Smallman Clips

[inbye]

I've had this for donkeys years, it's either an expensive paperweight or more likely, a salesmans model.



It's about 7.1/2" in length & the rope it's clamped to is about 3/8" in diameter. Fully working & accurate to the last detail, even has the replacable jaws that grip the rope.

Nowhere near as heavy tho'.......you knew about it when you'd carried a couple of these down a roadway, where you had to stoop
Anyone else come across one? Must have cost a fortune to produce...

[John]

Been years since I've seen one of those!!
There was a drift from pit bottom down through a major fault at Clifton. It was long and ranged 1in4 to 1in6 in places, all in all 3/4 of a mile long. All supplies went down that drift and it had a large diam endless haulage system. Supplies used to go down at night.
Also sharing the drift was a Cable Belt carrying all coal to pit bottom!
Yep you guessed it, a full set of supplies including an AB 16 haulage, rings, lagging boards and other supplies got loose one night, damage done, Cable belt severely damaged, two main feeders chopped, rails tore up and plenty of rings ripped out!
On any given night, you could check the Smallman clips and find a couple the wrong size but adjusted to fit the larger rope, but this night "Cowboy" and his crew had used all the correct clips!! How lucky could they be?? That was the first thing the Senior Overman looked for, wrong clips in use!!
The pit lost about 48 hours of production and power was off until the two cables had been jointed, about half a shift in all for them.

I also forgot to mention, an outbye fitter was walking down the drift, a fair way ahead of the supplies, he heard something so ducked into a manhole, shortly followed by the sets travelling at high speed passed him. Amazing too, the warwick safety devices were ripped out by the shear force of tons of supplies hitting them withought derailling too many tubs, jotties etc.

[inbye]

OK, John........give in........what's a *jottie*? Never come across that word before...

[John]

Aug 9, 2008 12:00:21 GMT -5 inbye said:

OK, John........give in........what's a *jottie*? Never come across that word before...

It was probably a local pit name. Basically it was a tub chassis with boards on it, it could also have side arms or stakes for carrying rings, or as a flatbed to carry shearer sections or gearboxes etc.

[philipford734]

When Point of Ayr used ponies we used the clips on incline haulage ropes. By using clips the rope was able to be run close to the floor, this made it safe for the ponies to draw there loads to the bottom of the inclines. After the ponies where withdrawn the clip ropes where replaced with othere haulages as time went by. One thing that did remain though was that all the inclines where always called a clip.

[timberlad]

Ahhhh yes As a timber lad i remember them well what a pain they could be with new rope or even old rope for that matter, we had to walk with the trams full of supplies inbye to the face with a stop stick in hand ready for if the clip came off to shove in the trams wheels to stop it rolling back down the gate , the number of times we complained about them all fell on deaf ears as long as they got the supplies up they didn’t care after all were only timber lads what do we know, although i must admit the trip back down the gate was much faster sitting on the front of the tram riding outbye using our feet for brakes i shudder to think what could have happened but we were young and daft in them days lol ;D

[cornirog]

Can anyone remember the longhandled clips for going around 'Pork-Pie' Rollers?

We had a terrible accident where a young timber lad was transporting some chocks from a face salvage and he couldn't hold the clip onto the rope. The chock ranaway killing a beltman and injuring two others.

We called flat trolly's 'Dannies'. We used to hide the best clips in manholes or in dust...we called it 'Fobbing'.