Drag trays

[Coxie]

In my limited experience drag tray's working in tight crawl ways are a complete pain in the arse! 

We recently experimented with a watercooler bottle as a vessel with some success:

The idea being the bags may survive better than when they're being dragged or rolled by hand if they stay in the bottle and the spherical nature should help it roll around the uneaven sections and the odd corner.

It had a few teething problems with the bags falling out and or getting wedged and we have some ideas to improve it but I thought I'd see what the experts thought!

Also wondering what methods people are using provided of course there not closely guarded secrets.  :-\

 

[JonP]

Depending how tight it is we used Gallon oil jugs that lie flat. As it was pretty damn tight.

 

[SamT]

In my experience - anything round is a right pain in the arse. they tip over and tip out their contents.

If you look at 'braveduck's Avatar - he has a fine selection.

My preferred 'kibble' is a 25l rectangular drum from thick plastic (Car wash places are good for begging empty ones as the soap they often use comes in them)

Judiciously remove one of the wide sides.  handle can be kept intact and loops put at each end for dragging.

Heres  a shot of one I made for vertical hauling...

and dragging ones can be seen in these shots....

&

The ones in bagshawe have been going years and are still (just about) useable.

Conveyor belt matting is great for getting up over lumps and bumps or helping get them round bends.

 

[SamT]

Oh yeah - we don't really fill the kibbles with bags either - just stack your spoil straight in the kibble.

/2p

 

[Dropper]

To my mind it looks like a good idea. We had problems hauling buckets vertically, they would catch on the scaffolding. This looks like it might overcome that problem. My concern would be the robustness of the water bottles, I have a couple I use as cloches in the garden and they seem quite brittle.

 

[Coxie]

Oh yeah - we don't really fill the kibbles with bags either - just stack your spoil straight in the kibble.

We have the spoil in bags owing to there being no stacking / bagging space at either end of the crawl and the bags are removed and hauled up a shaft immediately after the crawl.

In my experience - anything round is a right pain in the arse. they tip over and tip out their contents.

The rolling around is not too bad as we've removed the base and inserted the bags that way... It does limit the size of our bags though whigh is no bad thing due to the final carry!

Impressive handle design SamT

 

[SamT]

Impressive handle design SamT

:-[ cheers - I was quite please with that..

I was less impressed when some f**cker nicked them (all 4) from outside the Bagshawe coe prior to their use. I had to knock some more in a hurry but they weren't as well crafted.

Here it is in use in the Bagshawe steps/stope stabalization job.

Photo - Rob Eavis.

 

[estelle]

for one of our recent digs, we had a tightish rift to haul and normal digging skips are too big for that so we used the smallest tubtrug buckets - you can clip the handles together to haul which stops the spoil falling out and they fit quite small places.

 

[braveduck]

If you look closely at my avatar you will see my preferd dragging tray.
The hauling rope must be attached near the bottom,or the tray tries to trip itself up.
Could even make you some if you are within easy reach.
Bucket Man

 

[Burt]

Ours at the current Rods pot dig are pretty much identical to Sam T's, with the rope permanently fixed to the sledge types. They work fine around corners, up squirrely bits and dont spill too much. The vertical ones work fine too.

 

[Pitlamp]

Braveduck's post is worth reading; he's turned digging tray manufacture into an art form!

 

[Big Jim]

Impressive handle design SamT

:-[ cheers - I was quite please with that..

I was less impressed when some f**cker nicked them (all 4) from outside the Bagshawe coe prior to their use. I had to knock some more in a hurry but they weren't as well crafted.

Here it is in use in the Bagshawe steps/stope stabalization job.

Photo - Rob Eavis.

These work well for trying to kill your co-workers who sit on their fat arses daydreaming whilst a tub of concrete hurtles their way. Just ask Jim Thompson (Underground).

 

[4bags]

Currently using used plastic animal feed sacks in the Gibbet's Brow dig - they are kindly donated, and are a simple one-use solution to hauling spoil out: fill the bag (if you can't lift it with one arm, its too full!), loop a short strop made of any old tat around the neck, clip it to the hauling rope, and out it goes! Strong enough to survive a horizontal pull of about 20m, and 2 vertical pulls. A whole roll of bags can be kept at the dig face. Probably the only disadvantage is a large spoil-heap of plastic bags, which need to be broken open to dispose of the spoil when the heap is removed...