Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7: On this page are some more images of the dry area along with other buildings on the site. Once again Bob Orchard has supplied much of the information.
One of my favorite places is the Compressor House. These huge machines which supplied air to the living mine. When they were all running it would shake the glass windows in the offices. But all quiet now, it’s very sad.
Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.1 – The drying room just off the main dry. All the beams in the ceiling had hooks for hanging up the wet underground clothes.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.2 – Also hanging up was a tally board for the Miner’s Tags.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.3 – This is the Shift Boss’s dry. Behind is the door to the main corridor.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.4 – When I was there no power and the place was pitch black. All was quiet but for the sound of dripping water.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.5 – The long row of lockers in the Shift Boss’s Dry.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.6 – Another of the dry looking the other way, the showers are on the left. Also, on the back wall are heating pipes. Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.7 – Empty, dark and sadly neglected. But things are different there today, the dry has been very well restored and preserved.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.8 – One of the things I found most intriguing was the fact that many of the open lockers still had personal possessions left in them. It was almost as if the miners expected to return to work again.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.9 – The “New” Geevor Mine Store.
Previously the mine store was in the building that has become the mine shop. Prior to that this building was an electrical sub station. Before that the Stores were held in the stone built building opposite side of the road. The head Storeman that I remember there was Jim Vincent.
This building was originally the mine stables, which when the store moved from there to the building that is now the shop, it became the lifting tackle store. During the last working of the mine the stores were in both the buildings that is now the shop and the “New” store.
The head Storeman being Johnny Johnson with Dick Trembath also a man known as Charlie Taw.
Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.10 – This building has since been converted to the restaurant.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.11 – Tony Brooks told me this was a treasure trove of useful bits and pieces. I would have loved the chance of a good rummage around. In the Mine’s hay day the store held over a 1/4 million pounds worth of ball & roller bearings. To put this in perspective, a set of two split roller bearings (“Cooper bearings”) for the Newell Dunford ball mill were £22,000 each with an 8 to 9 month lead time.Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.12 – The “New” store was an “AtcosT” building of precast concrete portal frames & corrugated asbestos cladding. The racks in the foreground had been moved from the older store to make way for the shop development.
The remaining images on the page are all taken in the interior of the Geevor Mine Compressor House. This was where the compressed air to drive the underground rockdrills and machinery was produced. Without this mining operations would have ground to a halt. The building was constructed during the early 1950’s, the three compressors were installed soon afterwards.
Geevor Tin Mine Gallery 7.13 – “Sentinal” double acting, two stage air compressors built by Alley & Maclellan Glasgow.
The motors of the compressors are 3 phase, open frame “slip ring” motors, with wound rotors & starters. The starting arrangement used “liquid resistance” starters in series with the rotor windings. On start up the resistance is infinity (producing maximum motor torque at low revs) as the starter vanes are wound in the resistance slowly drops and the motor slowly speeds up.
When the starter vanes are fully immersed position (motor now up to full speed) a set of contacts short out the connection to the slip rings (effectively creating a “squirrel cage motor). In this state, each of the motors are protected for over-current and no-volt release by an oil filled circuit breaker. The small round cover on the end of each of the motors contain the copper slip rings & carbon brushes.
Cornish Mine Images 7.14 – The tall cylinder on the right is the “inter-cooler” that cools the air leaving the low pressure first stage cylinder before it enters the second stage high pressure cylinder.
The inter-cooler is a heat-exchanger, the cooling process also produces condensation that is drained away. The air after leaving the second high pressure stage passes through an after-cooler. These are situated between the compressors and the large air receivers (air storage tanks) outside.
Cornish Mine Images 7.15 – This is the spring loaded safety valve on the side of the inter cooler. Its job is to protect the inter-cooler from over pressure. Failure of second stage inlet/deliver valves could cause a back flow of high pressure air.Cornish Mine Images 7.16 – A detailed image of one the compressors, showing the makers name. Also top right is the air compressor unloader valve.Cornish Mine Images 7.17 – Of the two cylinders, the one nearest the motor is the large or low pressure first stage cylinder. The second stage cylinder is smaller in diameter & compresses the low pressure air produced by the first stage up to the high pressure. (100 pounds per square inch)Cornish Mine Images 7.18 – The motors are built by the Lancashire Dynamo & Crypto Co (LDC). They are of open frame construction with ring oiled white metal bearings. The flywheel is also the rigid coupling between the motor & compressor crankshaft.Cornish Mine Images 7.19 – All three machines lined up. Quiet now but when all were running, the mine office windows would vibrate.Cornish Mine Images 7.20 – Notice that the air is piped from outside the compressor house to the unloader valve (inlet to the compressor). If this were not the case, when the compressors started it would suck the glass out of the windows of the compressor house.
