Hello I am new to the forum and I am posting some of my memories in various forum sections while I can still remember them.
Years ago I did a stint at South Crofty mine (Cornwall) After that I did a stint at a gold mine in Canada so I thought I would write a few lines about the way we worked and the stope I was in,
but first I will write about a young know it all (me) who thought he could show these Canadian miners how to mine hardrock.
By hook or by crook I found my way across the Atlantic Ocean and finally arrived at my new place of work at South Porcupine near Timmins, Ontario.
My first day there was interesting, I was waiting at the shaft head for the cage to take me down when the alarm bells rang, it soon became clear that there was an accident underground, the cage duly ascended with a bloke in it with his leg in bits, Hmm a good start I thought, turns out that he had connected a 3"hose to one of the larger muckers and it was a union fitting and he had got it cross threaded and only on by a turn or so, it came off, you can imagine the rest.
Anyway first day down was basically a guided tour with the shift boss, he took me into a stope that he said that was going to be my home for the forseeable future, there was different machinery in there that I had not seen before let alone operated, "familiar with this stuff" he said "yeah yeah" no problem I replied (gulp) anyway he took me to one end of the stope and said the whole stope has been mucked out and is ready for another lift so a clean slate as it were.
What did I see at the end of the stope but an old Holmans stoper, quids in I thought, I can use one of these no problem.
Used it I did to drill off the cut round in the back of the stope, after drilling I said to the labouror to go and get the dynamite and dets to charge all the holes, "yep he said, but we only use cut saftey fuses for the dets and anfo for charging all other main holes once the cut round has been pulled out" (anfo? what's that I wondered) anyway he came back with all the stuff, we charged up blasted, counted the reports, end of shift all ok.
Next day looked at the cut round, clean out, very nice. Right said my new mate I'll get the wagon drill (Hmm wot's one of them I wondered) duly turned up with the wagon drill, it had two booms ran on air and hydraulics, never used one of these before...bluffed my way through and after about half an hour I was well on my way, this was drilling easy style the only thing to watch out for was all the rock bolts (which were manditory) anyway ended up drilling a bunch of holes working back from the cut round, no worries, charging time, I had never used anfo before, I found out it's not to good to get it in your eyes. I had gone to the magazine myself to get the powder and the rest of the stuff and we charged up ok and fired everything off and retreated (un be known to me I had f***d the firing sequence up) we counted the reports all ok, that's that then that'll show em.
Next morning in the changing room I was told in no uncertain terms by the shift boss that the night shift were after my blood ( I wonder why) the whole lot had fired randomly and as would be expected nothing broke out, what a plonk!
Anyway after a while I got the hang of things ok.
The mining method used on the level I was mainly on was cut and fill, the stope was quite a long one with the mill hole (chute) in the middle of its length, access to that stope was via a level from the main crosscut, that level hit the stope about halfway along its length opposite the mill hole, the stope was worked in sections, when I worked in there we had started in the left hand section, all the mucking done by the night crew and dumped down the mill hole to the next level.
The stope varied in width anywhwere from 10 ft to 30 ft.
Once that section had been worked and mucked we had to get ready for the lift.
The lift basically meant constructing a timber gob fence across the mouth of that worked section which was about 20 to 30 ft from the mill hole, the fence was constructed to suit the hieght of the lift which was governed by the wagon drill etc. I think it was about 8 to 9 ft high, it was made with timber poles lined inside with gapped lagging boards the outside was braced with spruce poles, the inside was then lined with burlap which is like a coarse weave sacking material this was sealed to the side walls of the stope with raw cement and water.
Aladder was then put up on the outside and a timber cat walk was put in from the top of the gob fence all the way to the end of the stope, once all that was done the fill man was called in.
The fill man would connect a 4" flat hose to the fill line and run the hose to the end of the catwalk and open up the fill valve then go to sleep for a few days!
The fill consisted of tailings from the mil, the last foot or so had cement powder mixed with it.
Once filled we had to wait a couple of days or so before walking on it as the top layer of cement scum was very slippery, meanwhile we would be in the other half of the stope rock bolting, we had to put them in on 4 ft centers all over, we made a gage to stand in will drill the verticall holes, the cage would consist of four strong straight spruce poles wedged up to the back of the stope the saftey area was within the four points of these poles and that's were we stood drilling the rock bolt holes, from memory I think the rock bolts were about 5 ft or so long.
The mill hole was a built up with oblong frames of timber, this included a narrow compart ladderoad, each frame was about 6 to 8 " deep, all ultimately surrounded by the fill, the next level below us was a good 250 ft down so you can imagine the state of the mill hole over the years, the ladderoad compartment had long since got blocked/smashed just below us so for any mill hole blockages etc we had to go down to the next level and climb up the ladderoad to find it and free it either by barring or popping.
Once the fill within the gob fence had gone hard we had to build a ramp (rocks, timber,anything) to eventually get the wagon drill etc up on top of the new lift, then it was business as usuall, it was cold down there.
We did the intial mucking with a slusher, we were spoilt we had the choice of two, electric and air, the slusher was wedged up just behind the mill hole, initial mucking of a new lift with a slusher was a hit and miss affair, you could not see the end of the stope from below the gob fence, sometimes the buckett would come back with a cars worth, other times just a pebble!
I have to say it was a bit of a culture shock from good old Crofty.
Lozz.