Although there has been no blog post since 18/11, work in the South Pot has not stopped, with the work to mechanise the lowest haul continuing. In this time the following have been involved in the work, in no particular order: - Sam Hill - Alex Randall - Mike Kushy - Hollie London - 'Mushroom' Dave Kinzlett - Sam Coleman - Lee Venning Thanks to the efforts of the above, the inclined railway track has been completed. This is mainly constructed from a large steel ladder liberated from the surface set up at Homeclose, and scaffold tube braced between the walls of the rift with another pair of tubes perpendicular to these to form the rails. This then ties onto the pre-existing ladder from the bottom of the cave up to the rift, by means of some bent sections of scaff. There is also a 'boat trailer keel roller' fitted here to guide the winch cable over the change in gradient. The previous team to dig here before...
01/11/2025 - Afternoon - Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Tom Jackson, Alex Hannam, Chris Cooke 1no large skip brough to surface, 21 total for the year so far. After a trip to Lillypool cafe and screwfix, AR, SH and TJ headed down Templeton, with AR and TJ working on extending the railway, and SH producing a drip collector to capture the intolerable drip in Echo Pot which has dampened our spirits since the start. On the railway, the ladder supported rails were secured to the ladder, and lower down the next horizontal support was installed, and the next lengths of rail. We are now about 3m from the top of the ladder with the rails. During this AH and CC arrived to inspect the works, and also busied themselves hauling the collection of rocks and bags from Echo to 166', and loaded into the skip. SH's drip collector was mostly successful, except there is now a drip coming from the drip collector, to be solved next time.
01/07/2025 - Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Ed Ford, George Brookes, Hollie London Two big skips surfaced, 2025 total to date: 12 Alex R used a combination of plug and feather and a hammer to remove a lump preventing the lowest ladder from being moved to the left. The aim of this is to align the ladder with the rift above, and install another ladder in the rift to act as a track, so one hoist will be able pull buckets of spoil from the bottom of the ladder to the top of the rift. There are two further lumps that will need removing, but these will require some delicate use of chemicals. The rest of the team worked tirelessly pressing the hoist buttons, with Ed loading the Echo hoist and Sam driving it, and loading the South Pot sled. George and Hollie drove the the South Pot hoist and loaded the big 166' skip. After removing the lump discussed above AR returned to surface, raised the 166' skip and sent it down for refill. Then had to deal with GB inconsiderate parking to empty the dum...
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