|
|
|
|
|
April 30, 2009
Opal Mining Update - No 94 Nice to be Back, but no Mining Yet |
|
Nice to be back home again and I say that with a smile on my face and a frown on my forehead, the very next morning after we got home and I was still unloading the vehicle and boat, I noticed that the front end loader had a flat tire on the left front and it looked like it had gone down as I had drove out of the front gate.
As you can see the tire at the bottom is all cracked and as far as I can see here it is completely shot, this is the original one that was on the loader when I bought it and I have never had it off, I also see that one bolt is missing and one is broken off, the one that is missing means that at some point in the past someone has stolen it, it has to have the nut removed and the bolt knocked out while the wheel is in the position where the arrow is pointing to the nut. Now to get it off and take it in to get it fixed ands see if they have another seconded hand tire to fit, more money and I have not even gone back to work as yet, in fact it has cost me while I was on holiday, a bit early to start with the expensive's.  |
Also I had this wheel on the tunnel machine trailer go flat on me and I saw that air was escaping from the valve area, so took the valve out and cleaned out the tread with a special tool and put in a new valve, pumped it back up and tried it and it looked good, but two days later it was down again, so decided I would take it to the experts and get it checked and fixed, but as I was about to go an holidays it would have to wait until I got back, so put the trailer legs down and put a piece of wood under the one at the back to keep the weight off the tire so it would not get like the loader one above, as this is also a old tire, the one on the other side is a new one and cost me $180.00 as we can not get these old tires second hand anymore, not around here anyway.
 |
|
Here it the wheel off the tunnel machine trailer, too big and heavy for me (getting old and weak) so I have to use the winch to lift it for me and I just help it over the side of the truck and let it down, now to take it to the tire people and see what is what.
So they took the valve out and put the tool in again and cleaned it again just like I did and put anew valve in just like I did and then pumped it up to 40 lbs and sprayed it with the soapy water to see if it was leaking and it wasn't (then) so brought it home again and put it back on the trailer, next morning it was back down to 15 lbs, sop took it off again and back to the tire man and he finally took it apart and found that it had a 1/8th hole in it near where the valve is joined to the tube itself, the tube protector was covering this hole and stopping most of the air from escaping so was hard to pick up, have ordered a new tube and will be here this Thursday and then it will be fixed and I will put it back on the trailer and hope that I do not have any more problems for a while.  |
|
So while I was on holidays Ross had to do a couple of things for me and one was to build a new 58 degree elbow with a wear plate in it for the top which connects to the hopper pipe and put a wear plate into one of the rubber elbows I have, this elbow is for the bottom and made for wet ground which turned out to be of no use really, the rubber tire used was too strong, the theory was that when the wet dirt built up in the elbow you could just hit it with a small sledge hammer and knock it loose then it would get sucked up the pipes, but as the rubber is too strong it did not work and the dirt could not be loosened, so I retired them as they are very heavy to lift anyway, so now I had a metal wear plate put in and now I can use it like a normal elbow when I need it.
The one in the middle is the new elbow and the one at the top is the old one, now I know that you could tell this but had to say it anyway, and as the old and the new are exactly the same but look different in this photo, it is an optical illusion the new one looks longer then the old one, but is not both have 6 segments in them.  |
And another new toy for me, boy I just love spending money, this one is a Sand Blasting Unit, I have a lot of stuff that needs to be sandblasted and cleaned, one is the boat trailer axle and springs and then sprayed with a fish oil which I will do some months down the track, but I need to clean some of the clamps etc that I have to weld on these sleeves before I can paint then with red oxide or the likes to stop them rusting, plus lots of other stuff, nice looking unit.
 |
And this is how it looks from the front, its a very well set up unit, got a pressure gauge, water trap and safety valve, lets hope it works as good as it looks.
 |
I have just taken all of this down to Ross's last week and now I have brought it all home again, once I have the bench set up I will be able at last to work at home, to do most things that I need to do and so will finish the sleeves here at home.
 |
This is the old steel bench Ross sold me for $150.00, worth every penny of it, could not build one for anywhere near that price for sure and this has been built professionally at some stage by the looks of the legs, I brought it home on the truck and have just slid it off here, now to get a friend to help me turn it up the right way and get it in place, then I can start cleaning the bench top as it has spilled paint etc on it, Ross has had it out side for many years, used it for cleaning items on, so I will just clean the top and paint it and then set it up the Vice and Bench Grinder, then put a shelf in and I am ready for action.
 |
As for that loader tire I was lucky that the rims are 16 inch and that some second hand tire are a available for them, so they found me a couple of reasonable tires off a Toyota Landcruser (like mine) and so now I have a matched pair on the front and replacing them in the future if need be will not be a problem and they are better than the originals, they cost me $60.00 for the pair fitted, pretty good, now when I get some money and I mean money not pocket change I need a pair for the rear, no idea what they cost now, but last year I could have got them for around $700.00 each, now who knows.
 |
This is where I have decided to put the bench as there is a window for light here, Pat recons I am making a mess, but it will clean up when I am finished sandblasting the top, then I will paint it just to make it look a bit better and stop it from rusting again in the short term, put a shelf on the bottom with some timber I have had for years, just have to trim it a bit and slip in in and drill holes for the bench grinder and vice, fit them on and the job on the bench anyway will be done.
 |
Bench finished, takes me longer then it should as my feet are getting worse, hobbling around like an old feller I am, will have to see the Doc here and try and get an appointment to see a specialist about this bone spur on my right heel, this is what is making me limp on that foot, and my left knee is shot and needs replacing, but that will have to wait a while before I worry about that, anyway what I have to do next here is to put a couple of boards up on the wall on either side of the window so I can hang tools etc on them and then put a shelf up and it will be finished, the fridge next to the bench is no good so I use it to store things in out of the heat and dust, comes in very handy.
 |
And this is a view of the side of the house, lots to do here, I have to clean out a lot of stuff, Pat has been on my back for years, now I will have to do it, the timber in the foreground left is some that I bought about 9 years or so ago for putting bench tops on what I was going to build in one of the sheds I got at the back that I put up, but never got round to it, now I just store mining gear in them, so one I trimmed up for the shelf on the bottom of the bench, I have to take on wide one and cut it up to put up there two boards next to the window, but as for the rest I do not know where it is going to go, we do not throw out things as they may come in handy in the future, so may just have to re-arrange things and do a bit of cleanings so it looks a bit better for a while, will take me a few days as I only work for around 3 hours per morning and that's me done for the day.
 |
|
Well its the Easter long Weekend here again, seems like there are a few travelers around and we have our Easter Parade down the main street on the Saturday morning, then thee is the Opal Festival on at the Oval which is just across from our house about 120 meters or so, Pat and I do not go to it, as she works and does not get home till between 2 and 3 and I do not feel like walking around with my feet so we do not bother which is a shame in a way.
Still they do have fireworks on at night and we have a front row seat as they light them outside the oval fence straight in front so we get to see everything and this year the Fireworks were the best in my opinion, just brilliant for this small town and they also had a Acrobatic Plane doing his stuff this year, of which I got some photos of him, bit hard as I had to have the camera in Zoom so I could get a close up shot of the plane in action but keeping him in view was very difficult, but I think I got a few good shots worth looking at.  |
I took a lot of photos while he was performing, the worst about my camera is that when I take a photo it locks the lens on the shot while it process it and then I cannot follow the plane so trying to pick it up again while he is doing maneuvering at the speed he is doing is not easy when in the zoom mode, but while in the zoom mode although not the full zoom of 18 to 1 (you need a tripod for that) its also getting a good photo that is in focus and not blurry, so only about half were good and he did not stay for long around 5 minutes I should think and then he went back to the airstrip and was fished for the morning.
     |
He did come back in the afternoon and did another stint, he was very good at what he did and a nice looking little plane as today is Easter Sunday he did come back again this morning but I had the camera batteries on charge and by the time I got the camera back in action he would have been half way through his act, maybe he will be back again this afternoon when there will be Football Match on, still life goes on for the rest of us, me I will be back outside tomorrow for a few hours and Pat will be back at work earning our next holiday, so not everybody gets the long weekend off, but then who wants to sit on there ass for four days doing nothing, bad enough sitting on the computer for a few hours, but I love it or I would not do it.
   |
|
Well I did not get to go back outside after all, this sore that I had got on my left ankle through the new boot rubbing on it has got some septic in it and is taking its time in healing up and as I do not like wearing there Japanese Safety Boots (Thongs) I have done a morning wok with them in the so called new workshop and as it involves walking on gravel it is not safe for me with this limp I have so will have to wait until it is healed up some, before I can try the boots on again.
Well it took just over a week for the ankle to heal up so I could get the boots on, so now I am back in action and doing a bit in the mornings, still a lot to do in moving the old stuff out and then will have to sort through it before putting it back in its new place, the so called workshop. So now the bench is finished and I have cleaned out the back, I am now going to put 2 big shelves up at the back, first I have to buy 2 lengths of 3x2 inch timber and put them up with bolts so I can hand 6 shelve brackets on them, as you can see here I only have one supporting down timber at the back, so I have to put one on either side of that one and I will be good to go, here I have just cut the large piece of timber in half for the shelves, lucky I have had these for years, bought 4 of them in different widths for bench tops that I was going to build in the 2 sheds at the back of the house, but never got round got it, so now I am doing it here, at last.  |
More of my so called rubbish as Pat calls it, most of it will get put on the shelves when they are pout up, some will get thrown out, but not a lot as you never know when you use things here, like the timber, must have had it for 8 or 9 years but finally got to use it, we never ever throw out any bits or pieces of steel of any kind, that is something that we can use at any time and costs a lot of money now to buy so why waste it.
 |
And here we are all finished, Pat has helped me on 2 days when she has had the day off over the last two weekends so got it done a bit quicker and probably neater as well, just a couple of things to sort out and it will be all finished, then I can start again on finishing the pipe sleeves that are now parked at the back there on the left to keep them out of the way for a while.
 |
|
I also still have to take the old fittings of the plastic pipes as yet and cut the ends off and make sure that they are perfectly square with the pipes so they fit together when in the sleeves so they is no gap between them, not going to be easy as most of them are bent, all these black plastic pipes are bent when we buy them, so its not just me, one of the reasons why I set them up in the first place as I did, but now I am in dry ground with this tunnel machine they are no good with the old connections on them as the ends are getting damaged to quickly now with the fine dirt going through them, was better suited for the bigger lumps that you get with hand mining.
So again I have not done a lot this month through the new boots making the ankle sore, did not recon on that and also I have to run the web site, there last three days I have been putting new jewelry on the site and have more here now to take photos of, as I sell for two shops here in town and will have to try and get a couple more in the near future, it is the web site that pays the expensive's for the mining so I must look after it first or nothing else can happen after. And as I have not been that fortunate in finding any opal this last 2 years I have to rely on the web site, if I go back to having Pat support me then we will not be able to have any holidays or any other luxuries we need to wind down here with, I just worked out yesterday that I have had six and half months off mining so far this financial year. (our year ends at the end of June) Next month (May) we are redoing our kitchen out, a complete restoration, we are ripping out everything, the walls, ceiling and ripping up old tiles, have to move two doorways, so a big job and not sure how long it will take as the guy who is doing it for me with me as an offsider only works 4 hours per day like me as he has a bad back, so will take a bit longer, but hoping that it will be done by the end of May if we start at the end of the first week if not, well it will be finished when its finished. I have to go back down to Port Lincoln and pick up this new kitchen as a flat pack, I will be borrowing Ross Chatfield's car trailer to use, its when I get back from there with this flat pack we can start ripping out the old kitchen and thanks to Pat for her working and saving that we can afford this and out holidays, if it was left to me we would be having beans on toast 4 nights week. So I am hoping that I may be able to get back to mining somewhere around the end of June, I still have to find a new spot to put the tunnel machine down as yet, but not going to worry about that until I am ready to go back on the field and have all of the equipment ready for action, the when it is down I can have a run without any problems for a while, a long while I hope. 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! |
Top
|