I have received the following request for help - is anybody able to assist please?

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I am a member of The Australasian Mining History Association and am working on a paper, titled, 'Lifting and winching practices in gold mines in Central Victoria', which will be presented to the Association.

I wish to include some history regarding the use of flat woven metal wire rope for lifting in goldmines.

I believe this technology was in use in the UK for many years before it was exported to Australia.

I would like to know when this flat wire rope was introduced to the UK, and from where it originated before that.

Who manufactured it in the UK and when did the use of Flat wire rope cease. In fact, any history regarding this particular
configuration of wire rope would be of immense help.

Living in the country area of North Central Victoria, I don't have ready access to University libraries (even on-line)
and have exhausted all local resources that are available.

I hope this falls under the area of interest to your assoc. and thank you in anticipation, for any consideration and help you can extend in this matter.

Yours sincerely,
Peter Quinn
Harcourt, Central Victoria
Australia

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Your correspondent probably needs to talk to Mike Gill and Alan Hill - the authors of 'Coal - A Chronology for Britain' published as British Mining No. 94. I suspect you may not find them on AditNow but should get hold of them through the NMRS website.

My personal feeling (and it's only a feeling) is that there were not so many flat-rope winders in the UK in the 20th century. They seem to be far more common in Europe. The winder on display at the Leewarde Mining Museum (the French National Coal Mining Museum) is a typical example. Robbie Vernon's winders in Spain seem to be flat-rope winders.

I have actually seen a flat-rope winder working at a mine in Pachuca in Mexico in 1997. There were still drums of brand new rope in the yard.

Shropshire was fond of flat rope.
This probably fits in with the earlier use of "rattle chain.
Three links of chain fastened together with wooden slats.

Quite large amounts of wire flat rope were found at Snailbeach Mine when reclamation work was done in the 1990s.
One example of re-use was 2ft lenghts being used as steps on a steep footpath!
But they seem to had moved on to round wire rope by the late 1800s

A quick google suggests it is still being manufactured. Penrhyn Quarry used Shropshire made flat chains (Edge & Sons, of Shifnal) in its vertical waterbalances until the early years of the 20th century, when they were replaced by flat wire ropes. They were, I suppose, a sort of friction winder, after all!

Grahami

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I just dug out my trusty old engineers bible ('Machinery's Handbook' - New York 1919) and they mention 2 flat ropes.
1 - Flat Rope: A rope consisting of alternate right and left lay rope strands, each rope strand consisting of 4 strands of 7 wires all sewed (sic) together with a number of soft iron sewing wires.

2 - Flattened Strand Rope: A wire rope having non-cylindrical strands, usually of the oval or triangular type; the centre wire of each strand is an oval or triangular wire.

it also goes on to mention other round section wire ropes made from varying types of steel and iron, and oodles of calcs.

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I've just uploaded a pdf of what flat rope samples we have here at Caphouse Colliery. If Peter Quinn were to get in touch with our librarians via [email protected] they should be able to find something that could be emailed out...

Fascinating Darran - thanks for posting this.

Grahami

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http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/windinghouse/explore-history/winding-engine 
I believe this is a flat rope winding engine, cant see much but one pic shows volunteers in front of the winding drum.h.t.h.

Flat wire rope is believed to descend from the old drive belts used for centuries which were used for lifting purposes when they snapped as drive belts. They were configured for a variety of uses and were used as they were easier and cheaper to make than traditional round ropes. Flat ropes could simply be formed by hand into any length, and as originally they were hand made they were plaited together in various configurations.

If we compare this to a round wire rope we see they need forming to an approximate shape prior to winding the strands together to get them to lock. Once pre-formed and wound together they also need stretching to give them more strength and for them to hold their shape when not under load.

Clearly they didn't have this technology when both flat and round wire ropes were originally made, and as a flat plaited rope had every strand as an outer at various points along its length, it was the original self locking strand rope.

In many countries they lacked engineering technologies and for things such as monorail systems the flat rope was the obvious choice. Rollers were flat bottomed for easy manufacture, and not the round bottomed item that round wire rope requires. This made it easier to obtain ancillaries such as rollers or guides, and for monorail applications it didn't jump out of pulleys or rollers when passing over pylons.