Mine rubbish dumps

[Donald Duck]

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!!!

[Clive Symes]

I refuse to tell buts its not alone.

[SandyB]

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 ..

[Hooter]

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 

[Clive Symes]

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

[Michael Alexander]

@ Hennie, now thats an interesting tale, what year was that?

[Malcolm Bertoni]

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 . . . . .

[Hooter]

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 .

[Michael Alexander]

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....

[Clive Symes]

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

[Malcolm Bertoni]

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.

[Clive Symes]

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.

[SandyB]

Herewith pics of said tanks .. in the other pic does anyone remeber where this remnant of a plant was ??

[SandyB]

Oh Shee ! forgot to resize .. Oh well they nice and biiig !!

[Andrew Darné]

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"