Keeping the Wheels Turning
A brief history of lubrication in the British mining industry
The basis of all development within coal mining has been driven by the dual necessity for safety and efficiency. This need for a fully efficient industry became the driving factor that underpinned the shift towards mechanisation. The installation of expensive machinery relies on it working at maximum capacity to justify that outlay. A single bearing failing, on the coal’s journey from coalface to fireplace could mean a serious hold-up of production and ultimately profits. The importance of keeping the many mining machines working became paramount and arguably the most cost-effective form of preventative maintenance was the proper selection and appropriate use of lubrication.
In the 1700s, all mining practices relied on hand-got coal and the level of mechanisation was limited to devices such as horse gins or Newcomen engines, both as winders or as water pumps. These early engines were slow moving, working at a maximum of twenty revolutions per minute. Even with the introduction of steam, the speeds only rose to around thirty to forty rpm. By 1800, standard practice for lubrication was to use oil for fast-moving journals (the part of the shaft that rotates within a bearing) and animal tallow in slow-moving ones. Tallow would be used on most bearings on a beam engine with only the main bearing needing anything more, in which case a combination of tallow and oil or oil and water would be used. The widespread introduction of the oil cup by the mid-1800s meant main bearings could be lubricated mechanically. During this period, the oil would generally have been rape-seed oil while later some whale-based oils were trialled. These systems of lubrication were sufficient for the nature of the period’s machinery and continued without much
Image of an early underground haulage engine © NCMME Continued on page 14 12
change until the discovery of mineral oils towards the end of the nineteenth century.
The first attempts at underground mechanisation came in the mid-nineteenth century led by the introduction of steam and compressed-air power. Early rope-haulage engines moved coal in tubs from the face to the pit bottom. These engines ran continuously and any breakdown or stoppage effectively halted production. Haulage engines were soon followed by the first coal-cutting machines which recreated the action of manual undercutting, the practice of taking a cut of coal at the bottom of the coal. By 1900, the
success of these machines combined with the introduction of safe electric power underground created momentum for further improvements. More efficient forms of loading and haulage underground were necessary to keep up with the increased output which came from these new coal-cutting machines.
In turn, this led to advances in the speed and size of winders bringing coal out of the mine, as well as increases in the scale and effectiveness of coal preparation plants. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a push towards mechanisation halted only by the wars and the shortages that followed them. After the Second World War
LUBE MAGAZINE NO.132 APRIL 2016
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