August 31, 2005 Opal Mining Update - No 52 Set up on new shaft and problems again.

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In this issue I am trying bigger photos at 700 pix wide as I have changed over to screen resolutions of 800x600 & 1024x768 as 53% of my readers are on the bigger size, so all of my pages can now be read on both screen resolutions with normal sized text, for people like me on a 56k modem it will take a bit longer to download them, but I feel that they are worthwhile looking at in a bigger size, should you have any comments on this subject please email me and let me know. Here is the new top elbow starting to be built, all it needs now is to be fully welded and then painted and then it is finished, this replaces the one that I got stolen last year when I was on holidays and this time I will put a lock and chain on it as I used to but forgot at this time and look what happened.

Here Ross is just finishing balancing the fan now it has been fully welded all over, lots of work doing this and this will be the last time I will be able to repair I think, so he will be building me a new one for a spare within the next couple of weeks, then when I am ready for the fan to come out again I will have a new fan ready for me, the only thing is that he needs is the hub off this one as he has to fit it to the new one before he can balance it, just a matter of unbolting it and putting it on the new one, then balance it and finished.

Just on a lighter note this is our bowling club at the back of the Australian United Yugoslav Club and the manager of this club is my friend Boro, this is in full use now during the winter months on a Sunday afternoon when it is a bit warmer, they are also right now in the middle of building a tennis court.

This is going to be a double Tennis Court with a Basket Ball Court on one side, plus it can be used Nat bal that the girls play, this can be played on the other tennis court when they sat up the hoops, they are going to lay the surface on it within a few days and I will take a photo when it is finished, should look good when new and all the lines on it and the fence is also finished which will be 12 foot high.

Back to the repairs, here Ross is welding up the patch on the fan housing, as I said before normally I would do my own welding but I am not good with this MIG welding machine and do not have the time to practice with it as yet, but because it is cheaper and quicker to weld with it, I got Ross to do it for me.

This is the special corner (elbow) that I have had made for me for up top near the blower, it has the middle section cut out from it, well not exactly cut out but they used shorter sections in the middle and it looks like it like it was cut out, I forgot to take photo of it before it was finished, anyway this is for the wet ground when I get back in it and as the corner starts to build up with the wet ground, all that has to be done is to give a couple of hits with a small sledge hammer, which we call a Gimpy, this knocks off the build up and I don't have to do it by hand like before, saving time and effort, but it is only good for the wet ground if it is used on the dry ground the rubber tire would also would get worn through eventually and have to be replaced, but just on the mud it would last forever.

Here you can see the inside of the corner and that the actual metal has been cut away or it looks like that anyway, as I said earlier the pates are made shorter and then rolled and weld in place like that so the tire can be fitted over the top and bolted in place and creates a seal so it does not suck any air through the joins, it is a lot heavier than the normal one but will save me a lot of trouble when I have to use it, but as I said must be used only in wet ground, I may get another one built later on, one at 90 degrees for down the bottom underground.

Here the blower is set up on the shaft and is ready for action, we put the pipes down one day and moved the cable which requires 2 men, although I have an idea so only I will have to do it, here I also used the front end loader to pull it up the shaft, as it had a rope tied to it to pull it up the shaft, I connected this rope to the bucket on the loader and went in reverse until the cable had reached the top of the hand winch you see below where the pipes are hanging off it, then we pulled it up the rest of the way by hand and connected it to the generator on the other side of the truck.

But the day after when I wanted to move the blower onto the elbow, which was only about 2 foot I could not start the truck, tried 3 times but the batteries were down a bit, so I connected a rope again to the loader and pulled the blower forward until it was in place, then we put the rubbers and clamps on, then John said to me that he smelled something burning and at that moment so did I, grabbed for the keys which was lying on the truck and went around to the battery box and unlocked it and there was smoke coming from the battery leads, undid one as quickly as I could as the terminal was very hot, but the damaged had already been done, when I took all of the leads off, 4 of them as I have both 12 volt batteries connected to give me 24 volts and as you can on the left it has melted the battery terminal.

So back into town and go and see Ross, seeing a lot of Ross just lately and always means money when you go and see him, anyway the terminal can be fixed and have seen Ross do it many times before for other people, but this is the first time in my life that this has happened to me, so he Ross is repairing the battery, puts a special round template over where the old terminal was after he has cleaned it up some, drilled and put a screw in to help hold and give lead connection strength and I have not been under the truck to see what caused this problem as yet, wanted to get a couple of drives done first then find and fix the problem as I have plenty of time before I need to move the truck again.

And here is the finished product, the new terminal is on the right and the batteries are now back in the truck and working just fine, funny set up I have the blower truck which is a 63 year old Mercedes Benz left hand drive and is 24 volt system but the blower engine which is a 6-354 Perkins and the generator has a GM engine are both 12 volt systems and as the battery was only 12 months old and would have cost $130.00 to replace it was cheaper to get it repaired at a cost of only $8.00, looks after me does Ross.

Here we are ready to start work again, the pipes are down and all of the electrics are in place, but I have to complete some small repair to the machine which requires drilling and grinding and when I went to start the tunnel machine there was no power to it nor was there any 240 volt power there either, so I went up top to make sure that the plug was in properly, which it was, so I had to take the plug out and take it apart to see if there was anything wrong in there, as all of this was working up till moving the cable and the plug never came out of the tunnel machine so it had to be this one. When I took the plug apart, I saw that the middle pin (neutral) which is thinner than the others and has 2 longer screws in it than the others to hold in the wire had moved and been touching one of the other pins and shorting out, so I thought that this was the problem and fixed it so it would never happen again, then I went back down to the machine to switch it on but again no power so went up again and pulled the plug apart but all was well so I was at a loss at what was the problem and had to pack up and come home.

I've had a very hard time for the last week so did not need this problem as well, went to see my friend Boro again and got him to come out and check the generator out took a another day as he was busy at the time and when I told him I had no 240 volt to the machine he said the problem was on the generator not in the plug or cable and he was right, when he checked everything out, it turns out that the UDL circuit breaker switch was gone, that is the switch in the middle, this one is for the 3 phase and if you remember I have only just replaced the 240 volt one, but that only runs the green power cable you can coming from the lower switch and I run lights off that underground and the one below I have only just put in for the winch only. It turns out that this again is a mistake the electrician made that I had do the job in the first place, not doing the job right in making sure that the pins could not make contact with each other and when this pin touched the other pin it blew a phase out in the UDL circuit breaker switch, where the bottom blue wire is, so I had to order one from Adelaide and took 7 days to get up to me, so another week gone, this below is the new unit I am just connecting on, then I will put everything back together all will be well again, for how long who knows.

So here we are at last all ready to go, I have got the flexible hoses connected an have done the repairs and greased the machine so now I can start to open up again in front of the machine to give me more room to maneuver the machine.

Here I am just starting to cut into the side wall, you can just see the corner of the shaft on the left hand side of photo, I will go in here some 4 feet or so then bring the machine back and turn the machine round a bit and start driving again.

You can see there is not much room behind the machine for me to start working from, but it is enough as I go forward very quickly from here as I am only cutting into the roof and floor of the drive at the beginning, when I reach the face and start taking a full cut I will slow up, so when I get away from this wall and start the real drive to the next shaft I will take the long flexible hose off the back and join the 2 small ones together.

I have finished the first part of the opening up and starting a second cut but I am having trouble pulling the dirt and keep getting blockages at the elbow and telescope, the dirt keeps falling back down the pipes as it easy for me to block the machine at the front at the floor cutters for some reason, cannot work like this and will have to find out what the problem is, was not like this before I moved the blower onto this new shaft so something has happened since then.

I have found the problem and I think that I caused it myself, I put the revs on the blower and the most I could get was 9 hundred, when it should be around the 16 to 17 hundred, these revs increase as the tunnel machine starts working and the blower is pulling dirt, so no wonder I could not pull dirt. When the blower was in Ross's yard and was just about finished I checked the engines revs while the fan was off and reset them to 21 hundred as this cannot be done with the fan on and the engine under load and then what I did was to put a new accelerator cable on the pump, the old one was just rope and had been on for 12 years or so and it was full of diesel and getting frayed so it was time to change it. So I put a 3mm steel cable on there the same as I have on the hopper to empty it, I only use 20 feet of this so the sun does not have any effect on it from there I connect it to a rope that goes down the shaft and is out of most of the weather, you can see the cable in the photos below and it now has a piece of fuel hose on it, this I will tell you why. When I had connected this cable to the pump and put it through the pulley on the right, I connected it to the rope and then coiled it up and put it on the truck, then I got on the truck and  picked up the roll of rope and was going to hang it from the roof ready for going back on the field and the steel cable fell across the starter motor shorting it out, did not think much of it at the time as it was very quick and the next day I put that fuel hose over it so it could not happen again.

But as it turns out it looks like the short did some damage inside the pump, to a small spring I believe, don't know for sure as we cannot get in there to have a look, it would have to be sent down to Adelaide to an Injection Pump workshop the only problem with that is they are very expensive and it could cost me around the $1200.00 mark, so I have ordered a seconded hand pump from the people who I bought the motor from in the first place and should be up here in couple of days, so here is the pump out and ready to bring home, now to wait until the other arrives to get going again.

The pump came 2 days after I order it but was wrong and at a cost of $510.00, why am I not surprised nothing seems to change up here for us, the pump looked the right one but the rotation of it was the wrong way, so I could not use it, now they have another on the way, it will be another 2 days till it gets here. The pump did not arrive on time as it should so it looks like it did not get on a bus, as it has to be put on 2 buses to get here, so I rang the guy up and this time I got the Father instead of the Son who has more knowledge in this matter and it looks like I may have the wrong pump on the way up again, seems like I have a tractor engine and not a truck engine as first thought, I always thought they sold me a truck engine 10 years ago, so I asked for a truck injector pump, told you nothing goes right for us here. So now I have to wait until Sunday to get this last pump at the earliest and it is now Friday and I have been broken down with this problem since last Saturday, that makes it 5 weeks plus I have been out of action this time with the repairs on the blower, lets just hope that the pump arrives on time. The pump that came on Saturday was the right one and it was a truck pump that I had,  after I had picked it up and checked to see what I had got I rang to tell them that what I had received was the right one and the one that was coming would be no good to me, they told me that they did not put it on the bus by mistake (yea right) anyway I am back in business and will fit the pump on Monday as the weather here right now is very windy and cold. Fitted the pump and got the blower working, took 1 hour 40 minutes, then went underground and did a bit of work with the tunnel machine, was supposed to take a control leaver off the machine to fix it up because of an oil leak, but will wait until I have to fix it as I want to get some footage down, this photo below is of the drive going up, this is now well lit with lights, there is down the bottom (at the rear of camera) one in the middle you can see and one at the top, this I have to walk up and down every day now to go to work, the drive I am about to do now is to the left at the top.

I don't have my old Partner John anymore, he was a bit hard of hearing which I did not know at the time I took him on and that can be dangerous and there was not much for him to do anyway, as I do most of the work so I am back on my own again, for a while anyway, here I am about 40 feet into the new drive and the ground has changed as I am getting near a fault again, have struck one little bit of potch on the way here, not much at this stage to talk about hopefully that will change soon.

Here I have started to break into an old drive, I knew there was one in front of me just did not know how far it was, as I am heading for there old shaft, has been many years (about 11) since I was down this claim having a look around and could not remember how much work has been done, but did remember what direction the drive went.

Well here we now can just have a peek inside the old claim, this is from the early 1970 era and now I can see exactly where the level is, since I went past that fault the ground has changed, it is now not as hard as it was and I am to high up, you can see the level is now below the center of the machine and should be about 18 inches above it, I was taking the machine about 2 foot up from where I was at the shaft as I thought the level was a bit higher, but I was right the first time the level is right at 64 feet.

The old timers have mined with the level right at the roof as you can see here and lucky for me the drive goes to the right and I going to be able to drive if virgin ground for a few more feet yet, had this drive been directly in front of me I don't think I would have been able to continue as the floor is about another 3 feet below me, although right here I am starting to take the machine down slowly at around 3 degrees but when I get the machine right the floor would still be to low for me to keep the level where I need it to see above the level, this was a fault with some of the old miners, as keeping the level at the roof does not allow you to find verticals that for the most part are above the level and connecting to it.

Here we can see the level as I go along now, does not look like much but I  have been digging out some potch for a couple of feet now, so on one side of the fault there is nothing and now on this side I am on material, just hope I can go the distance which would be around the 100 feet if possible and that there is still some color around for me to take home.

Here is some of what I have been digging out, not much to look at but I am not complaining better to have some potch than nothing at all, this way I have a chance there is some color around, but when there nothing around to look at you have no chance at all, so keep the potch coming.

Now I have a good look inside and there is more work been done than I remember and most of it is to the right, this I think will interfere with the drive I wanted to do to the right of this one after I had finished in this area, looks like I have another 10 feet or more in front of me of virgin ground and hope I can at least reach the shaft in front of me and I am looking forward to mining the level blow this one some time in the not to distant future as there is a good chance they mat be opal there as well.

Here is some more potch in the face, I have dug quite a bit out of the last 6 foot and I should think that there will be more to come in front of me, I must do another drive to the left of this one when I have finished doing this one, have to see if there is any more material around, if there is may have to open up a small ballroom, but for that I will have to strike color first.

When I came home I tumbled what I had dug out today and it was around the 60 ounces plus and there was some very big pieces in there, not monsters but 4 or 5 around the 1 ounce mark and that is a very good size if it was color, a lot of it was also good size pieces, pity it was not color as it could have been a good payday for a change, still nice to be back in action and on potch as well, can only get better. There are some repairs I have to do to the machine to the hydraulic controls handles as I have 2 that are leaking some oil when it starts to get hot, which it must do after working for a while, but I am putting them off until I have to do them as one of the controls I cannot get off without removing a lot most of the hydraulic hoses and so will need to be cleaned real well before I can attempt to do this and will also require me to pull the machine out and bring it home to work on it, so I will keep going as long as I can, don't want to stop now I have just got going again. This month has been a bad one for me, so I hope that September will be  lot better, cannot remember when I have had such a run of bad luck, the tunnel machine is now cutting well, just a couple more small things to fix up and I will have a very good machine, will not be as fast as some of the big square machines but now can cut at the rate of 6 foot + an hour easy, the cutting rate depends on the ground that I am in, hard ground a bit slower and sift ground quicker and then it depends on if I am stopping to have a pick in the wall which I love to do, the blower is now running well and I have plenty of vacuum, so I hope to have a good run for a while now. Just have to fix the blower truck up as far as finding what caused that battery terminal to burn off after that I am good to go far a long time I hope, just the normal wear and tear that I will get on some items but even then I don't expect any big problems for some time, so in the next issue I hope to have done a few feet in drive and have found a bit of opal to show you for a change. Hope you have enjoyed this issue and look forward to the next one, hopefully I will have some good photos to show you in the next issue, of opal with color of course, I am hoping that this will be a good year for us, but only time will tell, so stay with us over the next few months and find out what goes on in our part of the world. But normally it Patricia Until the next issue......... 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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