September 15, 2004 Opal Mining Update - No 40 My Blower has been in a Movie

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Carrying on from last week this is the spacer that is between the electric motor and the hydraulic oil pump, as you can see I have machined the center out to allow the pump coupling to fit through it, now I can fit the coupling to the pump and then fit it straight into the spacer, the other way was more difficult even for 2 people to handle.

Here you can see the other half of the drive coupling on the shaft of the electric motor and the half with the rubber in it this rubber can be fitted in either half and this is so there is no metal to metal contact and therefore no wear, this motor is 15 HP in size and drives the largest pump as it operatives everything except the cutters on cutting head, the other electric motor does that which is 25 HP in size with a small pump, this is were all the load will be when the machine is in action.

Here is the pump finished and put back together with the half coupling ready to be installed back into place, then I just connect up the hoses and I am finished with this job.

Here Ross is putting the springs back on the hopper and door, I could have done it as it was only a 4 minute job, bit could not have taken the photo to show you how it looks with a person up there, at this stage there is 2 more jobs to do.

Here Ross is putting a new ring on the pipe as well as patching up a small hole that was in the bottom of the pipe, the ring that was and still is on there was smaller in diameter 10 1/8, this pipe was done a lot of years ago by another person who made up pipes who is now deceased, but Ross uses a slightly larger ring 10 3/8 and as he has made all of my other pipes and flanges I wanted to have this one the same size, bit hard to clamp two pipes together when there is a 1/4 inch difference in diameter, now its perfect for me.

The last job was for me to check the gear bow for oil as I have been having trouble selecting some gears for the last year and a bit, sounds like a long time but as I don't move the blower much it was nothing to worry about or so I thought. But when I removed the inspection plug, my arm got wet through right up to my shoulder, turns out it was full of water, I have no idea how it got in there, I mean I know it is from being out in the storms we have but how it got into the gearbox I still have not found out. Anyway I drained what was in the gearbox and then filled it with diesel and started the engine and let it run for 15 minutes so it could clean the gearbox out of any water that was in there and then I left it until tomorrow when I will drain it and put new oil in. Now it is Wednesday morning and today is the day I have to have the blower on the field for the movie crew, so I drained all of the diesel out of the gearbox and filled it with oil, then I opened the gates so I was ready to drive out, then I run the truck backwards and forwards a few times to get the oil in the amongst the gears, straight away it had made a difference, everything was smooth, it had never been like this every since I have had the blower and that is some 11 and a half years so this water must have been in there for a very long time, will have to check it more often in future, next will be the diff. Here we are at the top end of town, not to far from where I live, the movie crew have just finished taking some shots of the one and only local bank, then they went across the road to take some of the supermarket called the Miners Store, appropriate name for here don't you think, but we do have another at the bottom end of town.

So here we are on the Olympic Opal Field, Wednesday morning we had to be there for 11 AM, there will be 5 blowers and some other equipment that they will need on the set, here I am sat in the truck watching then roll in, the trucks that in view now are part of the movie crew, did not know it now but some of this is the kitchen and toilets etc.

This old blower coming in belongs to a friend of mine "Scottie" we were both in the last movie and we were the only 2 that they used as blowers and I had the main part in the movie as a blower that is, had to make some dust or smoke as they called it.

Here is another friend of mine "Kiwi" with his white blower, only 3 of us right now but the rest will turn up, funny us having our blowers together, this white blower and my tunnel machine used to belong to the same owner until he quit about 4 or 5 years ago, he was business man down in Adelaide and had a guy here running the equipment which included a drill as well on a percentage basis and as I knew this guy I know that the tunnel machine has done very little work in that time and not much since either, but we will change that.

They have just towed in a Noodling Machine and the other couple of blowers have turned up, but there is more to come as yet so I have been told, at least the weather has warmed up, but that also means the fly's will be coming out soon.

Just another shot of some of us together, we will be scattered around I am sure when things start to happen, but right now we do not know what is going on.

Some utes (pickups) that are also needed and the Noodling machine, now for the waiting.

This shows you where the main movie set is, just behind that big mound of dirt, it will act as a wind break and on the left hand side is where they have set up there vehicles and the food/drinks area, the action is about to start soon.

This is one of 3 cranes that was towed out to the site, this one the owner did get running after a while, there was 2 like this one and only one was used on the set.

Here they are taking the noodling machine to put it up on the set, but they had to bring it back as the shoot was going to be just to the right of where it is right now.

Here is the old crane being driven out to where the set is, the main set is a made up opal miners shack where the opal miner lives, this is supposed to be part of his equipment, this is why they want a lot of old looking stuff to fit the part, the better looking equipment as I found out will be in the background, so I will not make the main scene this time.

This is still day one and all within the first 2 hours of being there, right now they have stopped for a meal break and this is the first time I have been up here, along with the rest of us new comers, again the main set is just on the other side of the mound of dirt.

Not a bad little set up, lots of shade, the drinks were a bit poor, but this is an Aussie Movie setup so they would not have a big budget like the Americans we worked for last time, but the food was alright and got better every day, especially the breakfast, only thing was a bit hard to get used to breakfast at 12 midday but I can eat bacon and eggs at any time of the day, just love them.

This particular day we were having English and Italian, bacon and eggs buns and spaghetti, plus fruit, salad and sweets, enough to keep you going for a while.

Here they are setting up for a shot of Kiwi's blower which is to the left of photo, but I found out afterwards that they only took film of the hopper and the dust as it was working, as it was a white blower they did not want anything white in the film because of the suns refection, this is why they did not want any white mining vehicles in the hiring.

This is one of the trucks that they have with all of the equipment they need to set up for shoots, the sun was in the wrong place for me to take any more of the next truck which had the best stuff in it, lots of money in here no doubt.

This is another of the cranes, in fact there was 4 here, 2 just for props and this one has been set up with a light for the night time shots, it just lifts up the light and it shines over the dump to the left of it, where the miners camp is.

Here I am set up ready for action, this is the 3rd move I have made in 2 days and so far I have not done anything, perhaps this time I will be lucky, you can see Scotties blower in the back ground, was supposed to be two of us in the shot.

At last Action, all they can see is the hopper and the dust but not us as we are hidden below the dumps and as you can see it is getting late in the day, this is about 5:30PM, so it must have something to do with the sun going down I should think, you can also see that Scotties blower has gone from here, he was moved for another shot but they did not take that one either, not today anyway.

Here they are setting up for filming the noodling machine is action, they did ask me if I wanted to use my generator on the blower for powering this machine but I declined as my generator is to big for this and also the plugs were wrong and I would not allow them to mess around with it as I have just got it set up for me.

This is the 3 day and I have moved to another location, all of the moves are in the same area and not far apart, but it is what the director wants in his shot that counts, this is the scenery I am looking at in front of the truck as I am sitting in it waiting.

This is to the left of the truck, as you can see we are right in amongst the old working, there are still some people working this filed, but mostly it is worked out and is very hard to find opal here, but if you do it still can make you rich as this field has a very good name for opal and some nice color is found here.

This is to the right of the truck and back towards to where they are shooting some of the main scenes around this miners camp, just to the left of the hopper you can see.

This is the miners camp they set up, you can see the old crane on the right, this is where the night time shots are filmed, there is a part where the miner comes out with a shotgun and threatens someone who he thinks is trying to steal for the claim.

Now they are getting ready to film Scotties blower in action, but not with him but a actor that is supposed to be a miner.

Here Scottie is getting instructions on where to position the blower ready for the shoot.

Here they are setting up the camera for the shot, you can see Scottie's blower in the background, the director is the man on the far left, now they have to set up some pipes on the ground with clamps for the shot.

Here the shoot is in action, the actor is at the blower and in the foreground is the man who controls the sound, this is the last photo I took of this lot.

This above was day 2 on day 3 I moved the blower again at 5:30 in the afternoon, has a thing about 5:30 this director, funny enough it was sitting across the road from Bruno's blower, remember the guy who I went underground with to learn a few things about round tunnel machines, anyway the blower again did nothing but sit there with me hiding behind it and as they did some vehicle scenes, but I was not required to do anything that day. The next and last day Saturday, the blower sat where it was, by the way we were not required to turn up until 11:45 am and were finished a sunset which was about 6 to 6:17 pm, anyway the blower sat there all day and again at 5:30 I was asked to go to the blower and get it ready to move or make smoke, whatever the director wanted, they redid the vehicles scenes from the day before as dust spoiled them so I believe, as the wind dropped just as they were shooting and the dust hung around instead of blowing away. Turns out they did want a sunset shot, but today it was very overcast and had tried to rain sometime earlier and as I was at the blower it started to rain again although not heavy, but the sky was blanket of clouds so I knew he would not get his sunset shot he wanted and me, well I just hid under the roof of the blower when it rained, they did the vehicle scenes again and I did nothing but hide, then it was to dark for me so I was told I was no longer required and I could go home, so ended my movie career again. But I got paid for 4 days equipment hire and that is all that matters, my wife Patricia and I have been asked to be extras in the movie in September as a couple of American Tourists, but I found out from the accountant that paid me yesterday afternoon, (Monday) that they are only paying $15.00 per hour for a minimum of 4 hours x 2 days, but we were told that it would be good money and for 2 x 8 hour shoots, my wife is on more than that where she works and is not worth out taking part, me I would sooner be back underground looking for opal as I have had 6 months off and I have just had enough of standing around doing nothing for 4 days so that will do me for a while. Now is Tuesday and it rained on Sunday morning for a while but stopped, so after it had been stopped for a couple hours I managed to take someone out to the opal field and bring our blowers in so mine is sitting outside my front fence, until I am ready to take it back out to the 11 mile field. It also rained on Monday, but as Pat was off work sick with this cold that is going around and I had to go in and get paid in the afternoon I stayed at home, except for going out in the morning and getting a flat tire on the mining truck fixed that I got running out and back to the movie set and it was raining again this morning so again I did not get to do any work on the tunnel machine and I am nearly finished, was hoping to be ready to bring it home on Friday or Saturday at the latest, but not much I can do about the weather. Jobs still to do........ On the Blower and Generator................ 1) Re-grease the fan bearings before we go back on the field. On the Tunnel Machine.............. 1) Remove a oil temp gauge and plug the hole, can only be done when lifted in the air. 2) Put the wheels back on the trailer. 3) Take off a cutting head, back plate and check the chain for grease (maintenance) 4) May modify a cutting head as I will have some time to spare. 5) Will lengthen the trailer tow bar if I can get the 6 foot length of C-channel. 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) I would have been ready for going back to mining right now, but I have been asked again to have the blower in the movie, they want it for 3 days on the 14, 15 and 16th of this month along with my 4x4 Nissan and Patricia and I are supposed to be a couple of extras in the movie around the 18th and 21ft but not sure as yet, there are 5 couples that are supposed to be American Tourists and we will be part of them this is a 2 days shoot, so as this is a special thing I have put going back to work off for a couple of weeks, but the blower is ready and right now outside the front gate ready for action. The tunnel machine, well I have done a bit more to it, but this is for the next update and is almost ready, but now I will do some maintenance to it and think of anything else I can do that will help me when working it, but 100% it will be working by the end of the month for sure, no excuses this time. 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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