Opal Mining Newsletter April-30, 2006 on Mining Underground for Opals in Coober Pedy

April 30, 2006

Opal Mining Update - No 60

All repairs finished and Back Mining.

Well all good things must come to an end and so the fishing is done for another year, I am glad to get back home and back into mining again, I have missed it although my wife and I need the break away from here and she would have liked to stay away, but bills have to be paid and so back to work it is for us.

Here is the fan housing as I returned form holidays, almost complete, just waiting for me to return as I have a couple of things to do to it before it can be put on the blower where it will be finished off, so far looking good, I have had the housing built almost the same as the old one, but with some modifications of mine, it is built to take a 30 inch fan if I want one later, right now the fan is 28 inches in diameter, but if it had been built for this 28 inch fan the housing would have been a bit smaller in size and the air cut off point would have been closer which is not what I wanted.

This is a shot inside where the chimney bolts on, I have to make a removable plate for the air cut off point, this gets a lot of the wear from the dust etc and is very hard to repair as the only way is to weld upside down or when it gets back enough try to weld a patch on the outside of the housing, but as it is on a sharp corner it is also hard to do a good job, I know as I have done this repair a couple of times before, so now I am building this new one I have allowed for an easy repair in the future.

This is the removable plate, I have welded a small length of solid bar on the bottom, so there is no sharp point to start off with and when it gets enough wear in it I will remove the chimney (10 bolts) and remove this plate (4 bolts) and bring it in the workshop and weld it up and put it back, easy.

Here is the air cut off plate in place there is a inch and a half clearance between this bottom bar and the fan, as it sucks the air in through the middle of the fan, the dust etc gets thrown out the top of the fan, this causes wear in the housing, mostly in the top half before it gets finds its way through the chimney, the top of the housing is fairly easy to patch, mind you this will take 3 or 4 years to do, but that sharp corner is harder to fix or was until now.

This is the fan housing door, (upside down) you can see that I have had the butterfly put in the housing instead of up in the top of the chimney like on the other one, this is what shuts the air off so the hopper door can open and dump the dirt, it has to have a ring welded on the front of the butterfly yet for the pipe that goes up to the hopper to be bolted on to and I have to make and fit the handles for the control cables that will have the control cables attached to them.

This is the big radiator for the Perkins 6-354 engine that runs the blower, the top tank had rusted through in one spot and needed replacing, it has needed to be fixed for about 2 years now, but got away with it because of the size of the radiator, so I had the local Radiator/Metal Workshop make me a new top tank and clean it out while I was away, cost $380.00, very happy with the job and price, as you can see a lot of work was involved with 38 bolts to take out and replace.

Before I will bring out the fan housing I have had to take the bearing housing caps off and make sure they are greased up properly which they were then I had to undo the bolts that hold the bearings and large pulley down so I could lift up the left hand side and get the new belts under, these have to on before I can put them one at a time on the top pulley, then I have to tighten the blots down and this puts enough tension on the belts to drive the fan for a few months until they stretch a bit then I will have to tension them again, will tell you how later.

Here Ross is staring to fit the small 5 groove pulley, but first he has to make a square key so that when the pulley is fitted it stops it from turning, then the pulley has to locked in place, but this cannot be done until the fan housing as been fitted on the blower and I have put the belts on, then we line up the top pulley with the bottom one and lock the small pulley in place, then I will run the engine and fan and we will see if the pulley moves, which it will at first, then this will have to be done a few times until we are sure that the pulley is locked in place for good.

Now we are ready for taking the fan housing out side and putting it on the blower, where I will bolt it down and fit the chimney and put 2 bolts in it for the time being, until it is time for me to seal it and bolt in on properly, looks good.

Here is Ross taking it out on the old forklift, I will paint the bottom when it is place, did not want to paint his floor, from here I should be back on the field within a week.

Ross has to drop it here, then put his special lifting arm on the forks then he can lift it on the blower, it is a tight fit under the roof, it will lift the tin a little bit, but that is how we got it out.

Now we have a straight lift and he drive forward, where I will guide him until it is place, I will also use a length of wood to help lift the roof so the arm that it is hanging from can get under it.

Here it is on and bolted down already, it was a straight forward job and went smooth, was surprised just how easy and quick it was to put on, from the photo above it would have taken me no more than 10 minutes to get in place and bolt down with 4 new bolts, as don't like using old rusty bolts.

Here is the chimney and the small corner that fits inside the 12 inch pipe that leads up to the hopper, the ring is bolted on the corner, ready for me to fit in the pipe and then Ross will tack weld it when I have got it place in the pipe, then I will unbolt the ring, then remove the corner from the pipe, then unbolt the fan door and take it off and bring it inside the workshop to get the ring fully welded on the corner, then paint it with my gray undercoat spray paint, this I do not for looks really but to stop the metal rusting in the short term.

Here I am putting the new belts on, so far have 2 on and 3 more to go, by the time I have done this and Ross has welded the ring on, that will be it for today I think, we will have to run the engine tomorrow to check and adjust the bearings, I may have time to put the fan door back on today and seal and bolt the chimney on, you can also see the inspection door I have had built in the housing, so I can check the fan for wear on a regular basis, which I wont have to do for sometime yet.

Here I have made the leavers and put them on, but need to tack welded so they don't move when I take the door off to get the ring welded on, I have found a spring that will do the job, but wont know until I get it on the field and try it under working conditions to see if it is strong enough, right now it works fine, but the vacuum is not the same until I have all of the pipes connected, then the butterfly will be under full working pressure and that will test the strength of the spring out.

Here Ross is welding that ring in place, after he has finished and it has cooled down I will paint it then put the door back on the housing and bolt it on completely and hope that I don't have to undo than again for a long time, I could weld it on myself with the stick welder, but this MIG Welder is cheaper and quicker so let Ross do it and I have not learned to use it properly as yet, I would as soon use the stick welder as the welding looks a lot better and not as much splatter.

Here is the door bolted on and the small elbow connected to the 12 inch air intake pipe, I have also welded on the control leavers and made a connection for the spring to connect to, I have had a flat bar welded on so I could bolt it on so then I can remove it when the fan door has to come off or I will lose some skin if I don't, I also have to seal the bottom of the 12 inch pipe to the elbow so it will not suck any air in when the fan is working, then this part is done.

Now all above has been done, the next day we ran the blower engine and had to adjust the small 5 groove pulley twice when it had moved, then locked it in place, the bearings did not need to be adjusted at all so when there had cooled down I had to pack them with a special high performance/temperature grease that we use for these bearings, now it is back to the field and set the blower back on the shaft and drop the operating cables back down and we are back in the mining business.

Here we are back at it, the ground has changed again and the level has gone up to the roof, the top level that is, there are 3 levels here and any one of them could carry opal at any time if the right ingredients come in, Alinite and or Gypsum or both, hard to know which one to keep the eye on and which one to follow right now.

Here the ground is changing again and looks like I am going under a fault, you can see in the middle that there is some Alinite come in and in that is what is called Soap Stone, it is very hard but when you get a piece in your hand and rub it, it feels like soap, hence the name.

The ground is really changing now and some material has come in on the left and a tiny bit on the right, the level has dropped a bit here, had a bit of a dig with no results as not much was there but shows that the ground here is capable of making opal, so who knows what may happen next, nothing has come in on the 2 levels below at this stage.

Now some material has come in the middle and with some color in it, will this be a decent pocket, will soon find out when I have put this camera down and get back to the face with the pick.

This turns out to be a low quality grey opal between the 2 arrows and went in for a few inches, does not look like much here in fact I did not even know that I had a s much color as I did as I do not look at everything as I dig it out of the face I just put it in the bag until I get home and then tumble, clean and sorted it from the rubbish then I was left with just over 8 ounces of it, which is now on the net for sale, not enough to make me rich again, but will pay for some diesel or whatever, just have to keep looking and at least I have found a bit and the ground is still talking to me as we say, better to find something than nothing, keeps the interest going and hopes up.

Here you can see the middle level starting to rise up to the roof, looks like the 2 may join not far in front and was a squibby level (not the main level) also looks like I should have gone up with the main level so it was lower down in the face and I would have seen more level in front of me, but to late now as I am nearly finished in this drive I am out around 60 feet and the ground is getting wetter and I am having trouble pulling the dirt so will have to finished the drive and start another next door, will pick up the end of this and other drives when I move the blower onto the shaft in front of me and I drive across in front of this and any other drives that I have done before then so I will not miss much at all.

When I was in Ross's yard right at the end before I came out I went up on the roof and put some rubber around the bottom half of the hopper to help seal the door when it shuts, I got this rubber from an old truck tube that I cut in half and then cut 1 inch strips off the outside of the circle, then I glued it on with a rubber silicone, which was a mistake, well cannot be an expert in everything, right, so it came off the second day I used the blower as you can see for the photo below, was a waste of time.

So I pulled this off as it would have fell off anyway and the next day asked Ross what he used when he makes these hoppers and he said to use a Contact Cement Glue (Bear Contact Cement or Kwik Grip) so I bought a small tin of Kwik Grip and cut some more tube up and went up on top of the dump and did it again, this time it has worked just fine and is still on, gluing rubber with rubber was not a good idea, so I learned something else. (lucky I had a dump up so I could get up there)

This shows you how damp the ground is, I had only done 7 foot 8 inches when I had to stop because of this build up and its not only this corner it is the one below on the bottom and all 3 of the telescope that are in use and in the hopper as well, so I have bit of cleaning to do and the telescope that you can see here and fits on the corner is just like what you see here but not as bad as the corner as it thins out as it gets further away for the front of it so is a bit easier to and quicker to clean, but the elbow takes a bit of time as the dirt is packed on very tight and takes some shifting even with the electric jackpick and the special adapter I have made.

This is the telescope that connects to the bottom elbow, I have brought it up to let it dry out as I will be off for a couple of days, this will make it easier to clean, but normally I would do this underground with the electric jackpick and then put it back on or I should say up the pipe and then reconnect the clamp and go and do the one behind the tunnel machine, then we can start tunneling again.

This is the best photo I can take to show you how it also builds up in the hopper, the arrow shows you where the dirt is sucked into the hopper, the bottom of this inlet is 18 inches from the bottom of the hopper floor where the door is, the wet dirt builds up as it hits the plate and gets to a point that I cannot pull dirt anymore and have to clean it out.

This is very hard to do at times if the dump is not up high enough, in that case I would have to stay home until it dried and fell off with some help from the wind, in this case as you can see I can get to the hopper and I have got rid of it, it would take about 3 or 4 days work to block it off enough so I would have to stop, so I will have to try and keep enough dirt on the dump so I can get up here.

Here I am backing out of the drive as we call them you may call it a tunnel, you can see all 3 drives here together, the next drive will be right next door to the one I am coming out of and to the left, later on I may do a drive straight down the middle of these 2 drives you see here, as I will be going in the drive on the right when I move as that is the one with the shaft in it and I still have to open it up on the left side so I can start working from it when I move the blower, so starting a new drive in the middle and keeping it on the right will work out well for me.

Here is the start of the new drive, there is some material here in the level and was some left in the side of the wall in the last drive so I am hopeful of finding some opal in this drive, but then I am always hopeful.

This is where I found 1/2 ounce of green orange crystal last year and I drilled under it and had a pick in to see if there was any more which there wasn't, so you can see where I drilled in with my 4 1/2 inch prospecting drill, there is a small bit of material on the right hand side, but with no color, no sooner was it there and it was gone.

You can see the level on the left side starting to rise up, so I have raised the floor cutters to go up with it and at the moment the machine is going up at 3 degree angle, but will have to go up at a steeper angle that this soon I think, this time I will make sure this level is the one I chase and has to be kept a bit low in the face than it is here, about another 6 inches just so its above the head as you see it here.

This is the level in the last dive I have just come out of and you can see how it rises up to the roof, as I said I will keep this just above the cutting head from now on and not worry to much about any other squibby levels unless I see some material or opal in them.

Here I am trying to turn the machine (arrow) so I can tunnel along side the drive next door, I can only turn the machine slowly like this, as the gap on each side of the machine is not great so when the rear of left track comes against the side of the drive that is as gar as it will turn, this I do while I am cutting in the face and as it is inching forward so is not a quick job, not like when I open up for a shaft that is a different job.

But I could do that here if necessary, but would have to bring the machine back so the cutting head could slowly start cutting in the side wall as it cannot take a big bite all at once and to make the machine turn I have to pull up on one of the brakes (2 arrows behind the machine) in this case I pull the right hand brake on while making the machine go forward this stops the right track and the left one drives forward making the machine turn, turns fairly quickly in the open but like this as I said it is slow when cutting.

Here a vertical has come in the level, it has some color at this stage so now to dig it out and see what I have found and how much.

Here it is in close up, marvelous how it makes and comes from nowhere, I would like to find a big vertical like what was found not far from here a couple of years ago now, was a big one and went for a few feet I believe and was worth 1/2 a million, now that is a find and was crystal which is usually what I find in this claim, but his is like the last lot I found grey,

I have dug most of that vertical out there is a little bit left, but I feel that this is the end of it and started tunneling forward again until I get level to the vertical that is left and another vertical has come in the level in the middle, so now to have another dig and see what we have got this time.

Now I have finished digging out the verticals and a bit more thin trace of green blue opal from the left side of the drive and here it is after I have cleaned and tumbled it, now I will have to clean it further with the Dremel before I can put it up for sale as some of it has the brown stain on it from the level.

Since I got this opal above I have had a small problem with my health, at first I though I had sore ribs on my right from being hit from or by something but could not recall hurting or banging them, then when I looked in the mirror it like bites as they were 7 red spots and 2 on my back and they had blisters on them at that stage as this was a week later from when I thought I had sore ribs, was trying to work out what could have bit me so many times and where had it happened, in the truck or underground when I was working, so I went and saw the doctor for some medications to get rid of them and it turns out that I have Shingles and as I have had them for more than 3 days there is no medication or cure for them.

So I had some days off, then Ross came back so I went back on the field and put a new battery in the loader as the other one I had brought home when I went on holidays had perished, then I moved some of the dirt from the dump while I was at it, then I went underground and as I had just started this new drive I took the one pipe of the back of the machine and pulled it sideways out of the way, them pulled the machine back about 7 feet and took this leaking control off and brought it in.

I went to the workshop and cleaned it outside on my truck and the problem could be seen straight away, there is a elbow connection that connects to a hose that leads to the Hydraulic Pump, I have 2 pumps on the machine one for the rotation of the head, controlling the tracks, running the floor cutters and the hydraulic rams that raise it up and down and the other just controls the front cutters which is this control, I had forgot about this elbow and hose as it is hidden underneath when in place amongst other hoses.

Anyway this elbow has a lock nut on it and also has a rubber O-ring as a seal where it screws in the body and I had missed this when I had replaced all of the O-Rings, so when I put it back it had come a bit more loose, hence the oil leak that was worse than before, it has been fixed now at last, all I have to do now is to put it back on and connect all of the hoses and I had to take the control off that was in front of this one so I could get to it, so the job will take about an hour and a half to do, plus some cleaning I have to do to get rid of the oil that has leaked all over the place if I can get to most of it, if not it will soon dry up when it gets some dirt or dust on it, but I like things clean if possible.

As I am now on pain killers and I try not to take any until well after lunch, oh by the way this bout of Shingles may last for as long as 4 weeks after the blisters broke and the pain may last for longer even after the sores have healed up, so I have no idea how long I will have to take these pain killers, but will try to go to work and will have to take some first thing in the morning.

The problem I can see that will stop me working is when I go to use the electric jackpick or the hand one for that matter it puts a strain on the left side of my body and as this Shingles is a nerve problem, this may stop me, but will have to try to find out, so will go and put this control back on tomorrow and see how I go.

Again I 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, 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 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.

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