Bucket Line Dredges

[Ornery Cuss]

OK you ole timers,

Why are the stacker conveyors covered with sheet metal dog houses ?
Seems to me they wouldn't care about the tails getting wet or cold or ....
Every one I have seen has a covered stacker
Counter balance maybe ?

One of the mysteries in my mind


OC

[Joe S (AK)]

Snow and Ice shouldn't be a real problem needing covering.

Protection while working in the rain to clear out jam-ups perhaps or the same for routine maintenance in the rain?

Now you have me

Joe

[russau]

Ive worked at cement plants / quarry's and they also cover the conveyor belts of the raw material to keep them from getting wet and building up of material that would accumulate on them if they did get wet ! I assume that the ole bucket line dredges did the same for the same reason!

[Stumpdust]

To much water on the conveyor belt would make the material run backwards then Jam the belt , tearing it to shreds.

[Bonaro]

To prevent the buildup of frozen snow

[Ornery Cuss]

That makes sense for those way up north
Then why down here in the Yuba gold fields, or Oregon where cold weather isint as cold

OC

[Stumpdust]

That makes sense for those way up north
Then why down here in the Yuba gold fields, or Oregon where cold weather isint as cold

OC

Liquid water would be worse then frozen water

[Bonaro]

That makes sense for those way up north
Then why down here in the Yuba gold fields, or Oregon where cold weather isint as cold

OC

My explanation made sense until you brought that up...LOL

[micropedes1]

You old-timers are not thinking straight. Or you have not had the opportunity to explore the innards of a now-defunct bucketline dredge.

Greased bearings and now permanently sealed/non lubricated bearings are a relatively new amendment for mining equipment rolling stock. But if it rolls, its got to have lubrication. The older stuff used oil ducted from a nearby reservoir directly into the bearing for continuous lubrication. One of the jobs of the "oiler" was to make the daily rounds and make sure that all of the oil reservoirs were filled. Nothing worse than a shut-down due to a stuck bearing, halting production. The oil reservoir was invariably open topped, necessitating some type of cover to keep precipitation out of the oil.

You might be familiar with the spring loaded caps that cover oil lines carrying lubrication to motor bearings on some of the older electric motors that are still around. Same principle, just larger reservoir. Grandpaw was an dredge engineer back in the '20's. I got to sit on his knee and listen to all the stories. I guess that I got infected with the gold bug at an early age.

[Bonaro]

I was infected at an early age as well. My step dad was chief engineer on a cutterhead dredge near Helena Mt. I would get to mess around on it when it was down for maintenance and sometimes when in operation. Pretty fascinating stuff... 8' cutterhead and a 24" suction line discharged almost a mile to ponds near shore.
To bad I wasn't interested in gold back then...