change of ground, one type above another, in-between the two is the level and was a Sea Bed millions of years ago, so long as there is sandstone there we have a chance of finding opal or material which can turn into opal.

As you see above with the 2 x 500 watt spotlights there is nothing in the wall that I miss, you get to see every little piece of potch or opal that comes along and as I do not take a big cut in the face like the square machine I do not risk loosing much at all, below there is potch along the drive here (arrows) later on when I have nothing else to do or cannot use the machine because of the weather, wind the wrong way I will Pillar Bash this out.

Which means that I will drill in about 2 foot under all of the potch that is left in the wall with my auger that drills a 4.5 inch hole and jack-pick it down, to see if there is any color in there and if the material keeps running, this is how the Pillar Bashers here make there money, going in after the Tunnel Machines have finished to see what they have left behind, I have always said that they will not make anything off me as I will do it myself, when I have finished the drives.

Pillar Bashing, for those of you that don't understand the term, Pillar Bashing is a term that is used here for the guys who mine on the cheap as it requires very little expenses or equipment and is the most dangerous of all mining, especially when they go into the very old claims where the roofs are not very safe, as you can see from what I am doing, when I have finished a drive and start another, what is in-between is called a pillar and as below most miners with tunnel machines leave the potch as it is in the wall, but this can change a few inches in the wall to opal, the Pillar Basher goes in and check this, may drill some holes under the level and blast it, if there is opal, he has made some money and we have done all of the hard and expense work for them, they do not have to remove any dirt.

Here is the potch, if this makes color and stays this thick or gets thicker we will have a good payday but its not looking to good at this stage and the next day after I had taken this photo I reached 52 feet in this drive but the ground turned wet and as it was still potch in the face I abandoned the drive and pulled the machine back as this drive is going out towards the old claim next door and under a small gully where the ground is wet.

The circles are the old square shafts from the late Sixties and are outside my claim, they are at the back of a fault and I am in front of it, my new claims (Pat & I) now goes from where the peg is on the dump just in front of the Number 1 in black right back in-between the drill on the right, no longer there and no pegs and the blower you can see in the background back 200 meters, which is a long way and a lot of tunneling to do to work it out on perhaps 2 levels and is from that peg you can see to a peg just out of photo on the right on the hill, the old drive I have just finished in the Black Number 1 and the new one I have just started is towards the Black Number 2 sort of that direction anyway as far as I can guess

As I have a few more small jobs to do to the tunnel machine, I said that when I finished this last drive I would do them so that is what I have done for 3 days, I had to modify the seat as it is to hard to remove from the machine when the seat has to be removed, I have to undo the bolts, never though of this when I made it, so I will modify it, also I have to put a couple of small rubbers on each side of the floor cutter, as there is a gap between the side of the wall and when the crusher box ends.

This causes dirt to be thrown back through this gap and as it builds up it sides sideways and under the tacks causing the machine to start going up, also the Hydraulic Rams that control the floor cutter are in need of putting new seals in them as they creep down and I have to put some gussets on the middle cutter to beef it up like I did on the outside one.

Here I am just starting the new drive, all the above repairs and modifications have been done and it is going in where I had cleaned up that face so I could have somewhere to hang my stuff, this photos is taken from just inside an old drive next door, you can just see the wall or as they are know Pillar, here it is thin but as the drives gets deeper the Pillar will get wider and I also had to bolt a thin piece of galvanized sheet metal on the front of the machine, just at the bottom of that large piece or rubber and straight across the machine.

There is a gap that the builder of this machine had put a piece of rubber across with 3 bolts in the top to stop the dirt from getting thrown through it by the floor cutter, but it was not long enough and because of its thickness the cutter it would have caught it if it was any longer so the dirt had forced this rubber back through the space as it was not bolted at the base, so I gat a piece of galvanized sheet metal 29 x 3.5 inches and bolted it in place covering this hole and left the rubber in place, this also stops any dirt getting through the front of the machine and under the tracks, why the builder never thought of this, he did it the hard way and it was no good, still we all see things differently.

Here you can see where I have put the side rubbers on, bolted (2) on with I piece of flat bar behind for strength, was not easy drill here as there was very little room, drilled the holes in the flat bar at Ross's workshop to make it easier for drilling here underground, all I had to do was use a small clamp and sit down to do the job, one on either side, hope they make a difference, they were on before but the one on the other side was ripped almost off and this side was alright but they had been put on with Tec Screws and not very secure, so I cut them off and thought I could do without them, found out that I was wrong they are needed, but had to be put on properly, would have been a lot easier if I had done this in the workshop, but we are learning and getting better at it.

With this photo you can see that I have gone in-between a couple of the old drives if you can them that the one right is my very first attempt at going up which was a disaster it was far to steep and the one on the left was my seconded attempt which was better, but still to steep, earl next year we will be doing the 3 rd one and this better be good as I will be trying to connect to a shaft and on the next level up, so I have to do good with that one, but I am getting a lot better with operating the machine and this going up is the main reason that the seat had to be modified so it can be taken off easily and quickly.

In this photo you can see on the right that I am cutting away part of an old hand drive, have to go a bit slower here (not that I that quick yet) as at times some of the dump slides down and is a bit too much for the floor cutter to handle so I have to back off a bit when this happens to give it time to clear, then away we go again, here I am only about 3 feet in so far, there is part of the old level here, but will soon disappear on me.

Now I am in a few feet and the level has gone as predicted, I am going under a fault above me but wont be long before the level will be back and it should be carrying material at some stage, the new side rubbers are working well, a little wide but because I bolted them on properly then tend to bend back still causing a complete seal on the side to the wall, this is why I put a backing plate on them for strength, allows the rubber to work without ripping it off.

Now I have noticed that there is still some dirt getting thrown back along side of the machine as it being bounced off the side wall as the head travels around, it is coming from this bottom corner of the head, don't know why it is like this as it has not been ripped or worn off, but was cut like this when put on, so I will at this stage glue a piece on and see what difference it makes, I may have to adjust it in some way and when I get it right I will try to find some more of this material and put a new piece on as it is hard to get hold of this thick conveyer belt material here.

This is the elbow I have just modified, it was set up for the hand mining with a male and a female end on it, but as I cant always do a straight drive from the main elbow, I cut the end off this elbow and put rings on either end so I could use it like you see it below, I was using a flexible plastic hose but it would have not lasted long here, this being metal will last 2 or 3 years perhaps more, before it needs repairing with a patch.

Well just shows how much I know, here I am starting to break into an old drive, I am very surprised as I did not think that the old times worked on this level, the square shaft that I checked just behind the blower a few years ago had only work the 64 foot level which is the level above me, but there was a drive going back towards the gully but I could not get down this has some of the roof had collapsed so I could not see where it had gone but I knew that it was connected to other on the side on the hill, looks like they chased some trace down and to the side and as I was getting green trace on the left side of the drive, I would say that if there was any opal they got it in the late sixty's.

So we have brought he machine back again and have turned it right around and I have had to move a lot of stuff out of the way, including the cable and recoil it to the left of the machine just inside an old drive and out of the way, now I have to start a new drive in this direction and going up as I will be driving towards a shaft, but first I have to get through all of the hand mining rubble, in here is some of the dirt from reaming the big shaft and in it also is some of the Jasper rocks from around the top of the shaft, the Jasper Rocks are very hard something like granite but harder and they can break the teeth if I catch a big one so I have to take it easy until I reach the wall.

Finally got to the face and now we are starting to go up slowly this time, just hope I have the direction pretty good, don't know how far I will have to go before I hit the level above, we call it the 62/64 foot level but as I am on the side of a small hill and slight higher that the old claim next door by about 5 feet, that would put the level around the 68/69 foot mark, soon tell as we will see two different types of ground in the face just like you see here, even if there is no ironstone level and there does not have to be an ironstone level to find opal, but have a better chance if there is one.

Here are a couple of photos of the small amount of opal that I pulled from that trace, some of it was just green opal but thin, that is why we call it trace, it may lead to a pocket of bigger stuff, in this case there was also a small amount of green orange with it, this I did not see until I got home and tumbled it, there was 1/2 ounce of it, so we have been paid for some expense today, when I get the machine past where I dug this out of the face I will have a pick in the side wall where hopefully it will make some more.

She was a little scared going down and coming up, but if she was to come down on a regular basis would soon get used to it again, if you look closely at her front you will see a thick safety rope is around her waist and onto the hook, so if anything was to happen she could not fall down and I would be able to continue bringing her up as I have another switch on the control box that I operate to bring the winch up or down when I have someone with me.

When Pat was with me yesterday, I had to keep stopping the machine from cutting and let the dirt clear from the pipes as it is wet ground and wet ground is also heavy so it takes a lot longer to suck through the pipes and also as you can see here blocks up the elbows and the telescope that connects to the elbow, this morning it was getting slower to pull the dirt so I took the elbow off and this is what it looks like, now I have to clean it out along with the big one up top, so will take a little while to do this job.

This I took lying on my back, this is the telescope that fits in the first pipe that goes up the shaft, will have to clean this as well, in the old claim I had to take this off and bring it home every 2nd day to clean it, as it used to get very bad and it is also very heavy with all of the mud inside, by taking it home and leaving it overnight the mud inside used to dry and was a lot easier to get rid of, may have to start doing that again.

This is how I get the mud out of the bottom elbow, I have made a special tool for the jackpick to make it easier to get it out, before I used to do this with a bar and it used to take a long time and effort to do, now it is pretty quick, the only problem is the lifting of it as this is very heavy and as I am chiseling it I have to keep lifting and tipping the broken bits out and lay it down again and so on until it is clean, who said we don't earn our money, when we find any that is.

I have gone in from where I started some 8 feet, now I have finished for the day and what a day, first I had to put diesel in the tank up top, then clean the elbow (corner we call them) then come down and clean the elbow here and then move everything around, bring the machine back and put it in place and then start work so to speak, when I come back to work, after the New Year I will move the machine around a few more degrees so I am going on almost the same line as the old drive on the right, but will be going up to the next level and connecting to the shaft, unless I hit wet ground again, but it should be dry 6 or 8 feet up, just a bit unlucky in the last drive, having no dry ground above the level after the ground had changed.

Tomorrow will be New Years Day here and so I wish all of the readers a Happy New Year and a Prosperous One also, like myself I hope to do well next year with the opal, what I have done at the moment with the tunnel machine has been practice and the area that I have been in except for the last drive and the one I am doing now.

So we are about to get serious, (heard that before) but I do not know if the level above is carrying, there is material in a couple of old claims around me and I got opal in my old clam on this level so we will keep out fingers crossed, but will have to do a few feet and connect to another 2 or 3 shafts on the level from the level I am on now, before I can move the blower, as once I leave this shaft I do not want to set up on it again until I have to bring the machine out, whenever that will be.

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.

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