More movement in Caplecleugh, and it ain’t good news.

[legendrider]

My 10-penn'orth.
Use 6-8ft lengths of twinwall pipe cut in half lengthways
Build packwalls either side of the level as high as possible, then lay section of pipe on top as the arch former (in an inverted 'U' profile)
Pack the void above with shale blocks and rubble as the dig moves forward.
Dont forget to chock the bottom of the arch tightly against the living rock to prevent lateral displacement.
The crafty bit here is that with careful dimensional control, more half-pipes can be brought through as required, impossible if the pipe is kept whole!

I think there may be some spare twinwall pipes by the Stamps house at Nent

hope this is useful

MARK

 

[legendrider]

Could do with resurrecting some of the old miners - the drystone arching work Ive seen on photos of levels etc never ceases to amaze me.

Thought of this too, never any good arching stone around when you most need it!

MARK

 

[TomFerry]

I don’t no nothing really about the said area , what about using lorry bearers, normally can get them free & often hard wood ? make cogs / pig stie .

 

[The Cretin]

I don’t no nothing really about the said area , what about using lorry bearers, normally can get them free & often hard wood ? make cogs / pig stie .

They’d work, laid across some sandbags to prop the roof I’d guess?
It’s a shit of a place to get to - not particularly far in, but a good bit of crawling under loose shale, along with some deep water.

 

[The Cretin]

Thought of this too, never any good arching stone around when you most need it!

MARK

I can’t understand why it wasn’t arched in the first place - I’d wager the ground through there has always been poor.
Anywhere else in Nent, bar Brownleyhill, would’ve been.

 

[TomFerry]

I have not constructed this ! it’s under a live railway track . It’s been constructed well but needs TLC , the rear cog was better constructed.

If steel or tin sheets could be got there “dragged in “ 2ft wide sheets may work on top ?

Just another option for finishing the top of cog of .

 

[legendrider]

I can’t understand why it wasn’t arched in the first place - I’d wager the ground through there has always been poor.
Anywhere else in Nent, bar Brownleyhill, would’ve been.

Possibly cost? Likely that the shale bed was deemed hard and stable enough to keep the roadway open with minimal intervention during the life of the mine.
Nor is this unique; Barneycraig and Coalcleugh (and as you rightly state, Brownley) also have long unsupported shale driveage, the latter fairing much better than the former! Probably the cost of continual maintenance was viewed as much less than the cost of sourcing stone and building arching.
Sadly the Stand-Up Time for much of Caplecleugh has been reached and breached many years ago, resulting in this horrible Migrating Void situation.
The biggest difficulty I see (manpower aside) is sheer lack of stowage space followed by distance-to-work.
Where needed, material brought from outside needs to be portable and lightweight, the minimum necessary to do the job properly.
I dont see sandbags offering much help here as the available fill is largely broken shale more suited to packwalling; Tom's Cog idea works well for rapid support in large voids but I don't see it being the best solution in this confined level.

MARK

 

[The Cretin]

Possibly cost? Likely that the shale bed was deemed hard and stable enough to keep the roadway open with minimal intervention during the life of the mine.
Nor is this unique; Barneycraig and Coalcleugh (and as you rightly state, Brownley) also have long unsupported shale driveage, the latter fairing much better than the former! Probably the cost of continual maintenance was viewed as much less than the cost of sourcing stone and building arching.
Sadly the Stand-Up Time for much of Caplecleugh has been reached and breached many years ago, resulting in this horrible Migrating Void situation.
The biggest difficulty I see (manpower aside) is sheer lack of stowage space followed by distance-to-work.
Where needed, material brought from outside needs to be portable and lightweight, the minimum necessary to do the job properly.
I dont see sandbags offering much help here as the available fill is largely broken shale more suited to packwalling; Tom's Cog idea works well for rapid support in large voids but I don't see it being the best solution in this confined level.

MARK

I did wonder whether the lack of arching was simply because that area of working pre-dates LLC, and they just didn’t want to retrofit arching along there?
The vast majority of CCLL beyond is arched.

 

[ElectroNick]

I came across this via Swaledale's MRU FB Page - there was an ResCon meeting at Nenthead last weekend and they've posted some pics - this one looked interesting. Don't know if it's of any use for ideas for anyone https://www.facebook.com/share/Yni1ivD3cdRudDX5/

At an very uneducated guess, looks like metal pipes driven in while suspended from the top beams to support roof line, then cleared underneath? Maybe someone else can let me know what/how they're doing?

(tongue firmly in cheek - should have made use of the manpower over weekend and got them to practice clearing the collapse... )

 

[The Cretin]

I came across this via Swaledale's MRU FB Page - there was an ResCon meeting at Nenthead last weekend and they've posted some pics - this one looked interesting. Don't know if it's of any use for ideas for anyone https://www.facebook.com/share/Yni1ivD3cdRudDX5/

At an very uneducated guess, looks like metal pipes driven in while suspended from the top beams to support roof line, then cleared underneath? Maybe someone else can let me know what/how they're doing?

(tongue firmly in cheek - should have made use of the manpower over weekend and got them to practice clearing the collapse... )

It’s a contraption to help them spile/fore pole a level to dig it.
You’re essentially right in what you’re describing as far as usage goes, although you usually have to really whack the bars into a fall with a sledgehammer.

Forepoling wouldn’t be practical in Caplecleugh.
It needs the shale pulling out and breaking up, then something sticking in to stop it dropping any more.
It’s just a pig of a place to get stuff to, and not a nice place to be digging about, which is the crux of the issue really. Ironically, it isn’t that far in to the mine.

 

[davel]

At an very uneducated guess, looks like metal pipes driven in while suspended from the top beams to support roof line, then cleared underneath? Maybe someone else can let me know what/how they're doing?

As I understand it it's a technique called forepoling or spiling. In the photo mentioned above it's being used to tunnel through unconsolidated ground such as the loose fill from a shaft. A frame is erected and the poles (in this case scaffold tubes) are driven (with a large hammer) upwards into the fill, close enough together to support the roof of the drive. With the far ends of the tubes supported by the fill, sufficient fill can be removed from under them to erect another frame which is then braced to the first frame. The process is then repeated to advance the drive.

Dave

 

[Les Riley]

We used a similar method to dig through the boulder clay collapse in Laxey main adit.
Although we supported the two front legs on hydraulic Dowty props until the steel legs were erected and pushed the poles in with a jackhammer grafted onto an airleg.
The forepoles were 70 x 70 x 6mm angles 3metres long.
Sadly no photos.

 

[davel]

Another photo from RESCON 24 of the digging demonstration in Smallcleugh. The dig was against a wall on the far side but a board was used to keep the loose material out of the drive on the side nearest the camera. The frames are 6" x 6" wood.

 

[CaverPete]

We used a similar method to dig through the boulder clay collapse in Laxey main adit.
Although we supported the two front legs on hydraulic Dowty props until the steel legs were erected and pushed the poles in with a jackhammer grafted onto an airleg.
The forepoles were 70 x 70 x 6mm angles 3metres long.
Sadly no photos.

Here you go. Enjoyed your work on a visit to the Isle of Man last year. At the time I'd wondered about how/why it was done this way, but having just returned from ResCon and seeing the spialing process in action, I get it now.

 

[PeterJ]

NMCS has a large stock of twin wall pipe which coukld be used for thiss job. The big problem ( see Legend Riders comments) is transporting the materials to the site. The adit was almost certainly driven by the London Lead Co in the ear ly 1800s. It cuts across the joints in the shale at a 45 degree angle and I suspect that this is the cause of the instability - a bit like driving at an angle with regard to coal seam cleats. The adit was always unstable in this area - in 1964 one section required a crawl on top of the arching, which was later cleared.

 

[legendrider]

Direct experience of digging in this locality in Caplecleugh shows us that there is only enough width in the level for a stable packwall to be built on one side. If there are any twinwall pipes of large enough diameter, they could be halved, and one side rested on top of the packwall, the other supported on steel pins (re-bar?) drilled into the standing shale wall. Hauling twinwall isnt too bad, 6ft lengths drilled one end for a haul rope would probably be optimal.

 

[The Cretin]

Direct experience of digging in this locality in Caplecleugh shows us that there is only enough width in the level for a stable packwall to be built on one side. If there are any twinwall pipes of large enough diameter, they could be halved, and one side rested on top of the packwall, the other supported on steel pins (re-bar?) drilled into the standing shale wall. Hauling twinwall isnt too bad, 6ft lengths drilled one end for a haul rope would probably be optimal.

A length of 5mm climbing cord with a loop tied with a half fisherman’s knot works a treat for dragging that pipe.
It fits snuggly into the ridges of the pipe.
That’s what we did to drag pipes about last time we were using it.

 

[The Cretin]

NMCS has a large stock of twin wall pipe which coukld be used for thiss job. The big problem ( see Legend Riders comments) is transporting the materials to the site. The adit was almost certainly driven by the London Lead Co in the ear ly 1800s. It cuts across the joints in the shale at a 45 degree angle and I suspect that this is the cause of the instability - a bit like driving at an angle with regard to coal seam cleats. The adit was always unstable in this area - in 1964 one section required a crawl on top of the arching, which was later cleared.

On another note, do you know anything about that ventilation level marked on the plan above that section of Caplecleugh?
I assume it’s the bit of level at the top of that length of polypropylene just after the shale?

It looked like it closes down heading outbye, but we did wonder whether that’s an option.

 

[legendrider]

A length of 5mm climbing cord with a loop tied with a half fisherman’s knot works a treat for dragging that pipe.
It fits snuggly into the ridges of the pipe.
That’s what we did to drag pipes about last time we were using it.

Colin and I hauled 2x 19ft x 12"ID twinwalls into Rampgill, very straightforward, but Caplecleugh, well Rampill it ain't!
The biggest pipes might be a bit of a chew to drag in whole. If the pipes are sectioned, the haul rope may tend to slip off the pipe, is all.
If drilled for a rope, then the half-pipe will settle into a 'boaty' attitude and travel easily over wet and dry (like's gNick's drag-sleds in RFS and M2SV)

There's a lot of good ideas from folks, and no doubt some will to try to solve the problem. May be worth establishing a working group (I am sure I could spare a Saturday each month) and getting some regular focussed graft onto it.

HAGW MARK

 

[The Cretin]

Colin and I hauled 2x 19ft x 12"ID twinwalls into Rampgill, very straightforward, but Caplecleugh, well Rampill it ain't!
The biggest pipes might be a bit of a chew to drag in whole. If the pipes are sectioned, the haul rope may tend to slip off the pipe, is all.
If drilled for a rope, then the half-pipe will settle into a 'boaty' attitude and travel easily over wet and dry (like's gNick's drag-sleds in RFS and M2SV)

There's a lot of good ideas from folks, and no doubt some will to try to solve the problem. May be worth establishing a working group (I am sure I could spare a Saturday each month) and getting some regular focussed graft onto it.

HAGW MARK

I strongly suspect the issue will get quietly sorted one weekend.

Thinking about that pipe option, it’s probably more effective to cut them at the dig.
OK, it means taking a reciprocating saw underground as well, but the pipes would be easier to shift than two stacked halves.