Coal Trip 7/29/15

My friend Wayne and I exchanged email for about three months trying to work out a date to make a trip to the coal mine.  Fortunately it has been too hot to forge for a while so I haven’t been needing it to stay busy.  My bin probably didn’t have 50 pounds left in it when we set off for Oklahoma Wednesday morning.

Wayne and Dianne arrived here about 0830 with a trailer which could carry 2 1/2 tons.  I drove my Pickup which could carry a ton and picked up my friend Tom to ride along for interesting conversation and driving help.

We stopped in Coffeyville for lunch then proceeded to the mine.  Wayne had made arrangement for us to get a tour of the strip mine so we did that before loading.  When I made my first trip to the mine some years ago they were working a seam about eight miles north of the grinding/screening site where the scale house is located.  They have finished working there and it is reclaimed and back in grass. The site we got to see is a mile or so southwest of the pick-up site.

We followed the supervisor to the hole and walked around to spots where we could look down and watch the heavy machinery working.  The coal seam is 12”-18” thick and about 50 feet below the surface.  They use huge dozers to move away the overburden and create the sloping drive path down to the coal seam.  A thin cover is left over the seam until the actual coal removal process begins.

A mining shovel creates a high-wall and bites away at it and fills haul trucks which drive the overburden up to the surface and dump.  A high-dump coal loader scoops up the coal and fills the trucks which move the coal to the crusher site.  After the coal has been taken away the backfill process begins.

Removing the Overburden.  The coal seam is the flat area in the upper left corner.

Pushing overburden to backfill mined area.

Leveling the Top. 

Creating the high wall. 

Mining shovel loading the Haul Truck.

High Dump Coal Loader.

After the tour we drove back to the scale house and weighed in and drove to where the stoker coal was piled.  The operator of the high-dump loader was very patient and accommodating, as usual.  His bucket holds close to three tons and we only need to load a fraction of that.  He cannot see my pickup bed from the cab so it takes some guiding to get loaded without getting buried.  I take rakes, shovel and broom so I can fill every bit of the bed and clean up.  It takes the operator three lifts to complete our fill as we work to rearrange the coal between each drop.  It was hot and dry but not windy and the sprinkler trucks had been watering the roads so it was the cleanest trip I have experienced.

Filling my Tundra.

Filling Wayne's Trailer.

Tom drove us back to the scale and we weighed out at exactly 2000 pounds.  Earlier I told the scale operator that was the amount I needed.  She seemed amazed that it was precisely what I got - to the pound.  The price was $68.00. Add on about $55.00 for gas and that isn’t bad for a fuel budget. At my current forging rate that should cary me for a couple of years.

Google Earth View of the Crush Site.

Google Earth View of the Mine.

We drove back to Coffeyville and filled up with gas for the trip home and got some cold drinks.  The air-conditioning didn’t quite keep up on the home trip but otherwise it was a great day.    Home again at 1830.

Filling My Coal Bin.

I remain somewhat astonished and grateful for the friendly and patient attention we receive from every person I have encountered at the mine.  I feel sort of guilty for bothering them with our pitifully small purchases which cause them more trouble than their big customers.

This diagram does a pretty good job of illustrating the coal strip mining process. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_htm_files/v57/p173frames.html

The Secondary Coal Bin Door

The coal bin is nearly empty and I’ll need to make a trip to the mine soon. When the bin is full, I open the chute and the coal falls out to fill the bucket without any other encouragement. As the supply dwindles I have to reach in with a rake and pull more toward the chute door. It’s no big deal until the supply is down to the last 25% or so. At that point most of it is out of reach and the top doors must be opened and the remaining coal scooted toward the outlet.

The doors were hinged from the south side so they would open on the north where I backup the pickup bed for unloading. That means I can’t open them from the chute side to check the coal level or move the coal from that side. Then comes the ah-ha! moment. I needed a secondary door, a door within a door which opens from the south and facilitates management of the contents. A little jig saw work and it was completed.

The bin was originally described in the blog post on 4/7/2011.http://persimmonforge.blogspot.com/2011_04_07_archive.html Now, I’ll add this addendum drawing. It won't be long before someone points out that I should have added another door on the left side while I was at it.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/

Laying in a coal supply

The Kansas summer heat was dreadful but nothing out of the ordinary for late July. When the heat is on I try to focus on cold work and keep the forging time to a minimum. This is a good time for repair and maintenance, building new equipment and laying in supplies.

I was lucky to get some gracious assistance from a blacksmith friend who found a relatively handy source for coal not far away in Oklahoma. He offered to show me the way and we set a date for the trip.

I have used bagged coal for years and didn’t have a bin for loose coal so I had to build one before the trip. I used a couple of sheets of 5/8” treated exterior grade plywood to construct a bin on the studio porch. I can back the pickup to bin to off load with a scoop shovel. It sits about 16” off the floor so a five gallon bucket can slide under and fill easily by gravity when the door slides open. The bin should hold about two tons.

On the scheduled day we drove to the mine and I was able to purchase a pickup load of smithing coal for quite a bit less than I was spending for bagged coal. The current price was $100 per ton and the trip down and back was about six hours total and then there was the price paid for gas to figure into the actual cost. When I add in the cost for the coal bin I may not come out ahead this year but as long as the mine produces I should be set for the future.

The process was really easy. Check in at the scale office and place the order, weigh inbound on the scale, drive to the loading area, get out of the way while the huge front end loader filled the bed of my truck, weigh outbound, and pay. Twenty minutes in and out and we were on the road again.

It was nice to get this chore done at a convenient time. With only a little prudence I should be able to avoid making a trip in inclement weather or running out of fuel.

http://www.persimmonforge.com/