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

This the shot face on the left side after I had finished pulling the dirt, which gave me some problems with 3 blockages in a row first thing this morning, which put me in a bad mood to begin with, don't like messing around, anyway after I had finished this I was supposed to pull the shot behind me as well, but I have decided to finish here for the time being until I can get the shaft drilled as if I get that tunnel machine I can finish the job with that a lot easier and I have open it up enough for it to start, I think.

The level here is still not as I would like it and there is nothing to chase right now, although I did find a bit of potch on the right, if there was a bit of color in the wall I would go a bit further, but there isn't so that's the end for a while.

This as you can see is where I come down on the winch and the pipes are down the shaft closest to the camera, I will be drilling in this wall tomorrow after I have done a bit more preparing (putting things out of the way) I will have to drill right and blast right across this face from where the red weight on the winch is and to the right till I am past the 3rd shaft which is just past that stick in the corner.

But will do it in 2 or 3 shots and will have to go at least 2 shots in, this is in case I buy that tunnel machine, it has to have room to start operating in so that when it is lowered done the shaft and is sitting on the floor it can be walked forward to the face to start tunneling and has to have room behind it to put on a telescope to connect to the bottom elbow, so as the smallest telescope is 3 foot 6 inches and the elbow sticks out about 2 foot, that is 5 foot 6 inches plus the length of the machine which I don't know as yet, never thought to measure the length, but I will this week.

Although this was not a storm but just normal rain, a steady and heavy downpour over about 5 hours, this will make it hard on some parts of the opal fields as they are just drying out from the last one a week last Sunday, it is starting to rain again as I am writing this at 8.56am, I was hoping to be back at work on Thursday but now I am not to sure so will just have to wait it out and see what happens with the weather, makes it hard for me as I cannot even take any photos for the web site as I use the sun for them but I can make changes to some pages as I am changing the format on them all.

I have no idea how much that rain dumped here, but as the last lot was in the 35mm area I would assume from the photos above it would be around the same and as the fields are still recovering from the last lot, it will take longer now and I hope this has not caused me any problems around the claim, but it may not have got the same amount of rain 11 miles from here but wont know until I can get out there.

Day off New Years Day, so HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL, we went out to a local United Yugoslav Club for dinner and a couple of drinks, was back home for 9.30 had some Mud Cake and Ice Cream around 10.15 and went to bed at 11.20, so we had a nice quiet night and stayed out of trouble.

Stayed at home and did a couple of small jobs I had been putting off, looked like rain again but nothing happened as usual, still I would not have gone to work, always tomorrow as they say.

Very overcast and really looks threatening but again nothing happened, the temperature was 34C (93.2F) at 7 o'clock this morning when I got up and the weather here in general is getting hotter and the temperature reached 46C (114.8F) under the veranda in the shade, so it really is a bit hot to be working the machinery in this type of weather and as we only have a fan in the bedroom at this stage we are not getting a good nights sleep.

The temperature again was this morning when we got up and reached 43C by the afternoon, stayed home again and did some work here, will be back on the field tomorrow for sure if the weather is not wet.

I went and measured that tunnel machine for length and it is 7 foot 9 inches long, that means I will have to have around 14 feet clearance from the down pipes all the way around, there are longer machine than this and heaver, this is estimated to be about 2 tons in weight and I know that there are machine that are 5 tons in weight.

There is a chain sprocket that is completely worn out, this is on the hydraulic pump that drives the front cutters on the bottom, this will have to be replaced before it can be used by anyone, as those cutters make the floor flat and if they are not turning and cutting the machine cannot move forward, still have to wait until the man who is the farther in law of the guy who owns it comes back from Adelaide from his Christmas break.

I will not buy it until I can get it off the trailer and see that everything is working and turning and that there is no serious oil leaks, there will be some as that is the nature of the beast, but as long as they are small and there is supposed to be a 200 foot electric lead with it and he (the owner) has lent it out and although he has asked for it back so he tells me it has not turned up as yet.

As I went to work today I was worried about how the water had again run around the shafts and if it had caused any damage to them, but as you can see it had followed the track it had cut before, it is a little bit deeper and a little bit wider but it is missing the shafts and that is all that matters, so I wont have to worry about this again for a while.

This is how the auger looks after drilling the 3 bottom holes, it is very wet for about 12 to 18 inches in as that is how fat that water when I was flooded seeped in and it will not dry out as the ground is as you know damp below the level, the next shot in should not be like this or anywhere as bad, but I do have to do another shot on ether side of this one yet, as I said I have to clean an area about 15 feet around the 3rd shaft.

This is our local sign writer, Graham who I might add does a great job and is hell of a nice fellow to go with it and no this wont get me a free job from him, this is one of two signs on the main highway, the second one was only just put up last week and this one has been there for more than 2 years I think, but a little while after it had been put up someone blew a hole in it, Pity I never did take a photo of it anyway it never got repaired, I suppose they figured that if they got it repaired it would get blow up again, so we will see if it does or not in the near future.

This is his rig that he travels around with, like everybody these days he has gone over to a computer to do most of the signs and so bought this caravan to put his equipment in and makes the signs most times on the site which is cheaper for the customer and easier for him, but he likes to keep his hand in on the old stuff like this sign so he does not loose his touch, I have asked him to come and touch up my Explosives Sign on top of the mining truck as the red is getting faded, he made the sign some years back and will get around to it when he can fit me in or remember.

As I had already drilled the shot holes yesterday, I told them they would have to climb the ladders and they could watch me make the bombs and put them in the holes, then they would have to climb out and I would follow on the winch where I would start the blower and then go back down to light the shot and then come back up again.

Well first off while I was loading the bombs in the bottom 3 holes I got the first 2 bombs stuck as the wet holes had closed in a bit and in trying to get them free the fuses came off, so I finished loading the rest of the bombs in the holes.

Then I went back and rammed the 2 stuck bombs to the back of the hole with the tamp stick, it breaks them up but that does not matter so long as I can get them at the back of the hole then I made up a couple of baby bombs and loaded them in the 2 holes in front of the broken up bombs, these will in turn set off the bombs in the back and act like one big bomb, not often this happens but does now and again in very wet ground.

Well looks like them little Gremlins are still around, went to start the truck this morning and NOTHING, zip, zero, nada, zilch, can you believe it again another breakdown, if that does not tell you that there is opal down there I don't know what will, always something to stop me going to work and moving dirt, which is what I would have been doing today.

So I had to find someone to come and have a look at the truck, I thought it was the solenoid on the starter motor that had packed it in and I found out that John Braun an auto electrician was still here so I got him to come and check the started motor out for me and repair it if he could, which he did.

It turns out it was the starter motor but it was the brushes that were nearly worn out and would not have lasted much longer, so he took the starter motor off and took it away and put 4 new brushes in it and here he is putting it back in again, so now it ready to go again, but on having the engine cover open I can hear a small exhaust leak a again so I don't know what is going to happen with this again as the workshop that worked on it does not want to see it again for that problem unless I can get the original exhaust for it, which I cant.

Well we got off to work OK today, but I had to refuel the truck and get some petrol for the generator before I went and the first thing I had to do when I got there was to make up the 4 bombs to blow the roof down, below is the shot before I do that, you can see there is a lot of alanite there again this is 18 inches thick, a big piece fell off the front when the shot went off and I had to break it up before I could check the level.

After I had cleaned up a bit, I started to pull the shot towards the old drive I have just finished and then I turned around and pulled the dirt away from under the ladders and the winch for safety so I had some nice flat ground to stand on and I came across this piece of Cordex sticking out of the dump, which means there is a bomb left in there that did not go off, this is a bit unusual and does not happen that often down the bottom, but does happen quite often up in the roof if a piece breaks off when a bomb has gone off and drags the fuse out of the hole next to it and you hear the det going off.

Thought I had counted 11 bombs, but what must have happened is that as I had put them 2 small bombs in front of the big bombs, there must have been a slight delay in two of going off, making me think that all 11 of the bombs had gone off and as 2 of the bottom holes were almost double charged when they went off, the charge was to powerful and blew out to much dirt from around it pulling the burning fuse off this bomb to its left.

If I was to put another fuse on this now, which I could and light it, the blast would spread the dirt all over the place and make a mess so it is better if I just dig out the bomb and then jackpick the ground around that is not fractured as it is only now about a foot from the face, so there is not much left here to worry about, the blue bit sticking out of the dirt is the Cordex, this is as far as I got today as my back was giving me a little pain so I quit and packed up at 11.10am and came home, will finish it off tomorrow and make sure I have a nice clean face to drill for the next shot.

This is where I will be putting a shot in after I have done one more where I am above, remember I was telling you about I did not think that I would get any trace or opal in the level until the Alinite had gone or ay least went up the roof a bit more and I had sandstone above the level, well here you can see the Alinite has tapered off to a point and that dark brown spot is where I was digging in the wall, there is potch in here and I have gone in some 18 inches and it is still running and also it travels to the right so when I blast here I will have to go some 7 or 8 bombs wide and as the level is running down to the left who knows what we might find in there.

Pulled the rest of shot today and cleaned up down the drive to my right where the pipes are kept and jack-picked the wall near the floor to square it up ready for drilling a shot after I have done the next one here in front of me, I know that you all have seen the shovel in a few photos but I thought that I would show you how it was used.

Here you can also see how the telescope works, I just pull the telescope forward until it is at full length, (this is the 3 foot one) then I would push it back in and take it off and put another pipe on or change it for the 6 foot telescope, here I don't need any more as I am near the face, this is where the blood, sweat and tears come in, plenty of sweat I can tell you, now I am ready for drilling the next shot here tomorrow.

FOR a place so alien, Mars looks a lot like home. This is the sharpest picture ever taken of the Red Planet revealing a rock strewn landscape which bears a striking resemblance to South Australia's Outback.

The "postcard" was taken by NASA's rover Spirit and sent back to, Earth through 169 million kilometers of space. It shows a rust, colored land, which could be mistaken for the gibber plain near Coober Pedy, Spirit landed on Mars over the weekend, on a mission to probe for ancient, signs of life sustaining water.

Scientists said the image had three to four times the resolution of any other picture of Mars, it was taken with a high resolution panoramic camera and was mosaic of 12 shots. Jim Bell of Cornell University, the main scientist on the rover camera team, said his reaction was "one of shock and awe". University of Adelaide astronomer, Dr Paddy McGee said Mars was essentially like a desert, as was Coober Pedy.

Drilled the shot, 16 in this one, 14 in the bottom and 4 in the roof there was a very little bit of thin colored trace just under the Alinite in one spot, but apart from that nothing but I did not expect to find anything as yet, I also get the feeling the level or what there is of it is on the way up, instead of down but will not know for sure what is going on until I have pulled the shot and can see the ground standing on my feet and looking at it.

Pats birthday today so we are going out to the local pub for Dinner, nothing special, but just a few hours out in a different atmosphere and then we can come back to out normal world again and I the cook get to have a night off, so we both win.

Day off, but will be back tomorrow pulling dirt again, there is a lot from this shot and I should think that I will have quite a bit to break up from the roof with all of that Alinite up there so I don't think that I will be able to get rid of it all tomorrow, but will give it my best shot.

Pulled about half the shot today as I forgot to put my watch on this morning and as I did not think I could pull all of the shot this was the best way for me to tell the time or so I thought, this is how I left it when I went home and you can see here where the arrows are pointing there are 2 big lumps of Alinite that are 2 feet thick, all this breaking lumps up makes the pulling of the dirt take longer.

Will pull the rest of the shot tomorrow and make sure that the side face where I will be drilling is as straight and as clean as possible.

Here is how it looks after I have pulled all of the dirt, the ironstone level is still a bit faint here, there is a small fault just in front of me and I did not think it would affect the level but it has because the level has gone up just slightly, but I will not know until I can go a bit further in this direction, which wont be for a little while yet as my holidays are coming up at the end of this month, but will be able to finish opening up in the direction to the right, will drill and blast in there tomorrow.

Went and drilled 17 shot holes, just had enough room to drill sideways with the 5 foot auger, was alright once I got the auger started, but again the bottom holes were a bit on the wet side, took me an hour and 35 minutes to drill the shot, so when I had finished I sat down ( I have a chair down there) and looked at the shot and figured that I would really be better off safety wise if I was to come up after lighting the shot.

I had only brought 42 inch fuses (3'-6") as I had intended to stay under while the shot went off, but I as would not be able to pull the fumes with a 10 foot pipe after the bombs had gone off, which means that the fumes would travel to far and had a chance to reach me, also the elbow is very close to the shot and if it got blocked I would be in a bit of trouble if I could not unblock it quick enough, so I decide that I would not load and fire the shot today, but would go home and come back tomorrow with 6 foot fuses, which will allow me to light them and come up top before they went off.

Got to work and went down and started to make the bombs straight away, all 17 of them, loaded the holes and went up to start to blower, I left the telescope down connected to the elbow as the shot was not blasting towards it (mistake) but is better for me to pull the fumes with the bottom elbow on and pointing towards the shot providing it does not get blocked when the shot goes off, below is a couple of pieces of alinite that have rolled down the dump, these are from the roof, it really made a mess as expected.

This is the mess it has made in the old drive, you can just see the pipes down there, the corner of the drive collapsed which I knew it would, the next shot in will do the same thing and make as much as a mess again just takes longer to clean up and where the arrow is pointing there is some potch in the wall, I have dug in some 18 inches and there is still some in there, does not mean that I will find any opal, but who knows.

Here you just make out the big dent in the telescope, I thought I would be safe by leaving it down with the elbow on it as the shot was not pointing towards it, but it only took one rock to damage it, never can tell where they will fly.

I will have to bring it up and repair it the best I can, the workshop that I use for repairs has a double sided tool with a jack attached for putting inside pipes like this and jacking the dent out but you never get it back to the way it was and eventually any bump on the inside of the pipe lead to wearing a hole in it sooner rather than later, would happen sooner if I was operating a tunnel machine as a lot of dirt gets put through a lot quicker.

Had the day off was feeling tired and my back gave me a twinge so it was a good excuse to have the day off and as I was only going to pull the shot even better I stay at home.

Went to work and pulled some of the shot till I thought I have got rid of about half then I came home, its just a bit to much for me to pull in shift but not enough for 2 shifts and on the 2nd day when I have been pulling dirt I don't feel like drilling holes after working up that kind of sweat, so have a couple of early mornings.

Day off, but will be back tomorrow pulling dirt again, there is a lot from this shot, I have never had as much to break up as this shot has given me this time, will be glad when I can get back to normal.

Pulled some of the shot today and after about an hour my back got to feeling sore, so I quit and came home, I had a visitor underground, not the kind I wanted, we get insects that fall down the shafts during the night now and again, even lizards on occasions, so I just put them in a cloth and bring then back up and let them go back where they belong.

Had the day off, have to give the back a rest don't want to upset it to much right now.

Had the day off again as I still had a twinge in the back this morning, I do suffer from a bad back and tend to trap a nerve at least once a year if not twice, have been lucky so far this year and have not put it out as yet but like now have had back pains.

Went to work and again pulled some of the shot but again the back got sore and I had to quit and come home, was hoping I would have finished pulling the rest of the dirt today, oh well there is always tomorrow.

Went to work and finally finished pulling the last shot, now ready to drill another, which hopefully will be tomorrow, also had to bring up the floor by about 1 foot or you might say bring the level down by one foot so it is about 4 foot off the ground, the reason for this is for the tunnel machine which I will be using sometime in the near future after I come back off holidays and get it in running condition.

My brain is in the holiday mode I think, I went to work this morning to do a shot and I set up on the hole ready to go down when I realized that I had left the bomb papers behind, how can that happen, easy don't have your mind on the job, I had cut the Cordex up and the fuses up last night and put the Det's on the fuses this morning, but I had to go for fuel for the truck and in doing so forgot to take out the box of papers out of the shed.

So I had to come home, what a waste of fuel and time, but will go out tomorrow and do the shot, I am running out of time now as I go on Holidays a week tomorrow for 2 months and I would like to get this shot in and pull the dirt and do one more shot before I go and then leave the dirt as it is until I come back.

Went in to make up for yesterday, below the arrows show you where the shot holes are, my knee was playing up real bad today and I did not think I would finish drilling this shot, but I managed to finish it, took me 1 hour and about 3/4 to drill 17 holes as there is 4 in the roof as well, which I will load and fire just before I go home.

When I lit this shot I came up for before it went off and then I pulled most of the fumes before I went back down, the shot was to good, it had blown down all of the level right back to the shot face at the back, so there was nothing for me to check, but there is a big mess for me to clean up again.

I will have to do this about 2 more times but the next 2 shots will be bigger as the face directly in front of this one is wider, that is where the ladders are, but that will be after I come back for holidays, which I go on next Sunday, Yep, a week today out time, gone for 2 months and I will not be back until the end of March.

I will not have a this newsletter next week and quite probably the week after, but I will keep those of you that are interested in what we are up to informed, for those that are not interested, don't click on the link and everything will be sweet.

I will be back at work tomorrow pulling some dirt, but after that I do not know what I will be up to as I have a few things to do and get ready for going on this big trip to Queensland, for those of you that remember this trip last year, it was a disaster for us money wise in Mt Isa in Queensland and this time I would like to get past there with no problems, will let you all know in a couple of weeks or there about.

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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