September 30, 2006 Opal Mining Update - No 65 Found 2 Opal Shells and got another Breakdown

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If you remember from the end of last months issue, I was in the drive on the right trying to reach a shaft, this shaft was 96 feet from where the pipes are here in this shaft, but the ground got to wet for me to work in so I had to quit the drive, I was so upset at the wet ground I was going to quit the claim altogether. This is not the first time I have going to quit because of this wet ground, but have always changed my mind, it is hard to leave a claim that is producing material and some opal now and again, it is not that I am not finding nothing at all, so when I think of some of the nice opal I have found here I change my mind and continue. So it again, I will continue for a while as the hot weather is now on its way in and will make it a bit easier for the hopper anyway, right now I am going to do a drive to get under a small working next door where they found some opal, but on the level above, for those of you that remember when I went up a level and did a bit of work and broke into a couple of drives, well this is going under them and I have to go at least 70 feet.

Here I am just starting the new drive and already getting into hard ground, Alinite is starting to come in across the face.

Now you can see the Alinite going across the middle of the face, this will slow me up for sure, hard to make sense of this ground at times, never know what is in front until you get there.

I have had a small breakdown and had to pull the machine back to the start of the drive, which is not that fat as I am only 4 feet 9 inches in so far, but the chain on the floor cutters has broken so I have to remove it to bring it home for repairs, you can also see how the face looks at this point, full of Alinite, not looking good.

The chain had not broken as I first thought, but the spring clip that holds the joining link in place had come off and the spacer plate has gone and the link itself has spread and come out so the chain fell off, no big deal, as you can see I have already got the new part, went and ordered it as soon as I came home from work, but it had to come up from Adelaide and came up on the Bus overnight, now to put it back on which is about a 5 minute job and then its back to work.

Most of the Alinite has now gone, never get sick of looking at the face as it is always on the change, but not looking any good for any material at the moment, will have to wait until I get past the next fault where the ground will change again and hopefully some material (potch/opal) may come in, but most likely it will be damp ground again.

Now I have the Alinite on the lower floor part of the drive and it is hard again, so hard I have to stop the machine about  every 3 or 4 inches and bring it back about 6 inches so I can get up the front with the electric jackpick and break off some of the Alinite that is left because the cutting teeth cannot cut this area on the floor so I can continue.

Here you can see on the side wall how far I have gone in this hard Alinite, the machine itself from the cutting face to the clamp at the rear is almost 8 foot long, so I have been in for a long way so  far, what happens  as it is on the floor is left a raised lump of Alinite that cannot get cut off because that is where the arms are that holds the floor cutter on and it cannot cut that part of the floor, but the weight of the machine breaks off these 2 raised lumps when it is dirt. But as it is this hard Alinite it will not break off, and the one on the left of the machine is about 2 inches wide and about i.5 inches high so the machine as it is going forward tends to ride up on this lump, causing the machine to struggle to cut also making the machine go up, so I have to stop this and it takes time, so slow is the go, pain in the butt, hard to get things perfect in this type of ground.

And here is the other side of the drive, it is all Alinite along the bottom it is the fine dirt that is covering some of it up, been slow going up to here.

I am nearing the fault line in front of me and I have had potch come in near the top of the roof, (Squibby Level) in this photo I have been on it for 2 foot 9 inches, which is in-between the 2 arrows some was 1/4 of an inch thick and with no color, pity maybe later if I am I lucky.

Sorry to say that I was right again, once I got past the fault in that drive the g round went to wet again, marvelous how the ground changes like it does in this area, so I had to quit this drive and I did not get in the 70 feet that I needed, so really this was a waste of time and money, but not having a Crystal Ball I cannot tell this in advance, which is pity. So here I am starting a new drive back towards the shaft that I did not reach because of wet ground and that I also pulled out, but I found some opal in this drive before I got to the end, and there is still trace of potch in the side walls in here, so I will have to do at least 2 drives here, one on either side of this one and depending what I find in front of me before I have to quit, I may do more, this is a game that I have play by ear as I go along, hard to make concrete plans in advance as they nearly always fail.

Here I am not in very far in this new drive and the level has not settled down as yet, but I have spotted part of a pipe in the face, that very little white spot under the arrow, it has got color to it, so now to dig under it and get it out, was surprised to see it there as it is a long way down from where the level is supposed to be, still as they say opal is where you find it and that is very true, no matter what experience you have in this game, Mother Nature will always make a liar out of you, things are not always where you expect them to be, this is why I have always to keep my eyes on all of the face when I am working as opal can come in the face anywhere and at any time.

Here is the small pipe, took the photo as soon as I got home, Belemnite is the correct name of it, the backbone if you can it that of an ancient squid, it is gray opal that can be seen here, but after I had cleaned all of the dirt from around it and it was in 2 pieces and was the tail end of one and not very good at that, only the front part of it is color as far as I can see, looks big here but is not worth anything as a specimen or as opal, not big enough, but still nice to see one I don't often find this sort of thing.

Now the Alinite has crept in across the face again, at this point it is not too hard, but still slows me up as I have to reduce the cutting head rotation speed so the teeth can cut thought it without to much vibration.

Now the Alinite is about 14 inches thick and almost right across the face and it is getting very hard again, but the level is settling down and looking good at this point, if it keeps like this anything can happen., even thought I am not finding much in the way of material (potch) this is opal bearing ground and can come in at anytime, so just have to keep the eyes open.

The Alinite has now come in from the roof as well as being across the middle of the drive, but the middle part is also getting less is size which is good for me, but the ironstone level is now a bit messed up through the Alinite being present above it.

Now the Alinite has gone crazy here, it is very hard and has some thin bands of gypsum running through it which adds to the strength, also the there is some Concrete come in as well, for those of you that are new to this newsletter, we call it concrete because it feels like concrete and is about as hard and abrasive as the real thing.

This photo shows how much I have tunneled through the Alinite that is in the roof, I have also just run across some trace just at the bottom of the Alinite on the right hand side, as it white potch it is impossible to pick up in this photo from this distance, but I can see it very clearly when behind the machine working, nothing comes into the face that I cannot see or miss if I am paying attention to what I am doing, the Alinite across the middle is petering out and is turning into nobbies of Soapstone which is also hard stuff to cut through.

This is a close up shot of the potch, small pieces they are, was hoping it may have lead to something but soon fizzled out again, but it is encouraging as I have not seen any for a while, in fact this is the first since the little Belemnite  earlier.

There is what looks like a cavity coming into the face, looks as if I am about to hit a old drive in front of me or a shaft, but there is none, so be interesting to see just what this is and I have been picking at some trace on the far right of the photo just under the level, but again no color nor very big.

You can see that the ground here under the opening and to the left of it has sort of sagged and the ground is sort of soft in that small area and there is some gypsum crystals growing in the cavity, the things we see that Mother Nature makes, it truly is marvelous under here working in this type of ground.

There is also a small piece of potch here and I did pick a bit from the right side as well, but again nothing to get excited about, as yet anyway.

And here is a close up of the Gypsum Crystals still growing in there little dark and shut off environment, here tat this depth the ground would be 120 million years old at least, I have no idea how long it takes for this to grow, but they are growing on top of gypsum, I have never seen this before myself so I thought it would be nice to share my unique experience it with you.

This is how it looks now with the new drive along side the other one, who knows I may even go back in that one to have another go at reaching that shaft and opening up, now the hot weather is starting to come in, wait and see what happens in this drive first, but I did drill up thick skin shells in the shaft in front of the drive on the right, so I am keen to get there and open up for a look around to see what else is in the area, but this drive has to produce something, if it does than I will do another to the left of this and probably another as well, as you can see I have not left much thickness in the pillar as it is called between the two drives, this is so I will not miss much and I can always drill in there after or do my own Pillar Bashing as it is called here.

Wouldn't you believe it, today of all days I left the camera card at home, forgot to take it out of the computer, so I took an empty camera to work, I struck a small pocket of skin shells to the right of that cavity above and just on the level, most of them were very thin and with no color, but I struck one that was a whole shell and was Green Crystal. So as I was digging it out I was just putting it all in my tray and when I got home and tumbled it all I was surprised to find 2 more in there, one was with color and the other was just potch (top) with a trace of color on the bottom and round the front edge, the one that I saw first in the face is the one on the bottom left, just goes to show the reason why I bring all of what I dig out of the face  home and tumble it. If I brought home just what I saw I would have lost one of these shells, we cannot afford the time to go though all of dirt we dig out underground to see what is in there, that is what our tumbler is for, so when I am on material or opal, I just dig it all out and put it in the bag, when there is no more left that I can see I then carry on tunneling till I get to some more, hopefully.

This is the first shell, now it has been cleaned up some in the tumbler, I can see that thee is some dirt inside on the top end, but apart for that it all color, a beautiful green/blue, the bottom half of the shell is from 6 mm to 9 mm thick and all full color.

This is the seconded shell and it has natural separation lines in it, so the shell will be in pieces and not fit to be sold a as complete shell, it is full color all the way though, would like to find a seam pocket of this crystal, couple hundred ounces would do nicely.

Now we have gone past that cavity and I have more Alinite coming in again across the face, just when I was hoping that I would find a pocket of opal, but now any trace that was present has disappeared again.

The Alinite is getting bigger in area and it has also turned hard as well, now have to slow down the cutting speed again.

Getting worse and it has also started to come in from the roof again from the right along with some Concrete, now I am really slow as the middle cutter are struggling to make a dent in the Alinite, the other cutters are all right if I can just get the machine to dig into it.

Now it is really bad, 3/4 of the face is Alinite with some gypsum lines running through it, have just about come to a stand still right now as the machine is not making much headway, but not long before I took this photo I went up the drive next door and had a look at where the Alinite finished in that drive and although I did not measure I figured it was about 2 or 3 feet if I was lucky, so I do not have far to go and in the other drive I was on material just past this Alinite so I am hoping that there may be some opal in front, as I have found some color in here with the 2 shells.

Well disaster has struck again, all of a sudden the cutting head was making a squealing noise and the head jammed, so I pulled the machine back after I had stopped everything and this inside cutting plate fell out, on inspection at the front, the shaft has broken on the hydraulic motor that this cutting plate hub is bolted onto and also the 3 teeth that are in the center of the machine have lost the Tungsten Tips off them, so this is why the machine all of a sudden slowed right up.

This breakdown is due to the hard ground I have encountered in the last 3 drives, the machine was doing a lot of jumping and vibrating in this ground here which must have put a lot of stress on the shaft, now I have pulled the machine back to the start of the drive so I can pull the Hydraulic Motor off, could have done it where it was , but when I can walk round to the front of the machine it makes the job a lot easier and the break is not a clean break, it has been going for a while I can see that the shaft was  cracked for a while before it let go in this drive, you can now see the full face in the drive and all of the hard Alinite that is in the face, I will fix everything again and continue in here as I want to have a look at the other side of this lot.

Here is the Hydraulic Motor with the broken part of the shaft present, I replaced this shaft when I first got the machine and was going through it and re-modifying a few things, it was leaking oil for here or I should say it had been so I took this shaft out and found that there was were on the shaft and where the key is on the shaft there was also damage from the hub not being fitted properly at some point and the seal at the front was worn out so I had the shaft replaced at a cost of $900.00, but things do not last for every and we must expect these things to break now and again because of the job they do, so no point in getting upset about it although I am not happy, but is part of the job, no sooner find a bit of opal and it will be spent of repairs again.

This is the very center cutters of the machine, they start off the middle when I push the machine forward, as you can see the Tungsten tips have completely gone, I never thought for a minute that I would ever have to replace these teeth, now I have to go to Ross's workshop and order some more, as we do not catty these type of teeth here in town they are special teeth, this time I will order 2 sets of them, just in case this happens again and I did not even keep a copy of the part numbers so we will have to find them again in the catalog, then I will keep a record of the numbers for future reference. I will also make another of these center cutters when I get the teeth as I made this to screw in and out, so is very easy to replace if you have another to put in its place, but if I have to order the teeth and then cut these or one of them off, then it could be 3 to 5 days out of action, so this has made me think different now, better to carry a spare so I can carry on working and then I can order the teeth in future without loss of working time an can repair it when I have a day off.

I had to go down to Port Augusta, which is some 545 kilometers ( 338.5 Miles ) south of here to see a Specialist Doctor/Surgeon about my right foot, I have been having problems with it for about 5 months now, been causing me to limp a lot after I have been on it for a while, I think I may have damaged it working along side the tunnel machine when my right ankle was on an angle while I was working at the face on the left hand side of the machine but I am not sure, saw the local doctor here and had a x-ray taken, and it showed what looked like a bone chip at the back on the ankle that had come off from somewhere. So I had to make this appointment with this Orthopedic Surgeon so he could take a look and maybe I can get it operated on and fixed, so this is why I had to make this long trip on the 25th and stay there overnight, get some more x-rays done the next day at 11:15 and see the Doctor at 12:10 and then come home in the afternoon, in the meantime we did some shopping in the afternoon on the first day in our spare time for items we can not get here in Coober Pedy. We had a bit of bad luck on the way down to Port Augusta, about an hour and 3/4 out of Coober Pedy I hit this Kangaroo, it was about 8 am at this time, normally they are well back in the scrub by this time, but this jumped out from behind a small bush on the left side of the road and I braked and would have missed her, yes it is a female, blue in color, but she turned and was starting to hop down the center of my side of the road in front of me, of course this happens in quick time and I was on her before I could slow down any more and then hit and run over her. Even if I had been able to slow down some it would have been curtains for her and I will not swerve for any animal on the road that is smaller them me anyway, would not want to lose control and roll my vehicle because of that, and any knock to these animals is death to them because of the way they are built, I have had to put them out of there misery before because of a broken leg, I may or may not mentioned that I used to be a Professional Roo Shooter between 1968 to 71, but that was in my younger days and would not wish them any harm now as I love the Kangaroo's always have though they are a magnificent animal, specially when you can see them in full flight, very graceful and wonderful to watch, so I was sad to have killed this beautiful animal.

But there is some good that came out of this tragedy, after I had hit this Kangaroo I decided to go back to see if it was alive, if so I would have ended her suffering but she was dead as shown above, so I turned her over to check her pouch to see if she had a Joey ( baby Kangaroo ) which she had, from experience I know that most of them do have a Joey in the pouch most all of the time, but it is how big they are and if they can be saved. This little feller is what I found in her pouch, I took him out and gave him ( yep, he's a boy ) to Pat in the vehicle and then went and pulled his mother off the road out of the way of traffic, then I went and inspected him and he is in good shape, not a bit of damage or a mark on him, which alone is a miracle, it is a wonder that he survived the impact when I run over his mother as you can see above how she ended up and he was underneath her at the point and never got squashed as I went over her. Then even though he did not get killed in the impact, he did not suffer any broken limbs as you can see, if he had I would have had to kill him straight away, as he would not have survived the rest of the trip that was in front of me to Port Augusta, which was about another 4 and a half hours away, bad enough when he is in good shape like he is.

This little feller is I think around 5 months old, he is just starting to grow his fur and his skin right now feels like velvet, lovely little feller, makes me sad that I killed his mother, but that could not be helped, now I have to help this guy, we called him Coober, he is very alert here and his ears kept moving around listening to what was going on a round him. We know that in just about every town you come to in Australia, there will be some one who looks after these little orphans that survive road accidents and this is what we have to find in Port Augusta, someone who can rear and look after him, they take special looking after at this age, I know I have tried when I was a lot younger and was not successful, the longest I had a Joey for was about 2 weeks and it died on me, they have to be kept warm which is the easy part, but it is the feeding that is the problem, it is a babies formula that they use but things are added I believe and they have to be feed like a baby about every 4 hours I also believe, so it is full on job they take on and are really dedicated people who love them very much or why else would they do it. When we got to Port Augusta we first went to the Tourist Bureau and Pat went in and asked the question "where could we take this little feller", they told her that we could take it to Transport SA, which I must say I though a bit strange as that is where we go to pay for out vehicle, boat, trailer registrations etc, and it was in the middle of the maim shopping area, so we went that and again Pat got out and was directed upstairs, which turned out to be the right place, they rang a person who would come and pick the Joey up and look after it until it was big enough to be put in a park there, and they ( 2 girls ) got special little blankets out to wrap him in and a special bag that you can carry over your shoulder and he lies in it just like in his mothers pouch, so he feels right at home, not quite the same I should think as he cannot have drink when he feels like it, but as good as, under the circumstances. Pat was saying when she saw this photo after we got back home, just how long his legs are and they do look very long here, but this is the normal size, most of you would have never seen a little Baby Kangaroo like this, which is why I have done this write up about it, I have seen hundreds of them, as when I was shooting I would have killed this Joey as he could not have survived by himself in the bush and a wild cat or Fox would have got him in no time, but he would not have last more than a few hours outside his mothers pouch in the wild, with no milk or warmth, in fact this guy cannot even stand for very long by himself, never mind jump, so I am happy to save him.

Here is a close up of him, makes you wonder what is going through his mind, this photo I took while Pat was inside this Transport Sa, where we left him, I wanted to take a couple more of him upstairs with Pat holding him like a baby, as that is how you hold them in your arms, but the camera batteries were just on dead, so I could not take any more photos of him, still I got 3 good ones so that will have to do. I have just rang this Transport, SA ( 29th, late afternoon ) and spoke to one of the ladies that took him off us, I wanted to get the phone number of the lady who came to pick him up and take care of him, but she would not give out that info, she did say that she would ring her and get back to me next Tuesday with the information which I hope will be a phone number, as it now a long weekend here in Australia (again) but she did say that she knows the lady personally and that the little Joey has survived. So I will get to know more about him next week, these little fellers always create interest when you have one in your possession and every body wants to see him or touch him, but we would not let anyone touch him as he would still be is some sort of shock I should think anyway, when we was still about 170 kilometers out from Port Augusta he was trying to find his mothers teat for a drink of milk and was making little bleating sounds to let us know that he was hungry, but there was nothing we could do about it, he just had to stay hungry until we could get where he could get looked after. I would have brought him back to Coober pedy as we have a animal park here and a lady here also raises baby Joeys, but it was the feeding of him that we could not do to get him back here alive, as I said the keeping him warm was not a problem but the feeding was, so I had no choice but to leave him in Port Augusta.

I don't know if I told you that I have a bad right ankle and have for some time now, I think I caused some damage to it while I was working with the tunnel machine in the beginning, when I was standing at the front of the machine on the left hand side picking in the face, my right ankle used to be on a angle stuck between the side wall and the track and after a few months my ankle use to kill me when I got home and took the boots off, on the other side of the machine I used to take a different stance  as I am right handed, so that foot was in a different place on the machine and side wall and the left foot did not sit in between the track and the side wall  like the right did, so I had and have no problems with the left foot. Turns out this specialist I went to see in Port Augusta is no use to me, he specializes in hips, shoulders and knees, not feet and ankle's, so he has written me an referral to see another specialist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, so I have to ask the hospital to make me a appointment with this specialist, then they will send this information so right now I have no idea when this will happen, but will take a while as I do not have any private insurance, so I will be put on a waiting list. In the mean time I will carry on and do what I can, the motor I left in Port Augusta to get the shaft replaced, turns out that this guy was going on holiday for week starting last Thursday in Broken Hill and will be back at work on Wednesday next week, I had no choice but to leave it with him as it is a long weekend here with next Monday being the holiday, so if I had brought the motor back I would I would have had to find someone in Adelaide and I could not have sent it there until Wednesday night. So by the time they got it and pulled it apart and found out what the shaft was and who to get it from then ordered it from Melbourne etc, I would have not saved any time at all, this way this guy had already found out what part it was and has ordered it so it will be there for him when he returns back to work next Wednesday and if I am lucky it will be on the bus that night, Thursday night at the latest and I will have it the next morning. So I will be back in business late next week and I will continue in the drive that I broke down in due to the hard ground, I do believe that I do not have far to go to get through this hard Alinite, 2 or 3 feet I think, and in the drive next door I have some material in the side wall, so I am expecting some in this d rive once I get past it and perhaps some opal, will have to let you know how I get on in the next update. 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. To return back to the Archived Page for more Updates click, Here!

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