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Post by johnh on Jun 25, 2009 8:33:41 GMT -5
Hello I have just managed to get this Old Anderson Strathclyde video up loaded to youtube so i hope this works as its my first try, if it does it is a very good video especially for those who have had plenty of face to face dealings with the equipment shown.
The link is for part 1
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Post by johnh on Jun 25, 2009 8:37:02 GMT -5
Part 2
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Post by John on Jun 25, 2009 11:47:10 GMT -5
Thank's John, brought some memories back!
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Post by johnh on Jun 26, 2009 6:04:50 GMT -5
I was wondering if anyone can tell me why in part 1 the Ambrose gear head on the anderson machine is rotating in the opposit direction to what i would call normal( clock wise as you look at the drum from the roof support walkway) not anti clock wise as shown .
i also noticed a machine cutting coal in the video had the drums rotating the same way
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Post by John on Jun 26, 2009 7:03:19 GMT -5
Where's Daz when he's needed??
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Post by dazbt on Jun 26, 2009 15:09:03 GMT -5
I was wondering if anyone can tell me why in part 1 the Ambrose gear head on the anderson machine is rotating in the opposit direction to what i would call normal( clock wise as you look at the drum from the roof support walkway) not anti clock wise as shown . i also noticed a machine cutting coal in the video had the drums rotating the same way It's A.M.B.R.O.A.S. by the way, but the answer is that both directions of drum rotation were used at various times to suit either seam conditions and the way in which the coal 'gave itself', or where different applications were thought or found to be better suited to a specific rotation, applications such as using shearers in 'ripper ranger' situations was one instance where argument often arose. Obviously the drums had to be designed right or left handed, cutting either roof to floor or floor to roof.
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Post by johnh on Jun 26, 2009 17:12:35 GMT -5
forgive my ignorance but what is Ripper Ranger?
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Post by dazbt on Jun 27, 2009 10:05:10 GMT -5
a 'ripper ranger'; a ranging arm shear configuration that enabled a standard application shearer to also cut out the roadway arch section at a blind end heading. In lower seam extraction the shearer underframe could be in two parts and hinged, the shearer being raised at the gearhead end by means of hydraulic rams away from the base plate ............. hope that makes sense.
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Post by John on Jun 27, 2009 10:11:17 GMT -5
That's one method of stable hole and ripping elimination. I take it that it never really caught on Daz. Seems an awful waste of production time.
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Post by dazbt on Jun 27, 2009 10:53:05 GMT -5
That's one method of stable hole and ripping elimination. I take it that it never really caught on Daz. Seems an awful waste of production time. There were quite a few of them about at one time J, usually they were used on Longwalls that had two shearers. As a possible matter of interest; Rossington Colliery used 'ripper rangers' that had three stage telescopic rams that had a capacity of reaching almost twenty foot in height, they also had three shearers on one Longwall, 101s .......... the mind boggles at times, but the system did work for some.
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Post by dazbt on Jun 27, 2009 11:38:45 GMT -5
Back to the subject of drum rotation; The utube video shows what may be good examples of why alternative drum rotations were used in differing shearer applications, the AM 500 shown was obviously for the mid to higher coal section whilst the Butttock shearer by design was intended to be used for the much thinner sections. The AM500 drums shown are for roof to floor cutting which obviously means that the cut coal was intended to be loaded under the ranging arm onto the AFC. The fact that the seam section allowed the machine to be conveyor mounted and sat on an optimum height underframe with maximum tunnel clearance automatically ensured that there was sufficient clearance under the ranging arm to allow cut coal to flow onto the AFC, so by way of cutting roof to floor the helical vanes pushed the coal underneath. The buttock shearer on the other hand had to be floor mounted in order to best utilise the minimum clearance for the bulky high horse power motor and gearboxes, as a result the bottom of the ranging arm (boom) practically sat on or below the AFC, which in turn eliminated any clearance for cut coal to pass onto the AFC, so the drums were designed to cut from floor to roof and the coal was loaded over the top of the arm. In practice much of the cut or spalled coal in both types of application was loaded in front of the ranging arm. By gum, I can almost taste the dust
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Post by John on Jun 27, 2009 11:43:05 GMT -5
Must have been a headache keeping the face aligned with three shearers! Two shearers, one main 200hp and the other a T/G sumping shearer was bad enough, but never used as designed, ie, they used to meet up around the centre of the face. Makes me wonder how much, if any, manpower was reduced??
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Post by dazbt on Jun 28, 2009 17:28:37 GMT -5
Must have been a headache keeping the face aligned with three shearers! Two shearers, one main 200hp and the other a T/G sumping shearer was bad enough, but never used as designed, ie, they used to meet up around the centre of the face. Makes me wonder how much, if any, manpower was reduced?? I fairly sure that 101s did cause one or two headaches but it did achieve some fantastic production results for its time. I can't recall that it had particular difficulties in maintaining alignment, what it did suffer from as a result of having three AB 16 DERDS 22" Servo machine configurations was intial frequent mechanical / hydraulic haulage failure difficulties, which in fairness earned me a great deal of money in call-outs and overtime as well as experience. Two of the shearers were operating on the same haulage chain and caused allsorts of pretension problems (the T1- T2 problem for those that were bothered by it), which basically meant that the two machines working on the same haulage chain could only work when cutting in opposing directions. The combination of The Barnsley and Dunsil Seam being extracted in one single maximum 14 foot pass provided its own problems and an unequalled rate of floor blow in the gates must have provided someone with considerable management headaches, but that's only a guess, I mainly remember the breakdown overtime and the canteen pies.
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Post by John on Jun 28, 2009 18:40:57 GMT -5
I'm beginning to wonder about Yorkshire fitters Daz, I don't ever recall one single of your chaps ever coming to Clifton Colliery, not even when we installed the first conveyor mounted trepanner way back around 1966 or 67. We were still a "hanger on" to the old Mech/Elec scheme, so being an apprentice electrician spent my days with these machines assisting the Elecs keep them running under the old Power Loader Agreement, ie contracts. Not long after I turned 18, I requested regular nights, wasn't the best timekeeper on dayshifts!! My chargehand, although a Mech/Elec was a green card holder and time served fitter. He admitted when it came to electricity he hadn't a clue, but was fair to middling! to be fair to him. BUT, give him a good AB16 haulage end fault, he was the bees knees, probably would have made a good AB service engineer!! I've been with him in the office prior to the start of the shift, reads the reports and knows right away whats gone wrong with a shearer before he set foot on the cage to start the shift. I'm not saying there weren't better, but I've only seen one better and that was your man in NSW. But we always sorted our own problems out, usually within an hour or so. Two probs I recall that stumped a couple of blokes, but NOT Ken were a seized "chain haulage drum" bearing, although once the blokes were inside the haulage gear case didn't take long to diagnose, and a sheared key in a cutting disk . Both necessitated changing the whole units in situ. The drum was supposed to be a routine change due to missing pick boxes, but after the usual pulling gear failed to shift it, we resorted to Mr Nobels method, which probably caused more damage than helped! Report back from central workshops was it was burnt off, then the remains turned off and the key was found to be sheared in two and dug into the keyway of the drum. Another major face job was after a couple of months the conveyor mounted trepanner "threw" a bottom turret bearing, nice job on a low face!!! Middle of face too, so rather than splitting the machine, it was decided to change the bearing on site. There must have been a ton of coal fines left in there too! It saw the pit out though!
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Post by John on Feb 10, 2010 21:34:54 GMT -5
I was doing some searching the other day and came across mention of a "Mawco" cutter, now I'd heard of that beast years ago, but had forgotten about it. Never saw any pictures or drawings until the other day. There's some piccies of odd shearer adaptations including the Mawson on the DMM site. Real odd looking beast. Ever see one Daz??? Mawco www.dmm-gallery.org.uk/colleng/6103-p62.htmAnother odd beast, the Muschamp "Coal Winner" www.dmm-gallery.org.uk/colleng/6103-p60.htm
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Post by johnh on Feb 11, 2010 4:18:17 GMT -5
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Post by John on Feb 11, 2010 8:44:26 GMT -5
At last they are starting to expand that site. Some great photos on there. I'm looking for more photos for my site that I'm rebuilding, might email them. There is one on the Museum site that has 1950's, absolutely impossible, it's a shot of some switchgear, has to be the 60's as the GEB's are B&F SM2X's or 2/2X's and the 3.3kv breakers are AEI ASF's, all came on the scene in the early 1960's. Plus they are sprayed white, that didn't happen until around 1964. Prior to that, every manufacurer had it's own brand colour. AB=red, BJD=Blue, Metropolitan Vickers =Red, and a crap green, etc etc.
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Post by John on Feb 17, 2010 19:39:55 GMT -5
What was the difference between the AM420 and AM400 shearers Daz??? From what I pick up on a Welsh forum, the 420 was a pig for breaking down.
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Post by dazbt on Feb 18, 2010 13:23:49 GMT -5
What was the difference between the AM420 and AM400 shearers Daz??? From what I pick up on a Welsh forum, the 420 was a pig for breaking down. Good question John, have you got a few hours to spare whilst I ramble through the AM420 Experience, a bitter sweet story of heartache, heart attacks, unbelievable machine performance, success and failure. The first difference is that the AM420 actually existed ......... the AM400 is a figment, the so called AM400 was in fact an AM500. To my own knowledge and that of other Anderson field staff, no machine was ever named AM400 by the Anderson company. The machine that you worked with was an AM500 fitted with a 400hp electric motor. The AM420 was Andersons first hydraulically hauled Double Ended Buttock Shearer, its design remit was to implement a high powered, high speed means of extracting the thinner remaining coal seams. The principle of the Buttock Shearer was based on the concept of having the 'majority' of the machine, i.e. haulage power units, motor and gearheads in a face side, floor mounted configuration, this enabled the gain of approximately 9"+ of height by taking the body, baseplate and clearance off the AFC mounting to be used in beefing up the motor and gearhead ratings to accommodate increased power in the thinner sections. In order to conform with the obviously required PFF (Prop Free Front) limitations the cutting element had to be in line with the gearhead and motor units .......... a bit like a rotary lawn mower, rather than the basic concept of a Conveyor Mounted Shearer with face side offset shearer cutting element .............. and there is where the problems started. Loading the cut coal onto the AFC, in thin seams down to 30" the extremely limited clearance both under and over the ranging gearhead boom castings had to be catered for, steering the machine both in pitch and yaw was a problem, the problem of bringing protected manual controls over the AFC to be accessed from the chock track was a nightmare, the slightest deviation of angular advance in cutting horizon was geometrically multiplied as the machine rolled and shoved the control canopy up into the chock canopies or below the spillplate tops. Another serious problem encountered with the Buttock Concept was that of face-side ventilation, any methane make during cutting was potentially captivated within the cutting element and the minimal area of clearance around a 'within seam' shearer concept ............. and they were only a few of the basic design problems to be faced, the mechanical and electrical technical problems provided in developing this pioneering machine concept were literally endless ......... but when the AM420 was cutting coal at its best or even its optimum it was a world beater in its day (and I doubt that there is anything that would produce coal from similar seam sections at the same rate today), I loved and hated this machine ........... it without doubt put me into early retirement.
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Post by John on Feb 18, 2010 13:55:53 GMT -5
I did find a reference to it Daz, but nothing like your explanation. They called it the "flying pig" Would fly when working, but a pig when causing problems. Sounds like it lived up to that nickname too!!
Odd you say that about the AM400 and AM500, both machines from memory were different sizes vertically, the latter was a huge machine at side of the 400. The 500 had motor diagnostics under a glass window on the cover, the lid was larger and heavier than the 400's. One can never forget the weight of those damned things!!! Although a lighter cover, one did slip through my hands and had to be retrieved from under the machine. The only notes I have now on the 400 are just schematics, pretty basic motor and controls. The 500 needed a book to explain what all the electronics did.
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Post by John on Feb 18, 2010 15:20:59 GMT -5
Just had one of those after thoughts Daz, those machines must have been a nightmare to sump/snake over at the gate ends of an advancing face!
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Post by John on Jul 7, 2011 13:45:00 GMT -5
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Post by wallace on Jan 16, 2016 22:22:46 GMT -5
a 'ripper ranger'; a ranging arm shear configuration that enabled a standard application shearer to also cut out the roadway arch section at a blind end heading. In lower seam extraction the shearer underframe could be in two parts and hinged, the shearer being raised at the gearhead end by means of hydraulic rams away from the base plate ............. hope that makes sense. Hi guys, I came across this old thread when doing some surfing about AB's. It was great to hear of the Ranging Ripper being used. I was the lowly apprentice draughtsman who was given the job of designing the first Ranging Ripper ! The original idea was to take an AB16 Ranging Drum Shearer, stick a couple of rams on a hinged underframe and off you go. 2 or 3 years later - this had become the machine some of you used. During the development work it was realised that the hydraulic rams could not be fitted outside the original profile of the machine so an intermediate, narrow, extension box had to be added to the original machine to carry the rams. At some point I pointed out that having this extension meant that we could accommodate a 2 speed option to allow the drum rotation to be slowed if the machine proved unstable when raised. At that time no one had developed a 2 speed cutting head so some hefty calculations had to be made to find strong enough gears and bearings that would fit in the space we had. At one point we were ready to construct a prototype when someone pointed out that the emergency stop mechanism had to pass through the box! Oops, total redesign! I moved on shortly after the first machine was built so never heard how many were made or how the machine worked in everday use.
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Post by dazbt on Jan 18, 2016 4:51:49 GMT -5
a 'ripper ranger'; a ranging arm shear configuration that enabled a standard application shearer to also cut out the roadway arch section at a blind end heading. In lower seam extraction the shearer underframe could be in two parts and hinged, the shearer being raised at the gearhead end by means of hydraulic rams away from the base plate ............. hope that makes sense. Hi guys, I came across this old thread when doing some surfing about AB's. It was great to hear of the Ranging Ripper being used. I was the lowly apprentice draughtsman who was given the job of designing the first Ranging Ripper ! The original idea was to take an AB16 Ranging Drum Shearer, stick a couple of rams on a hinged underframe and off you go. 2 or 3 years later - this had become the machine some of you used. During the development work it was realised that the hydraulic rams could not be fitted outside the original profile of the machine so an intermediate, narrow, extension box had to be added to the original machine to carry the rams. At some point I pointed out that having this extension meant that we could accommodate a 2 speed option to allow the drum rotation to be slowed if the machine proved unstable when raised. At that time no one had developed a 2 speed cutting head so some hefty calculations had to be made to find strong enough gears and bearings that would fit in the space we had. At one point we were ready to construct a prototype when someone pointed out that the emergency stop mechanism had to pass through the box! Oops, total redesign! I moved on shortly after the first machine was built so never heard how many were made or how the machine worked in everday use. Hi Wallace, what year was the two speed box introduced?
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Post by dazbt on Jan 19, 2016 15:31:37 GMT -5
"we could accommodate a 2 speed option to allow the drum rotation to be slowed if the machine proved unstable when raised."
I found it interesting that in the original design of 'ripper rangers' the conceptual reason for reduced drum speed was stability, rather than a need to increase torque in cutting "rock" as opposed to coal, were any cutting trials conducted to determine the instability factors? Who was the senior design engineer in Motherwell at the time, did Forrest play any part? It's good to have the perspective thoughts behind initial design of coal cutting machinery, occassionally a mystery to many in the field who found themselves with these 'new concepts' thrown upon them, often seemingly without practical experience and sometimes lacking apparent logistical support.
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Post by wallace on Jan 20, 2016 0:44:42 GMT -5
Forrest Anderson was certainly involved but did not speak to the likes of me! He would ask a question of one of the elite from the " Mining Department " ( I think maybe Jim Mowat? who had been a Bevan boy according to the older guys )who would then ask Jock Clarkson, the chief draughtsman, who would in turn ask Jim Brownlie, my section leader who would ask me! The reply would follow the same path in reverse. The reduced speed facility was introduced because someone decided that having a big drum rotating and cutting on a raised underframe might be unstable! No calculations or tests were carried out - it was just accepted that it would be " a good idea" since by raising the drum there was a greater leverage being exerted on the shoes and therefore on the AFC. I'm not even sure that anyone queried whether rock would be cut. I was one of the few draughtsmen who had even been down a pit at that time (Kingshill 2 courtesy of a local youth group trip if I remember correctly after 50 years ) so mining experience was in short supply among the "workers".
After all these years it is great to " meet" people who know what the machine was.
i think this work would have been done around 1967/68.
I am pretty certain that this particular " new concept " IE the Ripper, must have come to AB as a request from someone in the NCB.
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Post by wallace on Jan 20, 2016 1:05:38 GMT -5
Dazbt, In trying to work out when the gearbox was introduced I was calculating back from the fact that I got married in 1970, after I left ABs. Previously I had announced to Jim Brownlie one afternoon that I had to leave work on time that day because I was going to buy an engagement ring. He just shook his head in mock sorrow and advised against it . This conversation took place over the first of the rippers to be built.
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Post by dazbt on Jan 20, 2016 3:52:08 GMT -5
Dazbt, In trying to work out when the gearbox was introduced I was calculating back from the fact that I got married in 1970, after I left ABs. Previously I had announced to Jim Brownlie one afternoon that I had to leave work on time that day because I was going to buy an engagement ring. He just shook his head in mock sorrow and advised against it . This conversation took place over the first of the rippers to be built. 69/70ish sounds about right, so perhaps you were a co-worker of Jim Jardine, Tom and Billy Hogg, McMasters and team. I knew Jim Brownlie, a true gentleman and clever, concsientious guy who put a great deal of effort into his work, it must have been a pleasure to have worked for him. There was a period of problems with "the gearbox", quite a few self destructed but, in classic Anderson style it was put down to a batch of badly heat treated gearing. There had supposedly been an interface between R&D and manufacture in the form of field development engineers (a group recruited mainly from NCB "experienced mining engineers",ex-undermanagers etc)who followed any new development from concept, through surface trials and initial applications. In the early 1970s there was a slight change and a step towards recruiting development engineers from NCB trained mechanical and electrical engineers as well as an effort to encourage underground visits and direct customer involvement for many of the Motherwell drawing office lads, it was often an eyeopener for these guys to witness the normal "abuse" that their resultant efforts in design and manufacture were subjected to in underground use.
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Post by wallace on Jan 20, 2016 12:13:45 GMT -5
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Post by wallace on Jan 20, 2016 12:15:55 GMT -5
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