I have heard crazy stories about stuff that has been dumped on the mine because of security it couldnt leave.Heard stories of boilermakers looking for parts and whilst there were there they would jump start two of the dumped cars and start playing real life bumper cars! Also heard a story of 4 brand new trucks being ordered that someone had forgotten about just dumped in the middle of no were.I know that occasionally when the sea wall broke they would simply block the hole with any near by earth moving equipment and leave it there!Has anyone else seen or heard of any crazy stuff like this?
I know that the earthmoving machines still end up in the sea, only differance these days is that the operator is still in them.
:emot186:
Jim Murray. (or somebody) said to me that they extended the pipes on the old bulldozers before running them into the ocean...that way they could keep on chugging until they were guite deep under the ocean....hehehehe! Bet the Greenies would do their nut if that was done 2day...... image14
I heard that Mike... image14
Hey calm down Greenie....way before your time...and just imagine all the crayfish that got good homes to live in now.... 15_3_27
And no oil needed in the salad-dressing... :wow1:
Gee.... and there was me thinking oil could be found in the ocean.... image20 swink
Ja this crazy abandoning off machinery (cars and earth moving etc) in the desert was common practice during the years of prior to the town being open,
even the german army did it hahaha leaving tanks for us to play in
We dont dare tell the greenies what we got up to at Affenrucken.
And here are are some recent photo's of some of those dumps....
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How much money wasted out there, I believe there were crated clutch plates and other machine parts, still brand new lying over the place.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
WHat a waste!
My 2 cent worth stories. While working at No. 1 Plant during my appieship (seem to have spent a long time as an appie) anyway breakdown occured, bearing failure on one of the crushers, plant comes to grinding halt. No replacement bearing to be found as it was an odd size, only replacement available would have to come from overseas many days or weeks delivery time, besides these bearing prices ran into the tens of thousands Rand price range then. Bob Ferrie then says lets go and look in the dumps as there was an old storage rack there which had been chucked. Drive to dumps, find storage rack half buried in sand, dig dig dig, and on one the shelves buried under about a foot or two of sand, lo and behold the bearing required for the crusher amongst many other bearings, still wrapped in it's grease proof paper, install bearing and plant running again.
Second story. Working at No. 2 Plant (no more appie, qualified now) super low tide occured, riser pipes for plant seawater supply exposed to atmosphere plus sand build up. Plant standing. Many ideas were thought of and attempts made to get water to the plant. One attempt was to take a belly scraper (Cat 641, I think), tie pipes to the machine, fill the belly with gravel/stones and drive it into the sea. Story goes that the machine did get into the sea, but the inflated tyres gave the machine enough buoyancy and thus would not sink for the pipes to be submreged. Get someone to shoot tyres to sink machine, but by this time an alternate water supply had been found as well as the problem with the riser pipes resolved.
My father, Jock, also recounts many a story where they needed urgent spare parts for a compressor or two at Uubvley, thye just went to the scrapyard, and lo and behold you always found the spares there....
Clive Slymes, would maybe enlarge on this one.
Somewhere in the desert is buried a bloody big hook from a bloody big crane that was purchases as a spare!!!
I refuse to tell buts its not alone.
Spares .. old parts .. the Scots blood in me .. refuse to let go of anything i percieve to have some value . In my dept .. we have a top mezzanine floor .. its crammed with anything i think can be used ( result of years of company almagamations and then shrinking ) .. many a time i am proved right over and over again .. even built machinery from bits and pieces .. I do a purge everyyear or so based on sound technology advence .. IOW .. if it dos not fit into the scheme then it goes .. but otherwise i hang on ..
one day , just after sunset we flew in with Hein Neser [ helicopter pilot ] from the ship "Ontginner " and noticed lights at the scrapyard west of Uubvlei . Informing security , it was discovered that a Mercedes truck was scraped , driven there and the lights left on to drain the battery . to prevent anybody who might get the idea to start the truck and drive off ..., the flat battery would suffice
Sandy, it may be the Scots blood in you, tempered by growing up in Oranjemund. I also refuse to throw anything away as I have normally been able to make a plan or fix things with bits and pieces "salvaged" from all over the place.
Example, one night driving back from the beach (in Oranjemund) the waterpump on my Ford Escourt went. Had to be in Port Nolloth the next day, went to the Town scrapyard, liberated a waterpumpfrom a scrapped Ford anglia, fitted that and drove the car home that night & PN the next day, no problems
@ Hennie, now thats an interesting tale, what year was that?
You wont want to know what we did up at Affenrucken when we found and old Landrover at the dump that we managed to get going again and made a race track out of 44 gallon drums on the emergency airstrip . . . . .
Michael
the year was approx 1983 .
but security had to bow before higher authority at some stage .. about the same year . Suddenly ouside contractors eg. the suppliers of CAT , was allowed to reclaim cylender heads , Engine blocks and other Cat parts from CDM dumps to recondition . There was a scrapyard just north of the . 303 gun club. And it was reported that quite a few VW beatels were driven away after a good service - replacing battey & oil etc .
Hennie, that scrapyard is known as the Ringroad Dump.... north of the POH (place of happiness ) security bar, former 303 clubhouse.... about 10 years back, an employee found a parcel of diamonds stashed away years prior ... he got a reward....
Just been reading some of the previous posts, No one else seems to have picked up on the fact that some people beleive that the Tanks in Oranjemund are of German Origin.
They are actually American but some were also manufactured in the UK and other allied countries
The M4 Sherman weighed 32 tons, had a crew of five, a speed of 29mph and fuel for 100 miles.
In addition to its 75mm or 76mm main gun it had a typical setting of three machine guns, one in front, one parallel to the main gun.
Some had an anti-aircraft heavy machine gun on top.
There were also many variants of the Sherman for every possible role, such as various engineering vehicles.
After World War 2 Shermans served in various armies worldwide and even fought in tank battles ( Israeli army ) as late as 1973.
Also interestingly after the war some were even sold off for agricultural & industrial/commercial uses, & thats how the mine & Oranjemund aquired theirs.
In the old scrap yard in town there was even boxes with tank spares like tracks & idlers etc as late as 1975/1976
Hi Clive
I had some slides of those Sherman tanks. I think they were at one of the dumps at Mittag or Uubvlei - cant remember. Unfortunately moving around, I lost a lot of my old photos and slides. I do remember that the turrets had been removed and some had been modified and had a dozer blade in the front.
Ja there were some in the scrap yard and one particular one I remember was in the sand, just off one of the Haul roads close to the old 103G Plant.
I beleive when the turrets were removed there was still some live amunition from the machine guns in them ( But thats more than likley just a story.)
The Tanks were used as stacker Conveyors to help remove over burden.
Herewith pics of said tanks .. in the other pic does anyone remeber where this remnant of a plant was ??
Oh Shee ! forgot to resize .. Oh well they nice and biiig !!
Old Piet Van Zyl, the very tall man, built a "curved lapper" for the hydraulic workshop for lapping the curved valve plates. This I understand was built entirely from materials reclaimed from the scrap yards in the mine. Quite an engenius piece of "home built" equipment, and it gets the job done.
There's so much potential in the scrap yards... just a pity the west coast cancer has done so much damage to it all... A paradise for "The A Team"
Sandy,
Great photos, if I'm not mistaken the one is of the old Lubecker Scoop ( older version of the BWE)
I saw one operating one one of the other de beers mines some 10 to 15 years ago reclaiming their dumps. When commenting on the fact that it looked like an old Lubecker, I was asked how the hell I knew what a Lubecker looked like.
I told the forman that we used to have one in Oranjemund at which point he said he beleived that the one I was looking at came from CDM .
Strange how othe mines can see the sense in keeping some old machinery running.
Clive .. the B&w pics are ones that your dad developed for me .. here another piece of machinery ..
I see the old anglia in the foreground.
There were so many negatives that we dumped after my Dad died, my mum wanted them dumped because she had no use for them, and they were the last items left in a filing cabinet in the garage.
They broke into my folks place, just after my dad died and we had to pack everything up in two days as well as sort out broken doors, windows insurances etc.
I only realise now how much history he had on film.
History .. quite rightly so Clive .. I have a limited amount of pics of my own and of course stuff that i got from my Mom .. got lots of negs as well but must scan .. tedious job .. I lost a lot of pictures in house fire in 88 but still got negs .. dont know what they worth .. must amke the time ..
I have some slides and some lack & white photos scanned in but definitly not any of the best of my dads work. Did you know he even had some black & white photos accepted and displayed in photographic shows & exhibitions in London.
No Clive, I did not know. I did knew that he made very good photo's. He made my sisters, Marja, weddingpics. I came from Holland specially for the wedding and I remember your mom, trying to make Marja laugh for the photo's. Sorry, off topic.
Here's one of Malcolms snaps, with strange looking Tank machines...
Original Vaccum rigs for removing material fron the bedrock, and the Ovambo's wellie.
Gordon any comments
It's actually a pretty awesome pic and looks like something out of a sci-fi flick!
Thats what I first thought when I took the photo - rather surreal.
WAR OF THE WORLDS THE MARTIANS ARE COMING ??
Exactly what I thought as well. Really looks like photo's taken by Mars explorer! Never seen something like that. Thought about telling the scrap metal scavengers who parade the streets here in Kuilsriver about it, but then again - it wont fit on their stolen shopping trollies!
Here is a relevant link.... nice snap of the tank in the dumps..
LINK: http://www.artificialowl.net/2009/04/diamond-mine-vehicle-graveyard-of.html
Those look like the forerunners to the SuperVacs. They were track mounted suction units. These are all concepts in favour of a "hands-off" bedrock cleaning principal, which reduce the amount of human contact with rough diamonds. I.e. reduce the theft risk.
Interesting monstrosities.
Hi Clive
You dead right . These were the original vacuveyors mounted on tank chassis and with boom mounted flexible rubber piping. Gravels sucked out of the gullies were fed onto the conveyer from where it was either stockpiled in windrows or fed directly into haul trucks. Nice photograph. They were not very efficient or easy to operate.Not cost effective either. Cost a fortune to run. Skin conglomerate was found quite widely throughout the schist bedrock gullies. Only an inch or so thick, it stuck like glue to the gully sies and bottom and had to be removed with hand held steel scrapers, hammers and picks. Vacuveyors could not deal with this.They could never have replaced the bedrock cleaning gangs.
Regards, Gordon