Mining Drill Lintels

[MdB]

Penners was asking and I know how you lot like pictures....

Lintel in position. The piece of wood is required as the stone at the right hand end of the fireplace has crumbled meaning that there is nothing for the lintel / drills to rest on.

Removal of the stone that definitely isn't going to stay in place.

Removal of drills. Don't anybody sneeze. Whilst removing the lose stuff, it became obvious that the large stones on either side hadn't been supported at all for the last year (though they could only have dropped a mm or so) so I wasn't too worried that anything more was going to come down. Probably not the cleverest thing to do but I judged that if it did fall, not much would have come down and I was careful not to be underneath it.

New temporary wooden lintel in position and all stones chocked.

The removed mining drills. Our cottage is within half a mile of two sets of mine workings. I had always thought that our cottage was a farmers cottage, but these drills show that it was more likely to have been a miners residence. Although it isn't too obvious from these photos, both the drills have flattened chisel ends which would most likely have been reformed daily at the smithy which is two doors away from us. An interesting find anyway.

My plan is to clean this drills up a bit and then get a steel lintel made up that will support both the stone work above and the drills in roughly their original position. They just won't be doing work as lintels as they really aren't long enough.

 

[Penners]

Probably not the cleverest thing to do but I judged that if it did fall, not much would have come down

Quite right - in fact your photo is a classic illustration of how masonry behaves if a lintel like that is removed. You just get a roughly pyramid-shaped collapse above it - nothing too serious.

An interesting find anyway.

Very! And thanks for the pictures. Imagine the physical effort involved in hammering one of those drills into the rock, day in - week out. No wonder the miners didn't often make old bones.


PS: Going a bit thin on top are we, MdB? :wink:

 

[MdB]

PS: Going a bit thin on top are we, MdB? :wink:

Oh yes...

 

[Feltwell]

A great find, glad you're putting them back. I saw a demonstration of hand drilling at a slate mine in Wales, but in this case the drill was about 8 feet long. Hit the end with a hammer - turn it a quarter turn - hit the end with a hammer - and repeat, pretty much all day every day (except when you were removing the slate from the blasting). All by candlelight of course, but not much as you had to pay for the candles from the mine company out of your meagre wages (and the hire of the drill, and the sharpening of the drill by the blacksmith, the powder for the blasting etc etc). To say it looked like a hard life for very litle reward was an understatement.

PS: Going a bit thin on top are we, MdB? :wink:

Oh yes...

Just think of it as nature's sunroof, Gents :wink:

 

[Penners]

The problem with my sunroof is that, having created it, nature spends much of every summer trying to burn it to a crisp.

 

[Feltwell]

Nature can be a cruel mistress Mr P. However, with the less than glorious weather with which this green & pleasant land is so often endowed, be grateful for those days when sunburn is a possibility.

You could always get yourself one of these -I'm sure you were a good boy scout in your day, with one of these you would "Be Prepared" for whatever the British summer has to throw at you. :wink:



Rooftop sunburn is not so much of a problem for me, I just spend the entire summer sneezing and not being able to breathe properly.

 

[LadyArowana]

Nature can be a cruel mistress Mr P. However, with the less than glorious weather with which this green & pleasant land is so often endowed, be grateful for those days when sunburn is a possibility.

Whilst you are more likely to get burnt on a sunny day, the UV can be quite fierce even on a cloudy one. There is a misconception in the UK that the need for sunscreen is only temperature linked. Last summer one of the high street chemists was displaying a world map above it's sunsceen products purportedly showing what level was needed where. It had clearly been cloned from an average temperature map. New Zealand being a temperate area was shown as not requiring highest levels of protection. Sadly due to ozone layer damage the UV levels there can burn you to a crisp on a day that isn't very hot or very sunny and there has been a big campaign locally to make people more aware of the risks. The situation in the UK isn't as bad, but a nice clear Spring day when it's about 15 degrees is going to be at least as damaging UV wise as a cloudy humid one in Singapore when it's 32, in my experience probably a lot more so. I was so concerned and disappointed that a well respected retailer should be pedalling such misinformation that I actually e.mailed them, and got the standard "we'll look into it" reply, :roll: I would urge anyone who is going to spend time outside working on the house or garden to seriously consider a good hat and some sunscreen, even if it isn't a day that could be described as a scorcher. OK, climbing down off my soapbox now :lol:

 

[Penners]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jZppyqny3g

 

[worms]

New Zealand being a temperate area was shown as not requiring highest levels of protection. Sadly due to ozone layer damage the UV levels there can burn you to a crisp on a day that isn't very hot or very sunny and there has been a big campaign locally to make people more aware of the risks.

I would agree, I burned much more readily when living at 51 South than I ever did when living on the equator (partly because I am neither a mad dog nor an Englishman!)