Opal Mining Newsletter November-30, 2005 on Mining Underground for Opals in Coober Pedy

I did forget to tell you in the last issue, about 2 miners that I know off that had a lot of problems from those 3 thunder storms we had here, one was a Bulldozer that is on the 14 mile field it was doing a cut and had left the dozer in the cut when the storms came and after the rains when he could get back out there he found that the machine was half under water in the cut, have not heard any more on that one.

The other one is a Tunnel Machine, a square one that belongs to my neighbor or was my neighbor until him and his wife broke up, he has he tunnel machine down at this so called new field "Allen's Rise" some 70 kilometers south from Coober Pedy, he and his partner took the machine down into a shallow dozer cut that only went down to the 9 foot level, they in turn tunneled the machine down to the 21 foot level.

Where it still is under water and mud and this is 2 weeks later as I am writing this and it is still under water, they cannot get it out until it dries out some, then they will have to get a excavator to dig down to the machine (when they know exactly where it is) on either side of it and get it lifted out, then they will have to strip the machine and probably have to replace the electric motors or get them repaired at least, plus lots of other things that will need to be striped and repaid or replaced, expensive and they will be out of action for a few months for sure plus a few thousand dollars.

Well here we are at the beginning of another month and a new drive, back down on the level I like, at least I can see what I am chasing, here we are about to start the drive and I am headed straight for the shaft I have just pulled the blower off and at least I can see for the moment anyway just where it is so there is no excuse to miss this one, I may or may not open up around this shaft, not sure at this point as I have to finish or at least try to finish the drive right next door to the right, I am out some 76 feet if my memory is correct and the shaft in front of that is 93 feet and I would have to get 14 feet past it so I could open up for the machine, so we will see what happens.

Here it came a bit thicker and still right on the corner, there is a touch of color in here as you can see, a little green and some red, but no money or not that I know off as I just pick it out of the face and throw it in a bin to put i the bag for later, so if I don't see the color here I may not know I have any or how much until I tumble it when I get home, but this is not much that came out of here, just a teaser again and I wont bring the bag home until I have enough put into the tumbler or have hit and dug out a pocket of opal, then I bring home the bag every day, do not leave opal underground, in the wall or the bag, never know when I might get a visitor during the night when I am dreaming.

Here I am showing you the level and what is called a squibby level or false level, it is a bit hard to see it properly being down below the center of the machine, but I can keep my eye on it and see most of it as the head goes around, I have only seen a small piece of white potch down on the left hand side, apart from that all of the action is on the main level, but this squibby can produce a pocket of opal so have to look everywhere as the head goes around, must always concentrate as I have to operate the machine as well as look for opal, where the arrow is on the left at top is full of seam bluish potch, so hopefully it may change to opal as I go in further if it last that long.

Today is the 2nd day of the month and it has rained again today, must have had more than 1/2 an inch again and the fields have not completely dried out from the last 4 lots of rain we have had, so this will now cost me another day at least before I can go back out to 11 mile, have to give it at least 2 days to soak in and dry out the surface on the track just for safety, if it rains anymore it will be longer.

Was off 3 days due to the rain but back at work now, here you can see the squibby level coming up to join the main level, that means that there is a fault not far in front of me, I also know this from the drive I have done next door to the right and which I will be going back into when I have finished this one, between the 2 arrows and across the face for about a foot I did pick out some potch and a trace of green again, was not worth taking a photo of.

Now the ground is very disturbed, hard alanite at the top and gypsum all over the place and no proper level to speak of, there is about 19 feet in-between this fault and the next one in front of me and the level will not get back to normal until I have gone past this next fault in front of me, which is this side of the shaft I am heading for, when I get there I may have a chance to find some material if the ground is right as the potch or opal is not everywhere even if I am in the right type of ground, that's why we have to keep looking or prospecting as it is called.

Went to work today, but as soon as I got there and got out of the truck my back was sore, must have done it lifting something, I did pick up a large box yesterday afternoon (Friday) although it was very light I may have lifted it wrong and then I also brought home a couple of small pipes that were not need out there now I have set up on the shaft and I also took them out of the truck on Saturday morning before I went to work, so I may have done the damage then.

Anyway as I was out there and did not want to go underground to work, I thought I would finish a couple of small jobs that needed doing that would not put too much pressure on my back, one was to finish putting the connections on a electric lead that I have just bought and run down the shaft to shut the blower off when finished with it and the other was to start the front end loader and go over to my friend Peter's claim and do some loader work to protect a couple of shafts for him as he has gone away for about 5 months as they had forecast Thunderstorms again for that night.

Which I did and we did get the Thunderstorm that night around 11:45 and it went well into the next morning, so I will be having a couple of days off anyway to give it time to dry out again on the field if it did get a lot of water and my back is still sore anyway, so all is not lost as soon as the back is right I will be back on the field again.

Today my back felt good enough to go to work, so here we are past the disturbed ground and the level at this point is bit higher that it should be and right now is producing some thin trace and some of it was green but not thick enough for me to stop and have a pick at it, there is also a squibby (false) level again where the arrows are and you can also see a ironstone level if that is what it is on the right that is dropping around 45 degree heading straight for the floor.

Now I have 2 squibby levels, must admit this is the first time I have ever had 2 of them and it makes it hard as I cannot see down the bottom all that well and in front of the machine at the bottom I cannot see anything at all, so if opal comes in I will lose it for sure, unless I know it is there then I can back the machine away from the face and get in for a dig, I did find a bit of potch in the middle squibby on the left hand side just before I got to this point.

I dug some potch out of the face and side wall where the arrows are and it is still running in the side wall and some in the face as far as I can tell right now and I cannot take the machine down to bring this level up as I have to keep the genuine level in view at all times especially when it is starting to carry trace, so I will have my work cut out for me watching all of the face the best I can.

The photos above was at the end of that days shift, so I went back in the drive to where I had cut that potch the day before and decided that I would have a dig in there to see if it there was any opal, I spend about an hour and a half here and for me was not an easy job as it is close the ground, not as flexible or as fit as I used to be and is hard on my knees, so have to try and sit on the pipe which is in the middle of the drive, so all in all, not a lot of room to work in.

Here is the result of what I dug out, all potch, there was more in the wall but left it was breaking my back digging that out and for potch not worth it and I also cut some and put it up on the dump, so I have no idea how big the pocket was, but there is 58 ounces below and the big piece in the piddle with the Quarter on it weight in just under 2 3/4 ounces, if it had been the normal color that I find when I do find, Green/Blue, Blue/Green or Green/Orange crystal, there would have been quite a few thousand dollars here, but somewhere thee will be a pocket for me for sure, just got to keep looking.

This is the other half, the elbow, normally you just hit this with a small sledge hammer but there is quite a lot here so will take a little bit of work and time to get rid of it, I am thinking at this point that I may have to abandon the drive because of this wet ground, cannot be stopping every 5 feet or less to dig this out, so will think about it over night and to see what I do tomorrow morning after I have cleaned this lot and it is the same underground as well, so I have 4 of these to do, before I can start.

When I got up this morning I had it in my mind to abandon the drive and start a new one and had decided that I would get another shaft drilled to connect in the drive next door for me to open up on and continue mining forward in the claims, then I went to see a friend of mine before I went to work for a chat and then changed my mind and decided that I would pull the machine back etc and take the inside cutter off and bring it in to make and put teeth holders on it as the teeth on that cutter are nearly all worn off or I should say the tungsten is nearly worn off the teeth, not the teeth themselves.

Then when I got to work and had cleaned the blocked items out, I then decided to keep going with the drive as I really wanted to connect to this shaft, so I figured I would give it another shift and see what happened, if it got wetter I would have to quit if not I was in business, so I continued and I connected to the shaft with little problems this time, here I am loosening the dirt in the shaft that is between here the drive above, so I can continue tunneling under the shaft in safety.

Here I am back to normal and have done another few inches to make sure it is all cleaned up and the shaft is completely empty of loose dirt, you will notice that the shaft is not all the way to the bottom of the drive, that is because when I got the shaft drilled I asked the operator to only drill down to 73 feet a I did not want the level cut, just in case there was opal here, better I take it out by hand than have the bucket cut through it and lose some of it.

I did this with the other shaft as well but in that one he went a bit lower and cut the level, if you remember some electric blue skin shell came up from that one, will be a while before I get to that shaft yet, will be early next year now, as we go no holidays at the end of January until the end of March and I still have quite a bit of tunneling to do in this area yet, after I have opened up on this shaft ready for the next time I move the blower.

As the drive is finished I now have to start opening up the drive so I can maneuver the machine into any position for starting a new drive, if you remember the last time I did this above where I am now I did not do it that well as I started the opening up to close to the shaft, well I have learned from that and now I have to start the opening up from 15 feet back, so I have brought the machine back near to the place I want to start and I have jack-picked out the side of the drive so I can turn the machine on a angle to start it off, now I will bring the machine back so the front and rear of the tracks are opposite the gaps that I have made and then I will turn the machine as far as I can and then start the drive.

Here I am just starting off the drive on the angle, this drive will go for some 29 feet until I get level with the drive straight in front of me, I have also found out from this drive that I still have to make the machine go further to the right as I am starting to tunnel here by applying the brake on the left hand track, so in future and this will apply when I come back to do the drive to the left, where I have dug out the side of the drive for the tracks I will have to join them to make it one long impression as the tracks still catch on the part in the middle where I have not jack-picked it as I turn the machine on the angle, by making it one long one I will be able to turn the machine more, making it easier for me.

Where the arrows are is where I had to jackpick into the side wall and part of the roof on this side so I can get the head starting to cut, because I am going in at a angle I have to make a recess for the back of the cutting head or it just jams on the wall and will not rotate or start cutting, so a bit of elbow grease is required for about 10 minutes after that its just like a normal drive when I get going, also here the cutting head is just past the start of the shaft so have about another 13 feet to go and you can also see that the oil leak is still very bad, have made my mind up that when I have finished opening up here and have brought all of the equipment back, I will remove the controls 2 at a time and fix them, there are 4 of them, 3 singles and 1 bank of 3 controls and only 2 of the singles are leaking but will replace all of the O rings seals in all of the controls for peace of mind.

Now I have finished the drive on this right side, I now have to take the middle bit out so I do not bang my head when moving around, as the 2 drives get further away form each other this middle bit in the roof and floor becomes more pronounced, but I did not finished doing this due to the wet ground I ended up about 4 foot short, I got a blockage again and by this time I was sick of the wet ground, so I pulled the pipes up and brought all of the equipment back to the main shaft and along with the machine.

The reason I finished tunneling in that drive was that I thought the blockage was in the bottom elbow, but it wasn't, and then I thought it was a piece of wet dirt keeping the hopper door open, so I went up top to check and sure enough there was a piece stuck up there and I climbed the dump to get to it and knock it off with a length of wood and I also check the top elbow at the same time and that was alright, not too much in it at that time.

So I went back down but still could not get enough vacuum to pull any dirt properly so that is why I quit for the time being, I will go back in that drive later and finish opening up but when I am about ready to move the blower on that shaft, but as soon as I have done these repairs I will be doing some drives to the left of where the machine is right now and one to the right, in other words I will finish off any drives that I want to do before I will go back to that drive and finish open up and move the blower forward.

When I had finished moving everything back and had knocked off for the day, I found out when I got back up top and had taken the top elbow off the pipe as I do now everyday to let the fresh air circulate down the pipes to help dry out any wet mud that has built up in them, I had a look up the pipe that leads to the hopper and there was the blockage, it was about 3 large rocks jammed together about 6 foot up the pipe, I have now unblocked it ready for when I start tunneling again.

I was going to do the repairs underground, but after cleaning some of the dirt off the controls and having a good look at what I had to remove I realized that it would be very hard and difficult for me to pull the hydraulic controls off underground, so I decide that I would have to pull the machine out as first planed and bring it in to Ross's yard where it will be easy for me to work on, plus I have the whole workshop and equipment to work with.

This is the mess I have to remove, I have already taken the control handles off and 2 hoses off the No 1 front unit which is a single and controls the front floor cutters, then I have to remove the No 2 unit which has 3 controls in it, one for the forward and reverse of the machine and the other 2 are for the hydraulic rams that lift and drop the front floor cutter, unit No 3 is the control for the rotation of the head and is one of the leaking one.

I have to remove unit 2 to get this one out and last of all is unit No 4 which controls the cutting teeth, this is a slightly bigger unit in capacity that the other 3 and is the hardest to get to being hidden right in the corner and under brackets that I have already undone and sticking almost upright, this is the other unit that was leaking badly, always the ones that are hard to get to for some reason.

I have ordered O-Rings (12) for them from the manufacturer and a new dust cover for unit No 3 as the one they had on it was off a bigger unit and did not fit properly, I have right now at the end of the month got these units off and am waiting for the O-Rings to arrive here, so far as of today it is a week since we ordered them, we still use Camel Trains up here or so it would seem.

I have got the cutting plate that I had the 8 teeth on if you can remember back and then I cut 4 teeth off it, than I found that the plate had stress cracks in it so left it at hone and used the other plate that came with the machine, the one I did not like, well now the teeth have got worn down it is time to replace them and I was going to cut them off an make teeth holders like I put on the outside cutting plate.

But when I took this plate off the machine at Ross's I found that the plate was slightly bent, this is because the guy who made it cut some of the metal out to make 3 arms and also lighter to handle but he took the strength away, so I have brought that plate home and will keep it for emergencies only, I have cut the 4 remaining teeth of the plate that I had made in Queensland and welded up the stress cracks and today I made the teeth holders, now I just have to grind the welds flat and weld on the teeth holders, cut the new teeth to suit them and paint it and put it on, this will be seen in the next issue.

Have a few small things to do on the machine before it will be ready to go back under, but will bring you up to date on them in the next issue also, the plan at the moment is that I will be able to put the machine back downunder next week, if all goes well.

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.

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