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Post by Ragger on Feb 1, 2005 15:44:00 GMT -5
Must be getting really old; I can remember faces like this one; I say like this one because I think the timbering was better than shown here. ![]() www.pitwork.net/2003/cambois face.jpg[/img] This face is a machine-cut double-unit conveyor face. |
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Post by John on Feb 1, 2005 15:58:20 GMT -5
I remember being taught about them in mining tech Bill, great on handgot faces, but when tried with mechanised faces, if one side had problems the other side advanced ahead causing problems with the gate road and ventilation.
Clifton, my first pit used to run double units way before I started there. Trev Shaw another electrician, who's Dad and Uncle worked at Clifton recalls all the late 50's double units at Clifton, 15's,8's etc....
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Post by Ragger on Feb 1, 2005 16:06:51 GMT -5
John, one of my jobs when I started working with pit ponies was to keep a double unit face supplied with timber etc. This unit had 4 gates 2 supply gates, 1 main gate and a dummy gate. Both faces were under-cut one way then fired, and waffled off by the cutter, using attachments to the cutter chain that knocked the coal onto a bottom loading face belt.
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Post by John on Feb 1, 2005 16:13:28 GMT -5
The ones Clifton had, just had the two T/G's and a centre gate Bill. In fact the manrider travelled what used to be 15's centre gate, and to get down to 43's face we walked what used to be 8's right hand.
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Post by dazb on Feb 1, 2005 16:13:54 GMT -5
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Post by dazb on Feb 1, 2005 16:21:10 GMT -5
Yep, empty shovels all over the place, just as I remember it as well Bill.
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Post by Ragger on Feb 1, 2005 18:17:58 GMT -5
It's a long time ago Daz, but I recall there was also a sort of plough at the back-end of the cutter and that helped to shove the coal onto the cutting jib as the jib chain went round.
It wasn't the best of inovations but it was a lot better than filling a stint off.
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Post by Ragger on Feb 1, 2005 18:26:44 GMT -5
On second thoughts the plough may not have been right at the back of the cutter; memories going a bit.  Later on at another pit we headed out many faces using the waffler with very good advance rates. |
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Post by dazb on Feb 2, 2005 3:56:33 GMT -5
I have to agree that anything that reduced "spade work" had to an improvement but what an engineering abortion they were, the original termed Waffler that is rather than the later heading fixed precutter with the slewing chains and rams (I could never understand why the name Waffler was given to the latter machine arrangement).
Can you remember the gumflinger / "Gun Slinger" ? (another fitter's nightmare)
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Post by John on Feb 2, 2005 8:05:31 GMT -5
We must have been spoiled, never had any of those things.
I hear the Meco-Moore Slicer Loader was a fitters nightmare too!
Do you know there were thousands of those made from the 1930's right up to the 60's and not one has survived!
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Mick
Shotfirer.
Posts: 163
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Post by Mick on Mar 3, 2008 16:02:34 GMT -5
Hi all i used to work at Gomersal near Bradford,it was all hand filling on double units in the beeston seam.The face was about 24ins high,we had 16yard stints.steel bar and wood props to set.All the faces were wet with about 3 to 4in of water.
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Post by John on Mar 3, 2008 16:17:59 GMT -5
Hi all i used to work at Gomersal near Bradford,it was all hand filling on double units in the beeston seam.The face was about 24ins high,we had 16yard stints.steel bar and wood props to set.All the faces were wet with about 3 to 4in of water. |
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Post by pitsparky on Mar 24, 2011 6:41:39 GMT -5
If I remember rightly in the Northumberland area Wet Money was paid at the rate of one shilling and sixpence per shift and the water had to be coming from the roof,
A princely sum eh.
Malcolm.
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Post by John on Mar 24, 2011 12:00:38 GMT -5
No, water, grease etc allowances were never much, but they did add up.
18 quid a week on shifts and on the face when I came out my time as an electrician in 1968. I left in Nov of that year to work in a clean workshop overhauling electric motors for the same pay and regular dayshifts.
Best allowance I got was "sump time" at Boulby, double time, minimum of four hours. Hated working at the bottom of a 1.2km shaft, but the money made it a bit better, especially if I was on an overtime shift, double double time!
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Post by John on Mar 24, 2011 12:05:57 GMT -5
Incidentally, I have a copy of a photo, albeit a poor copy of a centre gate, I think 15's in Piper at my old pit. Shows how poor the centre gates got in double units. It was also the last hand got face at Clifton!
That gate road was backripped in later years and became our new rope hauled manrider road.
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Post by Sam from Kent on Mar 25, 2011 15:52:03 GMT -5
Water Money, that brings back memories. Used to get 1/-, 2/6p or five bob. Us electricians got the half crown all the time, had a new little Hitler of an overman who stopped mine and there was quite a standoff, but I won!!!
I remember doing a P.M. on a pump in the bottom of the shaft sump, had a job finding it as everything was caked in brown sludge and everything was the same colour
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Post by garryo on Dec 22, 2011 9:28:15 GMT -5
Double unit faces were all the rage before mechanisation, some of the ones I remember were still being used with mechanised (shearer) faces at the same colliery in thin or difficult seams.
For seams up to 2ft 2inches a typical double unit face would be 200yds long with each side being 100yds long.
Worked on a cyclic system, night shift cutting with 6ft jib, day shift hewing with windy picks and afternoon clean up and move timber and face conveyor over. One advantage over the mechanised low faces was that the double unit never missed a coaling shift.
A further examle of a double unit at the same colliery was as follows. Double section seam eg bottom coal 2ft, stone band 2ft,and top coal 2ft. Total 6ft with sometimes thicker coal or thicker band. Face double unit each side 80yds and fitted with a steel Coulish Walker chain conveyor.
The face hewers about 20 on either side would first hew the top coal and load onto conveyor, then they would hew the band and throw it over the conveyor into the goaf, Snap time plus quick game of cards then back onto face to hew bottom coal and load onto conveyor. These guys were paid by the yardage so when the coal was good they made good money. When the band reached about 3ft 6in the system was changed to board and pillar.
The shearer was used in the same seam where the band was only 6inches.
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Post by colly0410 on Mar 5, 2015 14:47:53 GMT -5
This unit had 4 gates 2 supply gates, 1 main gate and a dummy gate. What was a 'dummy gate' & what would be it's use? |
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Post by John on Mar 5, 2015 15:39:49 GMT -5
This unit had 4 gates 2 supply gates, 1 main gate and a dummy gate. What was a 'dummy gate' & what would be it's use?
Just a guess, but one going through the goaf/gob from the main road right through to the face line, parallel to the M/G and T/G?? I read of early hand got longwalls where coal from mid face was transported in baskets by kids along gate roads between main and tail gates. Never picked up a name for them, but maybe thats what Bill meant. |
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Post by colly0410 on Mar 6, 2015 17:33:03 GMT -5
I've heard of gas & water drainage gates. Makes sense what you said John. I wonder if it's a gate to improve ventilation to the face? Just a thought..
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Post by John on Mar 7, 2015 12:59:21 GMT -5
I've heard of gas & water drainage gates. Makes sense what you said John. I wonder if it's a gate to improve ventilation to the face? Just a thought..
I term keeps coming to mind "Snicket Gate" could that be the name we used in the Midlands coalfield for an extra gate road through the goaf/gob?? |
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 7, 2015 17:15:56 GMT -5
Always thought a Dummy road was driven in centre of face as a means of helping support,with the packs created from the waste.
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Post by John on Mar 8, 2015 5:51:53 GMT -5
Always thought a Dummy road was driven in centre of face as a means of helping support,with the packs created from the waste. |
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Post by emley44 on Mar 13, 2023 18:02:05 GMT -5
I started working for the NCB at Emley Moor Colliery near Huddersfield in 1976. Before i did my coal face training, i trammed timber in the tail gates. The Beeston seam coal faces were an average of 24 inches thick. The coal was undercut using an Anderson Mavor AB15 with a 6 foot gib. Coal was bored and fired, stints were 18 and half yards in length, except for the corner and main gate stints. They were shorter because the filler had to cast back in those stints. We set wood bars with 3 wood props to a bar and a normal stint used 14 bars and 42 props. The faces had one main gate, a left hand and a right hand tail gate. The face belts on each side were driven by a Fletcher Sutcliffe Wild double unit belt drive in the maingate. Each side had 7 coal stints. An average stint was about 20 tons of coal and all filled with the shovel, whilst laying on ones side. I look back now and although it was hard work, it was a great job.
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