Starting a new mine

Im starting a new mine I thought if anyone is interested I could show you the progress as we go. I'll try and explain things and answer any questions. Which is difficult sometimes as my internet is pretty ordinary. Its taken me a week to get this video up bear with me and i'll do my best.

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/h5hRSK13UMY[/video]

COOL!! Please please keep us posted. I am so keen to see how you go! Hope you hit a big one!

Hope you have tent space for all of us that might want to drop in and have a tour and a drink
Keep then coming mate

This should be an interesting thread to follow.
Not much feature visible in the ground yet, what depth have you bottomed on?

In 1983, a Calweld drill shaft was $2.50/foot, bet you wish it was still that price.
Costly enough in those days though.
Mike

Starting a mine 2

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/PlpDRUNjpMc[/video]

Deginitely interested mate. All the best to you :Y:

Good luck bud. Cheers

Very interesting vid.

Very interested, thanks for sharing. Good luck with it.

Mike I bottom at about 46 feet the drill is about $25 a foot now this hole he would have made nothing out of the three or 4 foot of silcrete was about the hardest Ive ever seen It broke his drive chain which are about 1000 bucks each split his radiator and cracked both sides of his ring gear so not a happy driller.

rodney said:

Mike I bottom at about 46 feet the drill is about $25 a foot now this hole he would have made nothing out of the three or 4 foot of silcrete was about the hardest Ive ever seen It broke his drive chain which are about 1000 bucks each split his radiator and cracked both sides of his ring gear so not a happy driller.

Click to expand...

Tough town to be a driller when you have heat like that and rock that hard.

Its also the abrasive index that affects drilling costs as well as the hardness.

Do you know what the cerchar index rating is for the silcrete?

I believe the driller said it was f&%king hard

Very interesting M8 keep the vids coming :Y: :Y: :Y:

Thanks Rodney, going to enjoy following your progress with that mine.

Actually, plenty of things have gone up x10 since 1983 so the shaft cost is not so unreasonable. Bugger though when you have to wreck the gear to get through silcrete.
Don't suppose you could have cracked it with a few small shots?
Had a bit of experience with silcrete in SW. Qld. opal mining. Nitropril the only economical way to deal with it, but its a fair bit different when you have to collar a shaft

Mike

Mike Blowing it would have been great But if they catch us with explosives these days they throw away the key I dont think there is anyone left on the field with a license they put the cost up so high know one can afford to keep it The last time I had a bloke do it cost me $300 a shot

Hey mate how are things progressing..promising I hope cheers

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/nljWx1m4jlk[/video]

Looks promising something you can follow..How are you digging, are you using electric jack picks or air..whats better do you have a preferred type. Cheers

Gemo I am using electric jackhammers at the moment I am just using the redback brand from Bunnings they go alright and are cheap. Air hammers are good I just find electric a bit easier I normally don't do a lot of hammering just to bell out and make a big enough space to be able to assemble the digger but I won't be able to use the digger here for awhile. Normally we put a second hole down and ream it out to 46 inches that's how much I need to fit the digger down but the ground here is so hard I haven't been able to con a driller in to doing it yet.

Rodney.
When we mined at the 9 mile in the '80's we picked up on a fault line which extended from a nearby claim.
Got some good colour out of it, was actually one side of a palaeo channel according to the fossil wood debris in it.
Any chance you can do similar, depends on the field of course.

Looks like you have potential there with the potch lines, worth pushing on.
Our original show at the Pony Fence was pretty shallow, only about 20ft. but some top stone came out of there.
We eventually just ran out of ground.
Mike

Mike not exactly sure what the channel is yet it was all burnt looking ground with a lot of powdery black ash. The colour I drilled was a couple of metres away from where I think the channel was this ground is nothing like the 9 mile or pony fence some very nice stones came out of both those fields I hope you got your share.