On Monday at Highland Valley mine near Logan Lake BC. A friend works there and said a contractor was brought in to jack up shovel so undercarriage removed for a major rebuild. when shovel fell off of Jacks. Lucky no one was under shovel when it fell. One of our shovels came crashing down off the jacks from 14 feet high 2.5 million pounds, hitting the ground was like a earthquake.
Holy cow!
I know not much but I am wondering what it will take and how it can be jacked up again and how much shock load damage was done when the fall stopped???
So it looks like the big grey a- frames on each side, are some kind of specialized lifting frame, and I'm guessing it gave way- or the attachment points failed. Looks like a job for a bunch of big jacks and big steel slid under and slowly back up again. Wouldn't be fun, and I bet someone's insurance company is having kittens.
Chinese D-shackles or couplers, or Chinese steel wire rope? Glad to hear no-one got hurt, machines can be fixed, fixing families destroyed by an unnecessary equipment death, is not so easy. A lot of falls when jacking/lifting are caused by an inability to grasp how the C of G changes as you lift. I can recall a guy getting killed when working on hardfacing/rebuilding a big loader bucket. He was working alone and had the bucket well-supported on fairly high stands. But he kept repositioning the bucket to facilitate the welding position. He repositioned it to the point where it became close to unstable on the stands, with the C of G near a tipping point. It's thought he climbed onto the bucket to do something, but the additional weight caused the bucket to go over its tipping point, and it fell and crushed him. I learnt from a simple lesson many years ago, when I was moving a small Lister-powered pump mounted in a steel base with a front end loader. I attached the chains to the base, lifted it and moved around the yard. But the engine and pump swung a little as I moved - and next thing, the engine and pump had turned turtle inside the chain sling! What had happened was simply the C of G was quite high from where I'd attached the chains, and the swinging from the bucket was enough to send the C of G over the tipping point.
I've been involved in a couple shovel splits on the 4100 P&H. That's absolutely crazy to think about it coming off the jacks.
I think I'm seeing a big gray colored stand that apparently hooks to the back of the house. Is that what it is?
Looks like the two lifting methods are clightly different John. In the first one it appears that the rear lifting devices are somehow fixed to the sides of the back end of the revolving frame. In 92U's photo there is a beam going right under the counterweight tying the two rear lfting devices together. I'd say from Hank's photos that whatever fixed those grey jackstands to the rear of the machine let go.
I got one more picture and enlarged a couple.
I wonder if the ground they are working on is a little soft causing the stand to buckle from uneven support.
From the images, I don't see anything sunken. Also the pad they're on looks well groomed. It looks, from the pics, that the stand got "spit out some" on the ballast side. I'm wondering if there shouldn't have been a beam tying the 2 rear jacks together. Just my thoughts
I should know more about what went south by Monday.
I heard this morning that it was a Jack failure that they suspect as the problem, the contractor was having issues with on of the jacks when they started the lift shovel sunk into ground 16 inches when it landed. Also the union at the mine walked off now due to safety. By Monday I will know better what is happening.
Thank you for sharing
Correction mine union did not walk off the job, it a a safety stand down, my contact is back to work this morning.
That'd suck it tight in a seat for a few weeks. Whoever was setting it undoubtedly crapped themselves.
I see no undercarriage anywhere near the machine in any of the photos. So if it was an undercarriage overhaul the lower works must have been pulled well clear of the machine before the jacks let go. Contrast that with 92U's photo where the lower works aren't even clear of the front of the upper works.
Normally we did all the undercarriage work without splitting the shovel. Only time we'd split it was if it needed a center pin, swing rollers or carbody hour'd out.
My understanding it was going to be a major job done on shovel.
My contact up at the mine is a truck Mechanic, that grew up across the street from my house, My understand was that shovel had issues in the lower end. Also me and 3 friends meet every morning at 6:00 for coffee, Al his son in law Warren used to work for P&H in Fernie BC now he is Staff at Highland Valley in charge of shovels and Al is going up to see them on Friday and he hopes to find out more for me , He is hoping he will not be the fall guy for this job. As he hired a contractor from the US to do this job.. Just not sure how much information I will receive or what I can place on line here.
Last photo, post 18 Look FAR Left, UC. Appears was removed to REAR. WHY would they do that? Would have to be taken SIGNIFICANTLY Higher to get it out.
It looks like the under carriage to the left in this photo. I don't know much about this type of work-but those supports look rather small to me compared to the ones in 92U's photo.
I have an old bumper jack out in the shed I could loan they if that would help get this back up on the jack stands! Back as a kid we would use a pair of those bumper jacks to lift the rear of our lot cars while working on them. Kind of surprising we lived through that!
Nothing has really happened over the last week, they suspect a jack failure. I think they are waiting for a 3rd party to do a investigation, as to what went wrong and why. The contractor that does this kind of work is well known and has lifted shovels for years. My pea brain thinks it will be a long time before shovel is jacked up and a check inside for damages etc. I would think a lot of mines are watching this failure real close.
I was thinking that BC Mines act will or may be changing the rules as to how they do this lift and safety issues. I do not think I have it in me to work under that much weight after looking at the jacks.
How else would they do the lift? Any way they do it, either jacks or cranes, its probably not a light little pick. The difficulty is, there's probably not a lot of this kind of equipment around, and its easy for the powers that be to say "can't lift it like that"- but don't offer any alternatives. And then nobody can pick them up. What they going to do then? Write it off and push it in the quarry pit? Personally, if the jacks are engineered and correct, I think I'd prefer jacks over trying to pick it with cranes. Maybe jacks with manual lock dogs.
Call these guys. lol
The one in the picture I posted once the undercarriage is walked out, its lowered back to the bottom of jack travel. Since the shovel rests across the beam its really hard for it to go anywhere. Apparently the laydown pad is engineered to handle cranes, jacks etc. What really sketched me out was jacking up the shovel to do rollers. There had to be half a dozen people under the carbody installing the shim plates around the piston rods of the jacks as it went up.
Can imagine the late night sweats those that worked under the house are having now.
Once the upper works have been jacked up sufficiently and the lower works have been removed I'd bet money that the jacking system is lowered down on to some type of mechanical lock before anyone is allowed to go under the revolving frame to work.
Sounds like they have a company to come in and try to get the shovel off the ground. Going to cost several Million bucks plus $300,ooo.xx of welding so they can lift it. That is all I heard .
Still cheaper than buying another shovel and allowing for the wait time.
Amazon had one listed and could be delivered free with prime by Friday.
Let's get a few of us from HEF up there and show them how it's done. I'm thinking $1.5 M?
Was thinking with inflation $2m
CAD or USD?
You won't mind if D Miller, John C, Nige and I set back in our directors chairs pointing to things that need attending, for a small cut of the pie of course.
Early in my welding career the logging co i was working for sent myself ,a couple of mechanics and the dealers field mechanic in to camp to change out the centre pin bushing and the actual boss that holds the bushing in on a 7220 American log loader . We had the right jacks ,a big beam to go across the front of the house and a pile of new 8"X8" timbers for cribbing all sent in to camp on the barge . All pre planned based on dealers instructions. Long story short we got it jacked clear of the carbody ,ready to roll out the undercarraige. 3 cribs under the counterweight. A piece of timber split and one side crib collapsed and the machine crashed down just like the mine shovel above and sat on the counterweight. No one was hurt .No investigation as it was obvious how it happened,just another oh F#*k moment . next task was to raise it back up which we did with help from a D9 that was parked by the shop.Grabbed some 3' dia butt ends and used them for blocking. Continued on and completed the repair reassembled the shovel which went back work with no other problems . Those old Americans were built super heavy duty ,just the way shovels were back then.They could take i hit like that and keep working. Im wondering if that mine shovel has any of those extremely robust qualities built into it and will recover from this without excessive damage. Hopefully for the mining co she gets jacked back up swept off and passes a good inspection . Then they can carry on with the repairs they set out to do at first. Maybe im way off on this call ,but fingers crossed for them.
They're pretty beefy units. Funny to think about how on every major outage they'd send the inspectors inside the boom and they'd come back saying, no joke, that they found over 100 feet or so of cracking inside the boom. In the next breath they'd state that only 20 or 30 feet of cracking need to be repaired as the other 70 odd feet were not critical. Most major components like the boom, dipper, gantry, track frames, carbody etc are usually replaced every so many hours. I can see the reasoning behind only fixing 20 feet of crack in a critical area if they're going to be replacing that component in a couple months anyways.
I don't know about front shovels but I was told all the booms in the big drag lines were filled with nitrogen gas. A leak would trigger an alarm.
I don't believe the shovel booms are filled with nitrogen. At least the ones at the 2 or 3 mines I went to weren't.
As John mentioned a lot of the main boom tubes on the big draglines long ago were pressurized with nitrogen and there were gauges in the cab so that any crack showed up immediately as a loss in pressure. If the pressure got low enough an alarm would sound.
9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1 --DROP THAT LOAD.
I am game as a load director with the others involved. Can make it a conference decision!!
That would be four Heckles and Jeckles in one spot, everyone would run.
Has anyone thought this through.? Sitting outside in the Canadian winter in any sort of chair freezing my nuts off is not exactly my idea of fun. Now if we had a heated, glass-fronted observation platform that would probably work……
Don't forget the beverages used as antifreeze!
Well it would also have to have topless waitresses. And if that happens we ain't gon'na get any work out of Vetech.
Or ME!!
Guess I'll run the zoom boom. Doesn't matter the task, a zoom boom is always required on a shovel pad.
I have been there before, I can find my way back to help out. Nige brings up a good point though, might have to wait several months. Can't just rush into these big jobs...
My crane and class 8 card are still good, I'll stand way back and shoot dunnage in there as long as there is a cab/Heat/AC.
We are pretty pathetic! I believe will have another Irish Coffee this morning, NOT going anywhere!!
I may not be as old, but I should be part of the pointing club too. I can help you guys hold your arms up when trying to point at those high places!
I may hear a bit more today or Thursday as my contact is coming home to visit his Mom that lives across the street from me today.
I got a Harbor Freight bottle jack and a couple blocks of wood. I know some Amish boys that will come help. You guys can just sit back and stay out of the way.
Nice!
Any chance of a dozen White Hard hats so we do not blow our Budget....
yes because those brown phenolic ones are spendy! We gotta spring for one of those for the head fall guy though. It adds credibility. Maybe just maybe we should flip the script and cowboy up for this operation! Perhaps go in as minority contractors and have a purty boss in one of these here hats.
Won't see me without a Bad Boy Black MSA Hardhat, Probably add the Ear Muffs to drown out all the Labor Whining!!
Only one hat can be worn on a job like this and the whip is thrown in free of charge. Indiana Jones and the Shovel of Doom.
Nice Fedora.
Just heard that the plan is to weld 4 Latches?? to shovel and then start jacking. With lots of cribbing
I am sure Tugger2 and Crane operator could handle the welding for a week or so.
I could throw some cribbing as long as it is below shoulder height. The quack said my shoulders are over 60 so they don’t work as well any more. Cam
Cribbing my pea brain can not imagine what the cribbing for this would be???? Other than costly...
the kinda kribbing with some fork slots or pockets in it, that no hooman is going to touch.
I'd ROCK that pink hardhat! I'd publicly show my support for healthy boobies!
Id be glad to weld if i could see right . Anyone have a 500X lense for my helmet?
I have to wear reading glasses under my hood to weld. At times I still run the bead off the joint and don't know it until I lift the hood.
I do the same ,ive got glasses laying all over my shop. Went to the optometrist a few months ago 1200.00 later had some glasses that just dont work,now they tell i need to wait until my latest bump heals before i can get them fixed.
All I know is I flip up the hood, and a good portion of the time there's this nice bead laid down that wandered off to run next to the crack
My eyes are toasted, left one a scar tissue mess, right one has a cataract forming, dead center. As can see of my latest welds I see none too good, welding by feel sucks especially when hands go numb and pizz poor hearing does not help either.
The 70's+ are hard on eyes had both Eyes done Cataract's this summer.
My first driver's medical was done when I was 21 or 22. I had 20/16 vision. Fast forward to last year's medical and I'm slightly worse than 20/20. I don't think that chin bag putting pressure on my sinuses helped my vision much during the eye test either.
I heard last night that the mine has 3 500 ton cranes around shovel so I guess things are happening getting ready to lift shovel off the ground soon.
Those should do it.
Moving at typical mine pace I see lol.
I was thinking the same thing but I'm also having a hard time determining if the machines are similar in size from the pictures.
Got my crocodile Dundee hat ready
thanks for the update. Going to be fun coming up with the rigging for that, and it may have taken a while to round up the cranes. Did they ever give a weight for the shovel without undercarriage?
Yes it has also word has it that a couple wheels at the mine are now Greeters at Wally world.......
1200 tons give or take.
I work in a mine in Northern Alberta, but my main house (the place I call home, and go to on my days off) is a little more than 20km directly north of Highland Valley. I'll try to add to some of the comments and info shared so far. Until a thorough inspection can be done when the shovel is back level, the current belief is that the shovel is a write off, and will be parted out. I agree, unless the carbody is being swapped out, the jacking and splitting of the shovel with a walk out of the undercarriage would be for center pin replacement and roller path repairs. BI shovels are notorious for center pin problems. We have 4 of them, and they have each broken the center pins several times. The design of the BI shovels is such that the bottom of the rev frame is actually the same level as the bottom of the counterweight. It wouldn't actually be any higher to walk the undercarriage out the rear than the front. An advantage of walking it out the rear is that it would be out of the way, instead of being under the boom. The counterweights are actually plates welded to the rear of the rev frame, unlike the P&H design where the counterweights are separate cast steel pieces hung off the rear of the rev frame. To be clear, I am referring to the external counterweights, and not the internal counterweights that are steel punchings inside the rear of the rev frames on both brands of shovels. I grabbed both quotes purely for context here. The booms on rope shovels are all built out of boxed plate sections. They are open to the elements through inspection ports. So no way to seal or pressurize them. I've spent too many hours gas testing the boom, and all of the other confined spaces on my shovel when it's down for maintenance to ever want to see the insides of them again. But it happens at least once a year, whether I like it or not. I would actually guess the weight of the machine in the pictures would be closer to 1000 tons as it sits. The stick and bucket are off, and everything is gone below the upper roller path, so I think the weight would be a little less than estimated. I have friends who work in shovel maintenance at Highland Valley, and as Hank R mentioned, they are currently recruiting to fill several management positions after the incident. Unofficially, the failure was due to unengineered "field modifications" of the jack system to allow it to mate up to the shovel. I can't say more than that unfortunately. But hopefully this helps to shed some more light onto the situation.
I heard this morning that as of the 19th nothing has happened yet Cranes are on site and the cost keep adding up and there is no plan that my contact has heard of yet.
In my mind just thinking that maybe the mine will use this as a parts machine and order a new shovel. Just thinking .... I have no idea as to how many hrs or????? Since around Nov 12 or 13 is when things went sideways.
I heard that they have started to lift shovel with 3 cranes.
Hi Hank . Any updates on that shovel Lift?
I have been out of town for a fe days and forgot about updates so just sent a text off to my contact as soon as I hear any ting I will let you know.
The mine has raised the shovel and released the 3 large cranes. The shovel is resting on large beams and cribbing. A lot of down time for this shovel as it went down mid November, and now just starting the rebuild. No pictures yet but hoping for some.
I have heard from a very reliable source that shovel repair was to start to replace the large rollers on the car body which the plan was before it came to a sudden stop (fall) now some one in the last several months has open all the crates that the rollers came in and left open for snow/rain dust to ruin RUST the rollers. New ones are on order at a cost of around $260,00.xx
Doesn't shock me in the least.
Ooops. What's a quarter million or so between friends?
Believe me I've seen corporate mining customers dig holes and bury new or almost-new parts rather than try to sell them off to make a few cents on the dollar.
Mines waste so much its not even funny.
I heard there are several unhappy employees that they suspect open the crates that rollers came in and left open to the weather. but can not prove.
Do some DNA testing on the urine soaked into the bottom boards of the crates.....
One day I mentioned to one of our upper managers we were thinking about making a sculpture of a monster out of miss ordered parts on the mill bench. We had corporate coming for a tour in a couple days and they would for sure be curious what this proposed sculpture was. A mid level manager piped up and said we should call it the planer (he had just "voluntarily" retired and never left his office to put eyeballs on anything before he ordered it). The upper manager was not impressed though couldn't deny the fact we've had large amount of money spent of misordered parts. He politely asked us not to build this creation.