|
|
|
|
|
June-13, 2004
Opal Mining Update - No 36 Blower Bogged in Mud and Tunnel Machine is not far off |
Today is Tuesday and I had made arrangements to bring the blower in today with a friend of mine and as usual the plans went out the window last night as it started to rain around 9 pm and has rained all night and is still raining as I write this piece, looks like I will not be able to bring in the blower for quite a few days yet, as it will be too wet on the field to get to it or to bring it out, just my luck.
 |
|
I have a few things I can still do at the workshop to the tunnel machine as the hydraulic drive motor is back from repairs, but as it is raining and I have to work outside I will not go in today and that is only a half hour job, then I have to work out and design the middle cutters but will have to order these, there will only 2 or 3 of these, do repairs to a couple more pipes and then I am ready to work on the generator and blower.
As this side has to go up against the back of the cab on the blower truck as you will see later on, so I have to have then moved, at a cost to me of course, but as they fitted some 2nd hand parts and new, it turns out that these 2 below are the 2nd hand parts and the plug that fits into this plug below is the new one, the only problem was that the white box on the right side fell off when I went to touch it, seems that the plastic wrap they had put on kept it on while in transit.  |
As you can see it has been broken and someone has tried to fix the broken bit with some type of glue, this part that is missing clips into the front cover to keep it in place and the part was not even inside the cover anyway, so I took some photos like this one and sent it to them, now there is a new part on the way to me which should have been put on in the first place, it will be replaced when I move them to the other side.
 |
As you can see our yard is getting to the point where the water will not soak in very quickly now and there is a little lake here so now we are getting flooded out, it will take some time now for the water to dry up out on the field, trouble with this place is that although we live in a desert and we mine in what we call Sandstone, but it turns to mud very quickly when it gets wet like this and is very easy to get bogged.
 |
|
I am waiting for the new plastic box for the safety switch, then I will have to find a electrician to do the job of moving them for me, I have also to install a double single phase switch along with the other 2 so I can run the winch and lights underground.
The small generator I have now on the back of the mining truck will go into semi-retirement, although it will stay where it is, it will only now be used when I have to go and check other places out and when I may have to pick in the face for a extended period of time as the small generator will be a lot cheaper to run. I have stayed at home working on the web site these past few days, I will go in and do a bit of work on the tunnel machine tomorrow (Saturday 5th) as the plastic box came today along with a couple of spare keys, which I will try tomorrow to see if they fit also the Hydraulic motor I sent away has come back so I will be able to put that back on, then I can work out how I am going to design and make the middle cutting teeth for the cutting head, so I have a little bit to do, until I can get the blower in. Monday the 7th and I went onto the field to have a look how things where, as you can see there is some water still out there and some people have already been stuck out here.  |
This is taken from the other side, I got out the claim alright with no problems and the ground seems to drying out nicely might be able to get the blower out very soon.
 |
As I mentioned in the last update, I have a small leak from the fuel tank, looks like a small rock has hit it at some time in the past and as it has now started to leak so now is good time to fix it, so I am draining the fuel out here, what a job makes your head swim smelling all of these fumes and is also dangerous having the fuel hanging around in the containers for a while out in the open.
 |
Here Ross is soldering it up for me after I had cleaned and sand papered the area, then I can out the tank back and the job is done.
 |
I have now finished modifying the pipes I need for using clamps on, as I never used clamps before underground from the 90 degree elbow you see here, but as I will now have a machine pulling the telescope forward I have to anchor or clamp one end to the elbow and the telescope (with the handle now) has to clamped to the back of the tunnel machine or to one of the flexible hoses, the rest of the pipes I will use as I drive forward will still be male to female connections.
 |
I went out this afternoon with a friend of mine to bring in the blower as you can see it was a bad move, the ground is still to wet for this weight.
 |
I now have caused myself more work, which I did not need, supposed to get smarter as you get older, but not in my case, now I have to wait until it dries out as I should have done in the first place, then I will go out and use the loader to dig some of the mud out from behind the wheels, well it wont be mud when I use the loader it will be dried dirt then.
 |
|
I should have not much of a problem when it is dry getting this out, not bogged to bad more of the wheels slipping as they cannot get a grip, but when its dry and I get the dirt from behind the wheels it will come out OK. (I hope)
This all because I am keen to get this machine to do some work on it, I only have one job to do when the teeth arrive, which they hadn't up to this morning (Wednesday 9th) so now I have nothing to do but play around with this computer for a while, if it does not rain again (we had a little shower during the night) I will go out and work on the getting the blower out next Monday no sooner, when I have the blower free I will get someone to help me bring it in. Right now I am waiting for the electrician to come and change over the fittings on the generator and also fit the 2 end plugs on the cable, he has had a look at the job and given me a price, but I will have more work done when he gets here, now he just has to fit me in to his busy schedule. Here you can see the cable that is for the tunnel machine, it was on a wooden drum so I had to take it off, now it is waiting for the electrician to put the fittings on for me, I have the 2 ends hanging over the machine so it will help to keep the moisture and rain out, this should be done next week for sure.  |
At last I have George the electrician here (Saturday 12th) he will make a start today and finish the job on Monday, although it is a public holiday here for the Queens Birthday, lucky for me he works for himself and Ross will also be in so the job will be finished on Monday, then I will start again on the tunnel machine.
 |
Here George is just fitting the bases, he has one more to fit, right under where he is working right now, this will be the single phase twin outlet from where I will run the electric winch and lights underground, the one he is fitting right now is the safety cutout for the single phase, this and the fitting of the 2 cable plugs is the extra work he will do for me, at least he is doing the job the right way.
 |
The people in Melbourne who fitted them on the other side did it all work all wrong and illegal as this is not the way to fit wires on machine like this, even I know this but would not have know about this if I had not wanted to move them or until the machine had a electrical problem, as you can see they just drill holes and the wires were tight fit in these tiny holes, no rubber grommets or insulation protecting the wires from rubbing, now I have to make a plate up to cover all of these holes and I will have to seal the plate all the way around to keep the weather out.
 |
|
This is the safety cut out switch, as you can see they sent it out to me with a broken base, which they have since replaced with a new plastic box and you can see how they have put the wires through, this is all wrong and dangerous.
|
This is how the bases look from behind and I will have no trouble with the wires in the future when George has finished doing this job.
 I will be starting a big re-designing at the back of the tunnel machine next week on Tuesday, I will also be going out to try and get the blower out of the mud ready for bringing in again, we have had a couple more lots of rain since the big lot above, so I would like to get it in before we have any more heavy rain, not that I want to see any at all, ever. |
This week we are going to get rid of this lot at the back of the machine and make way for the seat and give my legs and knees some room and so I can operate it as well, don't know how the other people did perhaps this is another reason the machine has not done much work , also I have to cut some steel and weld it on each side where this lot is coming off also have to make a cradle for it so I can lift and lower the machine down the hole, but that is a little way off yet.
 |
Now we are getting somewhere, I have a bit of hard work in front of me as I have to grind all of this off and as I did not cut to close to where the metal brackets were welded on I have quite a bit to grind off, that bracket under the power box has to be removed as well, still not sure how I will mount the seat as yet, but it will come to me.
 |
Here is the electrics finished on the right side of the generator, I have had a double single phase power connection put on along with a earth leakage or R.C.D as they call it, now we can run the winch and lights underground from this generator, if I should have to stop the blower and generator for any reason for a while, then I will come up to stop them and switch over to the small petrol generator on the back of the mining truck as that is cheaper to run that the diesel, this I will only have to do if I run into any opal and I have to stop the machine as I will be digging in the face for a while.
 |
Here the cable has had the plugs fitted, so now we are ready for action with the electrics, all I have to do now is bring in the blower so I can fit the generator on it, but I went out on Friday 18th with a friend of mine and my 4x4 to try and pull it out of where it is stuck, but we did not do any good as the wheels on the 4x4 were all spinning and I have a flat tire as well on the rear which did not help, lucky it has duel wheels so I will be able to get it in before I will have to fix it.
 |
|
I am trying to get a drill to come out and ream out the shaft I want to put the tunnel machine down, it will have to reamed out to around 5 foot in diameter so when he comes out I will get him to pull the blower out at the same time as the drill weighs in around the 35 ton mark so it will be no trouble for him.
Now the back of the machine is cleaned up of that mess left from the cutting off the original brackets, boy was that over designed, I have no idea what the guy was thinking about when he put all of that on just for lifting or at least I think it was just for lifting as I can not come up with any idea what else you could do with it or use it for, you can see the 2 pieces of steel on top of the breaker box and electric motor, I will make the new lifting brackets from these as you will see in the photos below.  |
I have also had to clean right back on the side here, as who ever built this machine used two C channel sections and welded them together, the top one is slightly larger than the one on the bottom and you can see where it has been welded together, so I have had to grind this weld off and try to make it as flat as possible as this is where I will put the new brackets on, I will bolt them and weld them on, then make a lifting cradle to suit.
 |
Here we are with one off the brackets bolted on, I have to run a weld around it as well to make sure it is strong enough to support the weight of the machine, don't want to rely on the bolts alone, they should do the job by themselves but I want to make sure.
 |
And here we have the two brackets looking at you, its a lot cleaner and neater at the back now, still have a lot of work to do yet around this area, got some ideas from a friend of mine this afternoon about moving things around that I have will to think about, now I have to build the cradle to fit on these brackets for lifting it.
 |
This is the cradle that I have made, here I am welding it together, I have a couple of sharp corners on the top ends to cut off when I have finished welding and then I will paint it and it will be finished, this will protect the electric motors from getting damaged when the crane will lift it to put it down the shaft, as they would normally use chains and shackles, now they will use this cradle, I will show how it fits when it is finished.
 |
Here it is finished and ready to go or lifting, what it does it swivel so that when the crane puts a shackle in the hole at the top, as it is being lifted from the position as you see here the cradle swivels so in the end the machine is hanging underneath this cradle, this as you can see misses the 2 electric motors saving them from any damage during the lifting.
 |
Here I have drilled 2 holes and am running a tap in so I will have 1 inch deep holes, 1/4 inch diameter so I can bolt on the electric single phase base.
 |
Here I am bolting on the base for twin power point, there is another just the same on the other side, I have to weld on a bracket and then bolt on a steel plate on for the big 65 amp cable plug to fitted to and I have still to weld around the plate at the bottom right.
 |
All finished in this dept, except for the wiring up, I will get the electrician in to wire it all up when the 65 amp plug is fitted and then all of the electrics will be finished.
 |
|
My blower is still here, the people who I use for the drills are still away right now, so a friend of mine I was talking to last night mentioned that he might bring down there big 8 ton front end loader to pull it out, he also is a partner in one of the drills I was talking about but his son is the one who operates it and he is away in Adelaide, as his wife lost a baby so they are spending some time there to recover, bad news that and I wish them the best for the future and hope they can have another baby with no problems.
|
|
I will be getting George again this Monday or Tuesday to wire up the electrics on the tunnel machine and before he comes I will be welding on a angle bracket on the front of the machine so I can bolt on a plate so I can mount the big 65 amp cable plug so he can wire it up, along with the 2 single phase outlets.
I have yesterday started on making the seat, it has taken me over the last 3 weeks to come up with a idea on how to fit the seat on there, so it is comfortably, easy to remove, in 2 pieces, adjustable up and down and in and out, must be strong enough to support MY weight ad I must be able to get on and off easily, so given all the above you can see how this has taken me some time to think about it and of course it had to go in a small area so I do not have a lot of room to work with. You will see the fruits of my labour in the next update on this and I should also have the blower in and the generator fitted by then, in fact just thinking about it I should be very close to finishing it by then, I did say by the end of this month but with the rain and my back going out on me I lost 2 weeks so I would have been close, but there is no rush on my part, as long as I have things right for me. For if I forget to fix something or don't find out till I am underground I will have to pull the machine out again to fix it which not only takes time but money as I have to pay for a crane to come out and lift the machine out and put it back down again, I will also have to bring the machine right back to where it is now, so I want to try and get it right so I can have a good run underground before I have to take it out again, unless something breaks that I cannot help. So I hope that I will be finished or very close to it the next time I write this update and if I am lucky I will also have managed to get the shaft open up for the tunnel machine to go down, so until then, have a good one. 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! |
Top
|