The Bucket Wheel Monster

[georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP)]

The Bucket Wheel

[Michael Alexander]

This once proud icon of Namdeb/ CDM .Now lies abandoned in the desert..... rusting in the Namib Sun.....

[David John Long]

The big bucketwheel is dead, but the small one is still bucketwheeling away... think it is just on the otherside of PTF

[Lance Olivier]

Is it true? The bucketwheel lying rusting in the desert. When I worked at sea for DBM in the late 80's and being choppered out to the ship from Alex airport,the bucketwheel could be seen standing out as an icon and the scale of it from the air was quite mind blowing. Very sad.

[Michael Alexander]

Dave is right, the small 400 is lying between the CDM airport and PTF plant, when you are at the airport, just look towards the ocean and on the other side of the pan is the 400....

[Stevie]

The  400 Bucketwheel   is   also   just   standing   baking  in  the   sun . Was stopped when   the   power   became   an   issue along with 4 Plant . Load Shedding

[Gordon Brown]

Remember its commissioning just north of 4Plant. A great day and a feat of engineering.

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

I remember working on the bucket wheel. Had plenty of call outs at night for that thing LOL

[Dalene Steenkamp (Coetzee)]

   The company is cost cutting you say?   Why don't they sell this huge thing to another company and use the money for something else.  Now this massive thing just goes to waste ....

[Alfred Boehme]

I understood that the original bucket wheel was the S400 wheel and a bridge and when they bought the second bucket wheel they got the S800 wheel and upgraded the 400 bridge to handele the tons and bought a spreader car for the original S400 wheel. The S800 (big bucket wheel) is parked outside the 50G workshops and the S400 (small bucket wheel) is resting south of PTF

[Leon Sumter]

when was the small bucket wheel commisioned? Never knew it existed.

[georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP)]

when was the small bucket wheel commisioned? Never knew it existed.

I know the first B-wheel , that was 1974/75, i was involved with the emergency power trailer
Diesel Generator....

[Alfred Boehme]

when was the small bucket wheel commisioned? Never knew it existed.

I will find out and post later

[Clive Symes]

"Original" O & K  Bucket Wheel (SH 400) was Built and commissioned in 1974/75, I remember this as I was working at 4plt E/M workshop and used to work Sundays with Roy Brunskill and Steve Kirk fixing the machine.
Then in 1976 once qualified I was one of the Diesel Mechanics working on the machine, plenty of overtime as the gearboxes were always being screwed up, if it was'nt one on of the three on the wheel it was one of the slewing boxes.

Last time I worked on it was September 1976, Pepe may recall I didnt have the energy to even climb the first three steps onto the bridge. ( Was flown to CT two days later - but thats another story)

The original machine came with all three sections, Bucket Wheel , Bridge assembly and Spreader.

[georgswa (Georg Ruf) (RIP)]

@ Clive, yes that is the one i am talking about 74/75