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

To carry on from last update and still on about the tire problems, this is one of the back duel tires that is not good as you can see, it has died from old age and is literally falling apart, the canvas is showing through in a few places so as I have to buy one new tire I might as well buy 2 and replace this before it blows up by itself, turns out that only one tire came up, they showed 1 on the computer in another place but they did not have it, so I sent the one back as I need two, I will sort something else out, I have the same sort of tire on the trailer for the tunnel machine so I might take them and see if I can replace them with another size if I can, will worry a bit this a bit later on.

This is one of the uprights I have to replace, as you can see this one which is the worst is really rusted out, I also have one on the other side to do as well, not as bad as this but bad enough and this is one that will be carrying and supporting the fuel tank when finished.

Here we are back on the field, My friend George finally got back and has gone to open up the 3rd shaft to make it 5 foot 4 inches in diameter for the tunnel machine, here he is starting to set up over the shaft.

I did not know it at the time but the offsider who guides the truck back let George run over the timber I have over the shaft I have the ladders down as you can see he broke one, I suppose I was lucky it did not cause more damage, I though he would have come in from another direction which would have been directly in front as we look at the photo, but due to the little bit of wind we had he set this way so that when he dumps the dirt he will not get covered in dust when he dumps it from the bucket.

Now he is putting up the Boom as it is called, once he has put this up he will connect the Kelly to the bucket and then will be ready for action, the day was very, very cold and overcast as you can see, not the ideal day for drilling, as George has to just stand operating the controls and has no chance to move around and get warm.

Here is the offsider Louie putting on the reamers, this is the start of making the original hole bigger, there will be a lot of dirt come from this hole and I do not know right now how long it will take, depends on the ground, but takes a lot longer than a normal shaft.

Now the reamers are on and we are about to start making the hole bigger, as this is my first big shaft I am quite excited right now, not looking forward to paying for it, but am looking forward to getting the tunnel machine under and in action.

The process starts slowly, as the reamers go around the dirt is forced down the shaft in between the bucket and the shaft itself, the problem arises when the reamers reach the Jasper Rocks which are not to far under from here.

Here we are down about 18 inches, George has just measured the diameter of the hole to make sure that it is what he wants, as I do not know exactly what size I can get away with so he is making it bigger, because if it is to small he will not be able to ream this shaft out again and I will have to have another drilled and I don't want that, so this shaft is going to be 5 foot 4 inches in Dia.

Now we are 10 feet down just got through the jasper Rocks and he has hit some hard ground, you can just see it on the right hand side coming in, don't know how far this will go down but I hope there is not to much of it to get through.

This is dust coming up the pipes shaft, it was worse than this at one stage, you can George has to keep his eye on the bucket at all times so he can see what is going on, this hard ground is giving him a hard time, not to mention the teeth on the reamers.

This gives you a close up view of the main reamer, this is the longest one, the other and small one is the one that forces the dirt back on the inside so it can fall down between the bucket and the shaft, lucky for me the jasper rocks were small and did not give any trouble, sometimes they are very big, big enough so shots have to be used to break them up that not only takes a lot more time but costs a lot more to, time is money they say, anyway George has decided that the teeth are alright for now and will carry on reaming.

Here we are down about 18 feet and you can see we are still in the hard ground, the teeth are scraping the hard ground which is now all the way around the shaft, you can see the puffs of dust coming up, this is the hardest ground I have seen here on my claims.

And this is how they put them back in, they cut a small piece of rubber, taken from an old car tire tube, which they hold in the slot then put the tooth in and knock it in with a small sledge hammer, here there is 2 new ones and 2 old ones, I don't know the cost of these teeth as I have never asked, but when George broke through the hard ground which was not long after he had done this, he had lost the 2 new teeth you see here.

George broke through the hard ground right at the end of the first Kelly, which is 28 feet long, then he takes off the reamers and starts to pull some of the dirt out with the bucket, which is just like drilling in the first place, he has to drill to get the dirt to fill the bucket and stay in there, if it is not packed in tight it will fall out as he is bringing the bucket up and after he had done a few buckets it was time to go home, this was around 5pm but as he went to pull the last bucket up it got stuck.

So the offsider had to go down the shaft, (now you can see why they want young fellers as offsider) this big shaft only goes down to 28 feet from there it is only 1 meter wide (the original shaft) and has the Kelly running down the middle of it and Louie has to get down there somehow, here he is checking the side of the shaft for loose jasper rocks, before he will right down, safety first as always or make it as safe as possible anyway.

Just about down to the first stage before he has to squeeze between the Kelly and the shaft, when he got down there he found that the bucket lid had come open and the reason the bucket could not come back up was as the lid was hanging down the teeth was catching on the roof of the drive so Louie asked for some rope to be set down so he could tie the lid closed and then George could bring it back up.

As George went to bring the bucket up the lid came open again, so Louie had to go back down, this time he went down the ladders and asked for a pick to be set down, what ever he did it worked this time and George brought the bucket up put on the reamers and started to ream out the hole again by this time is was 5:50pm and time for me to bugger off so off I went, when I saw George the next morning he said he worked until 6 o'clock then went home, it had been a long and cold day for sure.

Now this is day two and the shaft is finished at last, was done by 12:30 pm you can see it looks very big against the others, it is nearly twice the size of a normal shaft, but they do ream out to 6 foot for some of the tunnel machines here, if I was not going to take my extendable head (more on this later) off I would have wanted this size as well.

Now George has moved forward some 50 feet and is drilling me another normal shaft, this is the shaft that I will be driving towards when I put the tunnel machine down, as I will be going up a level (about 10 to 12 feet) I have to drive to a shaft where I will open up around the shaft with the machine then move the blower over to that shaft and commence looking for opal on that level, I have a plan in mind where to go and will drive to other shafts nearby that have been opened up and had some work done to them but very little.

The shaft in the middle is a clean prospect shaft, there is one to the left that has been opened up and had some work done to it and the shaft to the right is an old square shaft that is connected to other shafts down the hill, I am not interested in this shaft nor the one to the left at the moment, but when I gat back down to my level on the 76 foot I will be driving to these shafts as they did not work that deep and there may be a level thee and some opal around so worth a look, now I have a tunnel machine.

Well here is the fuel tank in place, I still have to make the brackets to hold it in place yet but so far I am pleased with the result, the bottom brackets worked out better than I had hoped as they are stronger and the tank is well out of the way of anything and anybody, so now I will be able to put my pipes on the floor when I move as I have done before.

You can see here better how I have built it high and the brackets that it is standing on, now for the brackets to anchor it in so it cannot move, I have already soldered in the brass elbows for the fuel level hose, seen top and bottom of the tank at the front, now I have to put a length of plastic hose on it with clamps and the tank will be finished, will put the fuel hoses etc on next week.

I have cut the roof with my little 4 inch angle grinder from the inside and lifted it over the top ready for the crane to lift and put the generator on the truck, then I will replace the front timber that goes across the 2 metal uprights at the front, the 2 pieces of timber you see where the roof has been pushed back are only there so I could slide it across them and will use then to slide it back then I will throw them away as they are no good.

Now to have the generator put on etc, this has already been done but will save the photos etc until the next issue, the main thing is that I am not that far off being finished, so the next update should see the end of this fixing up and not far off mining I hope.

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!