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Post by coalfire on Aug 15, 2008 16:10:16 GMT -5
What continous miners have you all been around? I've been around a joy 12-12, Joy 14-15, Joy 14-10AA, Eimco dash zero.
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Post by John on Aug 15, 2008 16:47:27 GMT -5
Joy 12CM, Jeffrey Dresser 120HR, and 120, difference is the HR is heavier, for hard rock. There's another I can't think of at the moment, had the oscillating cutting head..
Hated Joy's, way too many motors! Same as their cars, too many motors.
Liked the Noyes Hydrocars, one pump motor and everything else hydraulic.
There wasn't a lot of bord and pillar work in the UK coal mining industry Lannie, mostly longwalls, I dare say the majority of fellers on this site have only been in longwall mining.
My first bord and pillar mine was in gypsum, where we drilled the faces with twin boom Secoma rigs and fired down on the solid.
Next was in Potash, drilled with Secoma rigs, undercut with Joy undercutters, fired and mucked out with LHD's.
First bord and pillar coal I worked in was in Australia, then the next pit was using Helimers for development for the next longwall face.
Most of the bord and pillar collieries in the UK were under the North sea or in Leicestershire, and in shallow workings or where subsidence would cause big surface damage.
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Post by coalfire on Aug 15, 2008 21:14:16 GMT -5
Oscilating head. Lets see, who made osclitating heads. Lee norse or we like to refer to them as Leaky norse, Wilcox which later evolved into a fairchild and dosco made some these are some I can think of. You said most guys had never been around "board and Pilar'' which I'm assuming is same as Room and pillar. What did they develope longwall panels with?
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Post by John on Aug 16, 2008 6:38:08 GMT -5
Oscilating head. Lets see, who made osclitating heads. Lee norse or we like to refer to them as Leaky norse, Wilcox which later evolved into a fairchild and dosco made some these are some I can think of. You said most guys had never been around "board and Pilar'' which I'm assuming is same as Room and pillar. What did they develope longwall panels with? Thats right, It came to me last night, the old Lee Norse miners. When I worked in UK pits, we were working advancing longwalls, so the M/G and T/G headings were driven by dilling and blasting on the solid and loaded out using old M&C loaders onto scraper chains. That was in the 60's. When I was transferred to Cotgrave Colliery they were preparing their fist retreat face and heading was done with a Dosco MK1 roadheader, late 60's. In Australia, we used the Heliminer loading into Noyes Hydocars, installing the M/G belt as we advanced two heading entries. The second entry would eventually be the T/G of the next face in line. |
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Post by coalfire on Aug 18, 2008 10:15:18 GMT -5
John, How can you not like a joy? Thats the only miner. Too many motors? I think they only have 7 motors. 2 ripper motors, 2 conveyor motors, 2 traction motors, 1 scrubber motor, if equiped. A joy 14-15 which I consider their workhorse is a very tough miner. Don't care a whole lot for a 14-10 though , not a bad miner just don't care for a ripper chain, I prefer a hard head miner.
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Post by John on Aug 18, 2008 10:45:16 GMT -5
John, How can you not like a joy? Thats the only miner. Too many motors? I think they only have 7 motors. 2 ripper motors, 2 conveyor motors, 2 traction motors, 1 scrubber motor, if equiped. A joy 14-15 which I consider their workhorse is a very tough miner. Don't care a whole lot for a 14-10 though , not a bad miner just don't care for a ripper chain, I prefer a hard head miner. I only worked with one Joy miner and it wasn't a patch on the Heliminer. The Heliminer had two head motors and a pump motor, rarely caused us problems. The Lee Norse was a fitters nightmare! As you stated, leaky old machines. As for shuttle cars, the Noyes Hydrocar beat the Joy's hands down, better designed, just one motor, everything else hydraulic. Even the fitters preferred that car to Joys! Unlike a Joy car with two speeds on haulage and conveyor, the Noyes was zero to max on haulage and the same with the conveyor, far easier to drive, maintain and hardly any trouble. To be honest Lannie, I'm not a Joy fan! I don't know what their shearers and chocks are like, but I see Angus Place is now using them, that was my last pit I worked at. |
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Post by coalfire on Aug 18, 2008 20:56:08 GMT -5
Joy shear, The best. But, only been around one and that was a 7ls, that is pretty much thier standard longwall shear, Joy shields, O.K. 12280 was what I was around, prefer Dbt's shield their face shields are as wide as joy's gate shields. Oh, yeah forgot that joys also have a pump motor as well, duh. so that makes it 8.
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Post by John on Aug 19, 2008 12:19:54 GMT -5
I'm biased, I was brought up with Anderson Boyes machines with a couple of BJD Magnamatics and later with Anderson Strathclyde which was the last name used by Anderson Boyes, so out of those two companies, I much prefered the Anderson machines. Alas, they are now part of the DBT group of Germany, prior to that an American company owned them.
I don't think BJD make longwall machines anymore, they are a branch of the Jeffrey Dresser group.
I spent many an hour around the AB16/125 shearers on low faces, then the AB double ended conveyor mounted trepanner.
I missed the heavy duty trepanners though, although there was one at our training centre for machine courses.
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Post by dazbt on Aug 19, 2008 13:03:37 GMT -5
I'm biased, I was brought up with Anderson Boyes machines with a couple of BJD Magnamatics and later with Anderson Strathclyde which was the last name used by Anderson Boyes, so out of those two companies, I much prefered the Anderson machines. Alas, they are now part of the DBT group of Germany, prior to that an American company owned them. I don't think BJD make longwall machines anymore, they are a branch of the Jeffrey Dresser group. I spent many an hour around the AB16/125 shearers on low faces, then the AB double ended conveyor mounted trepanner. I missed the heavy duty trepanners though, although there was one at our training centre for machine courses. Did you ever work with the original AB trepanners then John? |
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Post by John on Aug 19, 2008 13:13:08 GMT -5
I'm biased, I was brought up with Anderson Boyes machines with a couple of BJD Magnamatics and later with Anderson Strathclyde which was the last name used by Anderson Boyes, so out of those two companies, I much prefered the Anderson machines. Alas, they are now part of the DBT group of Germany, prior to that an American company owned them. I don't think BJD make longwall machines anymore, they are a branch of the Jeffrey Dresser group. I spent many an hour around the AB16/125 shearers on low faces, then the AB double ended conveyor mounted trepanner. I missed the heavy duty trepanners though, although there was one at our training centre for machine courses. Did you ever work with the original AB trepanners then John? No mate, Clifton was power station coal so shearer and the one conveyor mounted trepanner on field trials. We only had that because we ran into geological trouble on one seam, it was to have gone to another pit. Trepanners were used at Linby and Babbington collieries, the only one I saw in "the flesh" so to speak was at the training centre to train fitters and electricians on. Funny how nobody kept manufacturing them, I think Eichoff was the last to produce them several years back. I'm sure I have a picture of an Eichoff conveyor mounted trepanner on disk somewhere. |
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Post by pete1 on Apr 20, 2017 20:22:26 GMT -5
Joy also made 1, 6, 8, 10 and 11 cm miners. the 1 and 6 cm were sumping miners(3ft wide head) the track frame was stationary while the cutter head and conveyors sumped into the coal.
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Post by quimbyj1745 on Apr 22, 2017 2:43:03 GMT -5
Back in the 60s I was undermanager in Warwickshire and not a happy chap. Saw an advert for undermanager with Bellambi coal at Wollangang NSW. I applied, went for aptitude assessment and this was followed by a call to interview. The interviewer explained that the pit was developing its first longwall and needed someone with longwall experience. He then asked have you got experience with Lea Norse miners. I had no experience and so no job offer. 6 weeks later I was offered a transfer to Cadley Hill colliery in South Derbyshire. Cadley worked the Main coal seam, 12 ft. thick on retreat. headings driven 14ft x 12ft by 3 Lea Norse miners working a 3 shift system. The machines proved to be very reliable and were well maintained. That's life for you. however it proved to be the best move I ever made and 21 years later retired at 50 when the pit closed with me as the manager. |
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Post by John on Apr 22, 2017 5:35:16 GMT -5
Back in the 60s I was undermanager in Warwickshire and not a happy chap. Saw an advert for undermanager with Bellambi coal at Wollangang NSW. I applied, went for aptitude assessment and this was followed by a call to interview. The interviewer explained that the pit was developing its first longwall and needed someone with longwall experience. He then asked have you got experience with Lea Norse miners. I had no experience and so no job offer. 6 weeks later I was offered a transfer to Cadley Hill colliery in South Derbyshire. Cadley worked the Main coal seam, 12 ft. thick on retreat. headings driven 14ft x 12ft by 3 Lea Norse miners working a 3 shift system. The machines proved to be very reliable and were well maintained. That's life for you. however it proved to be the best move I ever made and 21 years later retired at 50 when the pit closed with me as the manager. Not much to know about the Lee Norse, apart from it's always been known as a very leaky machine, never could fathom why Lee Norse never cured the problems. We had one at Angus Place Colliery in NSW, was just a spare machine, hardly ever used. That was Australia's first and last longwall for many years, Bellambi installed an AB16 shearer, can't recall whether it was a ranging drum or fixed drum, probably fixed drum with their largest drum made. Chocks were modified Gullick Seaman five legs, I heard the Illawarra sandstone soon put paid to those chocks, face was lost after a very short time. I came close to working there, only the ex wife's illness killed my chances back then. Next longwall was in 1979 at Angus Place, they placed tenders to UK manufacturers, nobody could make the supports specified, so the Electricity Commission of NSW told them they would tender world wide. Gullick Dobson soon designed and produced the shields to the specs Angus Place wanted. Face broke world records from the start with not one experienced longwall miners operating it. The Lee Norse was broken out of retirement at Angus Place to start driving the bottom of the third drift while I was there, close to old Lw1 and Lw2 panels. The drift was completed from the top after I left and carries the high speed conveyor belt. Sadly Angus Place is on care and maintenance now. |
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