Mine rubbish dumps

[Clive Symes]

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.

[SandyB]

Clive .. the B&w pics are ones that your dad developed  for me .. here another piece of machinery ..

[Clive Symes]

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.

[SandyB]

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 ..

[Clive Symes]

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.

[Sylvia Brünner]

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.

[Michael Alexander]

Here's one of Malcolms snaps, with strange looking Tank machines...

[Clive Symes]

Original Vaccum rigs for removing material fron the bedrock, and the Ovambo's wellie.
Gordon any comments

[Michael Alexander]

It's actually a pretty awesome pic and looks like something out of a sci-fi flick!

[Malcolm Bertoni]

Thats what I first thought when I took the photo - rather surreal.

[SandyB]

WAR OF THE WORLDS   THE MARTIANS ARE COMING ??

[Bertie Horak]

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!

[Michael Alexander]

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

[Andrew Darné]

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.

[Gordon Brown]

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