Opal Mining Newsletter January-31, 2006 on Mining Underground for Opals in Coober Pedy

January 31, 2006

Opal Mining Update - No 57

Big Breakdown this Month!

Just before we start on this months newsletter, I would like to say that I received an email from a person whom I do not know and have never been in contact with before, making a comment about the newsletter which I would like to share with you.

This person states " I enjoy reading about your mining adventures. Some of the info is boring at first but as one reads on the so call boring part becomes important. I can only wish that I was there. Thank you for the email." and this is from a Lonnie Cox, thanks for your comments Lonnie and I would like to point out to you and all of the rest of readers, that I do most of the time forget that I am in my own little world here, but the purpose of this newsletter that I put out is about me as an Opal Miner and what happens to me and other miners like me in our job as Opal Miner's, and that includes what may be called boring or thought to be boring in parts, which usually means it is costing us money with breakdowns.

Our job is not all excitement, in fact is only exciting when we find opal, apart from that it is just like any other job that most people do, a lot of it could be called boring, but as far as we are concerned it is anything but boring, as we have to many problems to contend with in our search for opal and that includes equipment failures and the more equipment we have the more problems we can expect, the heat that we have to work in for 1/2 of the year also takes it toll on the equipment and us, so breaking down could be called boring but is part of the job we do and is very much part of Opal Mining and that is what I show to my readers.

Opal Mining Warts and All, the Good the Bad and the Ugly parts of it, this is what we do so no point in dressing it up, most of the equipment we use here is old or bought 2nd hand so has had a lot of hard work before we get it, hence the breakdowns, the truck my blower is sitting on is nearly 64 years old, as old as I am, on that truck there is 3 engines.

The one in the truck itself which is a Mercedes Diesel (original) then I have the 55kva Generator with a Bedford 330 diesel and then there is the blower engine which is a Perkins 6-354 Diesel, the I have Front End Loader with a 3 cylinder Diesel and last of all is the mining truck with a Petrol Engine, so I have a few engines to look after all can give me trouble at any time.

Then we have the normal running component's, bearings, fan belts for driving the fan on the blower, a fan, electric motors, hydraulic motors, hydraulic pumps, cutting teeth, winch, petrol generator, electric drill for mining, electric jackpick, pipes, clamps, elbows, tires, hopper on the blower and so the list goes on, all of which can give me trouble any time and then of course there is the mining for opal.

After that I also run my web site and do this newsletter, so I don't have time to get bored, pissed off (excuse the French) most times, but I do enjoy what I do for the most part, as I said there is always some part of the job that gets to you and with me it is the breakdowns, which right now I am having more than my fair share of them.

So who knows when one of you readers may want to come here one day and try your luck, so I don't want to give any false impressions, but would welcome anyone to come here and try there luck as we need more miners, but I want you to know what is involved in what we do here.

Now to start on the Bad News for this year as I have not had a very good start to this new year, but starting where I left off in the last newsletter I finished repaired the water pump breakdown on the generator and before I took the blower back out to the field, I flushed out the big radiator on the blower engine, which is going to come out just before I go on Holidays at the end of this month, then re-greased the fan pulley bearings and on Tuesday the 10th which was also my wife's birthday my mate Dave and I took the blower back out to the field and set it up ready for work.

So I went back to work on Wednesday and all I had to do underground was to reconnect the ropes that I operate the blower with, then I was in action tunneling again, after I had been working for about an hour, I lost vacuum so I check the bottom elbow for a blockage, which it did not have, so I stopped the blower and went up top thinking that there was some dirt stuck on the door of the hopper keeping it open slightly which will cause me loss of vacuum, turns out there was, so had to climb the small dump I have right now and knock the dirt off a length of wood.

Then I restarted the blower, checked the water temp and got up and checked the bearing's for running temp, this is done by placing the hand on top of each of the 2 bearing housing's, the bearing next to the fan always runs cooler then the bearing next to the fan belts as that on has more load on it and I can only hold my hand on that one for about 2 seconds, supposed to be 5 seconds but I have soft hands.

I did not feel any vibrations at that stage in the bearings, so then I went back down below and started working again, within 15 minutes I heard a bang and when I went to the shaft I could not hear the blower running, was then I saw a ball bearing on the floor under the big shaft, then I knew what had happened, the fan had let go as you can see in this and the following photos, causing major damage.

Here you can see where fan has tried to get out of the housing, as it was on full revs at the time which is 4,200, so it was traveling, this is called a Major Breakdown and will cost more than $2000.00 to fix and some time as well, so most of it will be rebuild while I am holidays, but below I will show what is involved in repairing this as it has to be removed form the blower and taken into the workshop where we will remove the fan housing from the base and also remove the shaft and fan, what is left of it, as well.

The fan also cut into this side, which is the air exhaust side and the weld line above is the chimney so the dust and any dirt that goes through the fan gets thrown up above the roof and I have quite a bit that goes through the fan as I am in wet ground, this exhaust vent must be the same size in cubic inches as the inlet pipe which is 12 inches in diameter, what goes in must get out and not be restricted.

This is an old photo of a fan that let a piece go some years ago, I was up top and the engine was on idle when this happened so I was able to shut the engine down very quickly, this photo is to show you what happens when the fan wears out and gets thin where it has been welded along side the blades, this is caused by the dust going through the fan and as it is thrown out it runs along the side of the blade causing this wear and then the front plate cracks along side the blades in places, the if 2 cracks join up a piece like in the photo will come out and the fan is straight away out of balance and if doing full revs it will desegregate with the vibration, so we have to catch this wear in time and if we don't, well read on and see what has happened to me.

Ross and I are starting to remove the fan housing from the blower, but the first ting I have to do is to have the chimney cut off with the oxy or I would have to remove part of the roof and seeing that the new housing will be built different than this old thing, easier to cut it off as it is scrap anyway and the butterfly is in the top of this chimney which is another bad design, the new fan housing will have it in a different and more accessible place where it will be easier to operate and will also be a better butterfly, for those that do not know what a butterfly is, for all intents it is a valve that shuts off the air and so the vacuum to the hopper so I can dump the Mullock from it when tunneling, I will be able to show you this when the new fan housing is built as it will be where Ross is standing.

Here Ross tried to lift the chimney off but cannot get the height with the forklift, so I had to climb the ladders of mine and get on the roof and pull it up onto the roof then I maneuvered it onto the forks of the forklift so Ross could bring it down, no wonder I don't want to use this type of set up again, the new chimney will stick above the roof about 5 or 6 inches and will be bolted on the fan housing so it will be easy to fit in place when the new fan housing is installed, or again I would have to remove part of the roof, this way is easier if I ever have to remove it again for any reason and will not cost any more to have it this way, the new housing will have a few modifications for this heap of junk.

Now Ross can remove the chimney with ease and after this has been dumped we can remove the complete fan housing now I have undone all of the bolts, (4) this just goes on his scrap heap, along with this chimney.

Now the fan housing is being lifted out with a special attachment that Ross has made for the forklift in the past for this type of job, so you can see I am not the first to have this happen nor will I be the last.

Sort of looks empty now the fan housing is gone, just before I go on Holiday at the end of this month I have to take that big radiator off that you can see here on the Perkins 6-354 engine, it is getting blocked with rust, the top tank had a hole come in it through rust about 2 years ago, and I patched it up at that time but it has got worse on the inside since then, so it is time to get it fixed and is a big job, as the top tank is bolted on with around 36 bolts, I am only having it cleaned out so only the top tank has to come off and it may need a new top tank made for it, it is a big Radiator for this engine and is off some sort of Bulldozer and requires 2 men to lift it, but does the job and if it had been a small one would have had to get fixed some years ago, only got away with it because of its size.

Here you can see the shaft and what is left of the bearings, the bearing housings were demolished and thrown well off the blower, the shaft if bent as all are when this happens, thankfully the 5 groove pulley survived any damage, but apart from that all of what you can see here is scrap, except for the base as you will see, I will be able to use that again saving some dollars.

This is what the fan looks like in the housing when I took the front cover off, as you can see it has torn itself apart, thankfully I was underground if I had been on top, would have probably had a heart attack when it let go, the bang must have been loud as I heard it underground and I am 80 feet to the floor and then about 43 feet up the drive and it sounded loud there, so can imagine what it must have been like standing anywhere near the blower when it went.

I am about to pull the fan off the shaft with my puller that I made a few months, that part that the puller is bolted to is called a Hub, this is also alright but will need to be faced on the surface where it bolts up to the fan, this will be done when fitted to the new shaft after it has been turned up on the lathe to make sure that it runs true with the new shaft so there will be no out of balance.

Now I am removing the hub from the old fan, there was one stud that got broken off in there, but got it out with little trouble after I had removed it, this fan I gave to Trevor Berry of the Old Timers Mine here in Coober Pedy for his Museum so he can show the Tourists.

Now the fan is out you can see close up what the damage is, made a mess of it for sure and I hope that this will not happen to me again while I am mining, the fan housing will be built with an inspection door in it so I will have easy access to check the state of the fan when ever I want to, with the old fan housing it was big job to take a look at the fan to check on the wear and if I had this inspection door on the old housing this would not have happened.

The housing is now in the workshop and we are ready for cutting the base off the housing, as this base takes a bit of building and also is a big cost factor, but as this is not damaged we can use it again, it saves time as this base is set up for the bearing housings and is already at the right height for the belts that drive the fan when bolted to the blower, there is a lot of time and effort involved in making this base and saves me a lot of money by using this one, you can also see here that the fan threw a piece straight through the bottom of the housing, this also went through the floor of the truck, so there was a lot of force involved when this went Bang.

Now Ross is starting to cut the old fan housing off the base, I would normally have done this myself, but as I out of practice with the oxy cutting, it was better for Ross to do it as it requires a steady hand to cut a straight line which I could not guarantee I would do, so leave it to the expert and pay for it, we had to weld a couple of small bearing housings on each side of the fan housing so we could lift it on its side to cut it.

Nearly finished one side of the housing, Ross has cut a straighter line than I would have, thus making it easier for him to weld the new one when he has building it.

We have turned the housing over and Ross is now nearly finished cutting the other side just leaving the center to be cut last and for that we will have to stand it back upright as it was sitting on the blower.

This is the last cut, after this it should technically fall over onto the pallet in front of it ready for taking outside with the forklift to the scrapheap.

Here is the old housing on the pallet, needed a bit of hammering to make it fall over, missed a couple of spots with cutting, but finally it is off, now Ross will have to dress up the cut area with a grinder as I will not be here to do it as I leave on Holidays on Saturday morning and this is Thursday.

We are now on Holidays

We are now some 980 kilometers South of Coober Pedy in a place called Coffin Bay which is in the Lower Eyre Peninsula, it is only 45 kilometers from Port Lincoln which is on the Spencer Gulf and Coffin Bay is on the Great Australian Bight.

Coffin Bay is a nice quite out of the way spot to come for fishing and one of the fish here that is most sort after is the King George Whiting, a most sort after table fish world wide, we are hoping to get a few while we are here, below is first the size that the fish must be to be kept in center meters, second is the amount that we are allowed to take in a day per person if there are 2 people in the boat and third is the total amount that can be taken per boat id more than 3 people on board, used to be 20 per person a couple of years ago.

The next most popular fish that is sort after down here is the Pink Snapper, same rules as above, these fish grow a lot bigger then the King George Whiting, if you catch a King George Whiting around the 2lb mark you are doing very well, but the Snapper grow in excess of 30 lbs and catches here of 20 lbs are not uncommon, we will be happy if we catch a few small ones around the 4 or 5lbs.

The house that we have rented for 9 weeks has some stone fruit trees along a fence and the first morning we were woken up with the noise of Birds, so I went outside to see what they were, could not get a photo of all of them as they are well hidden in amongst the branches, but managed to get a shot of this Parrot before it went on its merry way, nice to have nature around again, we dont have these sort of parrots in Coober Pedy, not that I have seen anyway, but we do have parrots up there.

The first 2 days we have been here it has been very windy, but we are not set up as yet for fishing, we are now settled in the house, but have still to unload the boat and clean it then get the fishing rods set up ready for action, I also have to get a chart of the area so I can learn where the channels and deep holes are if there is any, also have to get some local knowledge as to where to go for the best places for the fish, King George Whiting and the Snapper if there is any around as they are sort of seasonal, then if I cannot catch any where the locals tell me I can try other places on the chart.

It is good to get away from Coober Pedy and Mining, my wife Pat needs a break from working and the heat that we have been having and me I need a break form the mining or I should say the lack of, through the breakdowns etc just lately, we will be refreshed when we get back, probably wont want to go back after this holiday as we love being by the sea and fishing, but we still have not made our fortune as yet so must keep trying for a few more years yet.

I hope that in the next newsletter we have something to show you of where we are, I will have few more good photos of around here as there is also a lot of Oyster Farms here, but I am hoping that we will have caught some fish to show you, just love to brag about the big ones, but first we have to catch them.

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 BIG FISH, 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.

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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