Saturday 18th January 2025

Mike Kushy, David Morrison and Jake Baynes.

MK met DM at his house just after 11am. DM had just finished servicing the new generator. This was packed into the boot of a Honda Jazz with the back seats still up (the wonders of modern technology). Then both drove to site and got there for around 12.30. After a coffee and chat we loaded the genny into one of JB's smaller trailers and wheeled it across to the dig quite easily, JB carried his Titan breaker across. The generator and drill were then tested and noise checked, the generator with an inverter system works wonders. There's an eco feature that sets the generator to run at minimum revs and then when a tool is used the revs pick up to whatever the demand is from the tool. This wasn't alot and I doubt you'd even hear it from the seating area outside the pub. Then time for the real test. We strapped up the breaker and with MK down the bottom it was recieved before going into the puddle. Quite a lot of spoil to clear first though (JC did an incredible job). It was fine to put the breaker to one side and also be able to clear the spoil. With spoil and a fair bit off gloopy mud cleared we were then left with quite a puddle. A cardboard coffee cup, sponsored by McDonald's, proved effective at folding into the gap to bail the puddle dry. Extension lead wrapped around bottom rung and socket well above head, ppe on...safety first. MK had a good 5 minute stint and called up to surface to see if there was any dust. Surface called back saying it looked clear. Then a good 30 minutes continual use, the noise wasn't unbearable and there wasn't much dust at all. Good size chunks broken off the bedding below, a successful test! Loads to clear now and all proposed tests successful. We then decided to clear more. Breaker and leads sent up top to get packed away. A couple of dozen buckets cleared, maybe 2 more still to clear. All in all very successful and very much looking forward to using the system in anger. Towards the end it got incredibly misty really quickly at the bottom, which made taking a decent photo' quite difficult. Finished around 4pm ish. MK.

After some work with the breaker, shelf to the right. Photo MK.

Looking down into the lowest gap between the bedding. Photo MK.

The dig face after work. Lower half of the photo is where the shelf is and the direction of the bedding slope. Photo MK.