November 30, 2004 Opal Mining Update - No 44 Found a little Opal & learning the Machine Fast.

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At last we are doing our first drive with the machine, as you can see I am going up, but here I am going at too steep an angle, I have changed the angle a couple of times by bringing the machine back a little and starting again, but always it always seems to get back to the same angle, this has something to do with loose dirt getting under the tracks.

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. But the machine was throwing dirt all over the place, so much so I have too wear some protective clear glasses and ear plugs plus the dirt was also getting down between the side of the drive and the tracks, which was getting under the tracks and making the machine go up more, this is as far as I went before I abandoned the drive.

Here I am backing the machine out of the drive, I am going to start the next one straight under this one, but going in flat, first I will put that protective rubber on, I tried while it was up in the drive but could not get it on as I had to hammer out a small bracket out that got bent while cutting the floor without it on, you can see the shoes I have to wear with the toe hole in it so I can work while this broken toe is healing.

This is the drive I have just finished, it did not go as far as planned, but I hit this gypsum in the middle of the drive and the center cutters would not penetrate it, as the angle was to steep and the machine weighing 2 tons, it did not have the power to put enough weight against the face to make an impression as the weight was always going backwards and with having loose dirt under the tracks, could not get enough grip, so as it was just a practice drive there was no point is carrying on, you can also see in the drives roof where I have changed the angle a few times to try and make the machine go lower.

Just starting the new drive, still not very level here and on a slight angle up but will alter it as I go in further, I have to practice this as when the level goes up or down I have to make the machine respond to that by making it go up a bit or down a bit.

Now we are a few feet in and starting to cut about half a face here, you can see where the level is on the side walls and give a good view of the square floor that it cuts.

I have gone in here about 14 feet and it has took me about 1.5 hours, so I was very pleased with this days work, I have changed the angle to go down a couple of time and it has worked very well, I just put a couple of small pieces of timber at the back of the tracks and lift the floor cutter up then back the machine on to them about half way which in turn make the front of the machine dip down then I put the floor cutters down and go forward and cut the floor at a different angle, which alters the angle of the head. But since this I have spoken to a friend and he tells that when I want to do this I have to leave the floor cutters down even put them down a bit more and cut the floor as I am coming backwards, the floor is already cut and clean ready for the machine to go back down and start cutting at a different angle, will have to try that next time.

When I came up after this days work I noticed that a guy had come back next to me in that Bulldozer open cut and pegged a claim again, and has he was getting into these old miners drives from the Dozer Cut and the fact that they are all connected or at least I think they are, I know that 3 of them are, there is no point in me connecting to the drive I was heading for, if he follows these drives he could have a back door into my claim, so I will also abandon the new drive I have just started and start another in a different direction, but that will stay within the boundaries my claim. Here is the outside cutters and the jig I have made so I can put the new teeth on at the same angle, I will not be putting as much steel on this time as last guy did as it is of no benefit and will now cause me a lot of work in cutting and grinding this lot off.

Here are the new teeth that I am going to put on, I have already cut them back and 6 have been cut shorter for the middle cutters, you can see an original tooth in the middle at the bottom, they have to be backed off like this so the back of the teeth do not rub on the dirt after the teeth have cut, therefore causing drag and friction, this causes the head to slow down and puts extra pressure on the pump, makes the oil get hot and in general slows down the rate that you could cut at.

This is view of one of the old teeth that was on the inside cutter, they actually cut a tooth down and welded it on the a full one so it was a V section, this I did not like as soon as I saw it but was advised to give it a try before I did anything about changing them, which is what I did.

You can see on both sides of this cutter that it was rubbing behind the Tungsten and the person had not backed it off, some engineer, knows how to build a machine but not the basics in cutting tools, also these teeth are not a good choice for this type of work, even if set up properly they would not cut like the round one will.

This is the new modified inside cutters, as you can see I have just welded the teeth on, no need for putting on any gussets or brackets as they are also called for strength and I still have 6 teeth on here, I have stepped the second one back an inch from the outside one, unlike the previous owner that worked the machine, not the guy I bought it from as he never used it, I will try things until I get it working right, because in the long run it will be cheaper to use and will get me more footage per hour if the teeth cut properly, so if these also do not work I will try something else until I get it right.

Here is the out side cutter with the new teeth on it, was supposed to be 8 on it but I made a simple mistake when measuring the distance between where the teeth were going to be put when I was using the dividers, so now I have 7 instead of 8 and as Ross said they will be a lucky 7 for me, so we will see, but they are better teeth than the old ones and 7 is still better than 4, just a matter how they good they will cut and how fast.

I was starting to clean out the old drive to the left of the last drive I did above, I had gone is about 10 feet or so, when I got the crusher box blocked full of dirt so I had to stop the machine and close all the cutters down and try to unblock it with a broom handle, but I could not break through with this so I went up top to the truck where I have a scraper that I use to unblock the elbows when I am in wet ground this has a chisel head on it and is 6 foot long. When I got up top I heard a knocking noise coming from somewhere on the blower, so I shut it down and then switched the generator off as this makes the most noise, then I started up the blower again to see where the noise was coming from and it turned out to be coming from the tail shaft that is connected between flywheel on the engine and the large pulley that drives the belts, pictured below

One of the universal joints had gone, so I had to pack up for the day, take the part off and bring it in for repairs, the only problem is that I now have to go back out and take the opposite side off as well and replace that universal joint as well as it will also have some wear in it and after thinking about it I cannot take the chance that it will not last so better I do both of them now, then I wont have to worry about then again.

This is where the uni joints are and this is the tail shaft that I talk about as you can see it is only a very short one and I am lucky that I caught this problem as it was just starting, if the uni joint on the right had gone completely it normally just fly's apart and causes a lot of damage, thankfully this did not happen and the new joints should now last me out and have finished mining here, which should be in about 5 years or less.

Here I am just cleaning out the floor in the old drive that I left until I got this machine in action as this is going to be a prospect drive.

As you can see I have nearly reached the face and the drive is more narrow here than at the start, as I was going 5 bombs wide until the last 2 shots where I came in to 3 bombs wide, so here the machine has only just starting to cut the side wall out and I have struck a little piece of green opal on the right side of the drive.

Very hard to miss anything that is in the face now, with having a 500 watt light on either side of the machine you can see everything that comes in the face and I will not loose that much anymore, as I am only taking about a 1/4 inch cut, now I have stopped I will pick this out of the face and keep going, who knows what is behind this piece.

This is some of the opal that was behind the piece above and the skin shell that is in here is from where I showed you in the big shaft on Oct-17-04 and I found a couple of pieces in the roof when I started that very first drive going up.

Same opal, just a different view and all is crystal or semi crystal opal and excellent color, need to find a reasonable sized pocket of this opal or better then we will have a big smile on our face for a while, anything is possible if you keep moving dirt and in the right spot.

Here I have reached the face and have gone in a few feet and the ground has changed there is now a lot of Alanite in the face and some ironstone up high, so now we have to wait and see if the ground changes back and produces the ironstone level again which I hope it does, then we may have a chance of finding some opal and the new teeth are cutting beautifully, now I can cut more that the blower can pull, so I have to take it easy or I will be getting the floor cutters bogged with dirt it cannot handle. (yet)

From the photo above I have only gone lees that 12 inches and at first I thought the chain had broken and as it is only new this should not have happened, so I pulled up the pipes and brought the machine back to near the elbow so I could get around the machine at the front with no restrictions, it was then I saw that the hydraulic motor was hanging off, 3 of the 4 bolts that hold it on had broken and was hanging by one bent bolt. So here I am with my first break down on the tunnel machine, I took the hydraulic motor off and brought it home to fix, turns out that the bracket was bent on the back where it bolts on through the way it had been welded together, so when I had taken it apart I had to grind this base plate to get it as flat as possible, then I had to grind the nuts off as they had been tack welded on, easiest way to get rid of the broken bolts and as I am going to put bigger bolts in anyway, then I tack welded these nuts on, as you cannot put the nuts on with your fingers when the bracket is in place so this holds them in place, making the job a lot easier to a point.

This is the face as I pulled the machine away for repairs, the ground has changed in less than a foot from what you saw just above, now we have a ironstone level again, not too straight as yet and it has come in lower in the face than I expected, so when I go back in with the machine I will have to take the floor down to bring the level up as it is falling away from me, which is excellent as soon as it levels out we may see some material come in if we are lucky, this may take about 10 feet or so, the only thing wrong here is that the whole face has now gone from damp to wet and this may cause me some problems.

The next day I went back down to put the motor on the machine but upon inspection of the other bracket that is welded on the machine that this bracket bolts to, was worse that the one I have just fixed, I had taken all the tools with me just in case and was just as well, spent quite some time grinding and then I had to open the elongated holes out to take the new bolts that are 3/8ths, the old ones were 5/16, this I had to do with a file which seemed to take forever, I had to take a breaks lying down and as I was sitting on the floor I did not have far to go to lie down or get up again.

Now we are all fixed again and ready for action, here I am going back down the drive but taking the floor down, it has to end up about 2.5 feet deeper, here I have about 23 feet to do, should take me a good couple of hours or there abouts to do this before I reach the face again.

I worked for just a little over 2 hours before I struck trouble, the wet ground is starting to block up the elbow, this below is pretty clean right now and is the seconded time I have had to clean it but some of the bigger stuff bunches together and completely blocks it off, I have removed those lumps and took the photo to show you how it builds up, the first blockage I had it was absolutely full even up in the telescope as well, so when I took the clamp off the elbow fell over onto my leg, cutting it a bit and I will have a nice bruise as well in a couple of days time.

Here I have stopped again for a blockage at the elbow, so I took this photo so you can see the machine has brought the level up, still have to go down a bit more yet, but I have not reached the face as yet, you will notice that I have the pipes separated, this I have to do while I clear the elbow then when I connected it back up I will clear these pipes and after that I will connect the others and clear from there to the machine, most of the time I have to take the pipe off the back of the machine and work the dirt loose up in the crusher box before the vacuum can get rid of it, this I do with a metal bar and have my right arm right up inside that flexible plastic at the back of the machine, this has given me some bruises on my right arm at the top, will have to get a longer bar made to make it a bit easier on the body, but will not get away from the hard work ahead of me.

Had a day off for a rest and to make another tool for unblocking the crusher box on the machine then I went back to work the next day and did not have a good day again, first I had to move some dirt for the friend of mine that is mining just near me and the guy who came down and helped me lift the hydraulic motor I have just repaired so I could get the bolts in, he wanted me to clean up around a shaft so he could get a drill in to clean out a shaft out for him. Then I had to fill the blower with what diesel I had left in the drum, move the blower forward around 9 inches, then clean out the top elbow and reconnect it to the blower, knock some dirt from the hopper lid that was stuck on there and stopping it from shutting properly, then I was ready to go down under, it was 10:15 by now and when I got down I had to clean out the bottom elbow and then connect the pipes ready for work, within 5 minutes the elbow was blocked again, so that was it, I packed it in and abandoned the drive, cannot work in ground that is that wet. I pulled all the pipes up (3) and brought the machine back and started a new drive going up to the level above, I went into another old drive that is only 16 feet deep or 4 shots, the last shot I left in there so I have to clean this out as I go up with the machine, I had done about 3/4 of it by the time I knocked off, there was a bit of potch in the wall near the front on the right hand side, but there is also a lot of thin potch in there as well that I have not disturbed, (yet) this new drive is going towards the old claim of mine, so when I have finished doing this one, I will go under it in the same direction for as far as I can. I must say that it still is a lot easier to get rid of the dirt with this machine than doing it by hand, as the ground would be the same and the blockages would be the same, just with the dirt being smaller it builds up in the elbows quicker, but that is part of mining, at least right now I am in dry ground so all of the pipes and elbows are clean now, until I come back down to my level then I may have some trouble but not as bad as what I have just come from as I will not go into the floor again, it is far to wet below my feet. We will have to wait and see what happens on Monday, see if I can do this drive on the up better than the last, one good thing is that I am getting better with the machine but still have a lot to learn, still haven't got it trained to sniff out opal as yet, but it will get there of that I am sure. Here we are starting the new drive, the one on the left is the first one that I did going up, then went under it for a short spell, wont be too long before I am doing one to the right of the pipes.

This is the dirty part as the cutters throw a lot of stuff to the left of photo, better when it gets inside the drive then all is contained, this is a bit of slow going as the floor cutters have the break up some bigger pieces that have been left in there for the last shot I did.

Well on out way now, you cannot see it but I am cutting the roof now and the more I go ion the more of the roof is being cut, not far from the face and I will have to pay close attention that I do not go up at too steep an angle like last time, so may have to bring the machine back a little from time to time and change the angle to stop this, all part of the learning, don't know how far I will go in this drive.

Have finished the drive above only went around 24 feet in the ground did not interest me any more so I quit, now I will clean this area up between 2 drives and use it to hang stuff on along with keeping my water there as well out of the way.

Job done, now to move on the next drive which is going to be next to the elbow.

This move I learned from Bruno when I was with him for that week and a half, doing an apprenticeship you might say, now to start the new drive in a different direction, in fact this way is towards my old claim not sure if I will connect as I am a bit lower here than over there, but I was on a drive that had a falling level that carried a lot of material.

You can see the brown line in the wall which is the ironstone level, there is some thin potch in there, but I want to go and see what is on the other side of a fault that finishes above me and that is about 14 feet in front of me from here, so I would like this drive to go around the 50 feet mark if possible to have a good look.

Here is some potch I have come across doing the drive, I have only gone about 6 inches into the drive and I did pick some more as I went in but it never gave up any color, you can see the distinct level and the stuff above the potch is gypsum, so we have an ironstone level with Alinite above and Gypsum above that and sandstone under the level, 4 kind of material to work in.

Not in far enough yet to hang the lights on the side of the drive, so I have stood upright the 3 foot telescope and put the light on that and the other one is also on a 4 foot pipe on the other side of the machine, here I am in only 18 inches, I had stopped to pick at a bit of potch in the face so I took this photo, I am also starting to get some concrete in the face and the ground has turned hard above the level.

Here I am in 7.5 feet and have been struggling for the past couple of hours and the last 5 feet, as the ground has gone very hard with a band of concrete, the Alinite and gypsum has also gone hard, this is because I am getting close to the fault and the ground is changing which is to be expected, but I did not expect it to turn hard on me and the cutters was leaving a funny pattern in the wall so I thought I would pull the machine back to have a look at the cutters.

This is what I saw, 3 teeth left, I had knocked off 4 teeth, boy is that ground hard, so now I have to remove this cutter (10 minutes) and bring it home from repairs, will have to do a better job than last time, did not think that I would have needed to put gussets on the back of the cutters, now I realize that I made an error in judgment and will put then on along with some new teeth.

So here is the repair, I had to cut the other 3 teeth off to do the job properly now its looking a bit stronger and this is how I should have done it in the first place, now they will last the distance, never to old to learn as they say and lucky for me it was not a great expense as I can do most of my own work in this area, total cost including 4 new teeth (I already had one) $61.00 and 4 and a half hours to do and as you can see I put 8 on this time, another mistake I did not do twice, now we are ready for that hard ground and some opal, as I like the ground when it changes like this means that something is happening and we have a belief that when the ground changes to hard it is a good sign for opal, that is if you are in opal bearing ground which I am.

All in all this is a lot better way of mining and safer for me, I still work hard, but not as hard as by using explosives, in the long run I will be way in front with footage, right now I have only done about 115 feet and that is in 10 days, as I don't work all day like a normal job, I only put in on a good day around 4 hours on the machine. With the drill and blast, I would have only done 8 foot a week (2 shots) and took 14 weeks to do the 114 feet I have just done and as I am only learning I am not getting the footage that an experienced operator would get, but you can see that it is a lot quicker to mine with this tunnel machine. 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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