22/5/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

Estelle and Jon descended the ladder whilst it was held securely at the top and set to work levelling the floor out to make a good base for it while Stu and James broke down the old ladder and moved the scaff bars back with the rest of the tower from the ladder and drilled the bolt holes to retain the ladder at the top properly. Once the ladder was properly sited at the bottom, the top was secured and then all continued moving rocks and mud around at the bottom to get ready to start building a wall of bags/rocks to retain the spoil in the rest of the shaft. Noted a rock in the underhang not looking too good, but unless it decides to move itself, best left until we’ve added more mud at the bottom for it to splat onto! Next week’s session will be creating aerial runway for hauling from the bottom of the dig to make that easier!

16/5/17 New Ladder!

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Stu Lindsay, Jonathan Riley

2.5hrs

New ladder! Stu had attached a bit of wood to the bottom of the section we retrieved from HLIS. He set to drilling the holes to join that to the longer section from WP. The rest of us moved the remains of the scaffold tower to by the greenhouse and then assisted Stu with bolting the sections together. Long section is in the middle and the shorter WP section at the top. It was very heavy, but we decided the best way to handle it was for Estelle to go down the bottom via the old ladder so as to help move that and guide at points where it was safe to do so! Estelle assisted lifting the bottom of the old ladder to the right to give space for the new one and the new one was lowered into place with ropes, while Estelle hid at the entrance to the dig in case any rocks came down. Once the ladder was on the floor, Estelle guided the bottom, but it was decided the old one needed to be removed to make it easier to relocate the new one into the best position. Old ladder removed, new one in position, needs some work to stabilise the bottom and build up some rocks around it as it’s above the location where the old one and there’s a hole where the old one was. The top has been temporarily tied off with ropes as bolts need to be put in place to secure it with chains, but ran out of light and time (and weather as it started to rain!) so retreated to the pub. 

3/5/17 - measuring pit and ladders

Estelle Sandford, James Begley

30mins

We have measured everything up properly now - from the ledge (allowing nothing above for safety!), the depth is 7.02m to the rocks on the floor the existing ladder is now resting on. The WP ladder is 2.37m + 3.79m = 6.15m (to the holes, so this will be the actual joined length). It's width is 27cm to the outside edges. We need to locate a 1-2m section of steel ladder from another location or if someone has a section spare – putting the feelers out around club/diggers forums to see if anything is available. We’re thinking that we would gradually fill in that side of the pit for safety as we’re seeing more and more loose rocks at the top now from ‘weathering’ and it does solve the spoil dumping issue for quite some time. The idea then being that we’d raise/shorten the ladder as required (so the section can be a loan for a short period of time!), but looking to wire/chain/bolt it at the top to fix it securely and also put a bit more safety around the top for getting onto it. 

2/5/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley

2hrs

Mike checked out a couple more bits of precarious looking rock on the hedge side and a couple of bits came down with no effort, but the worst bit visually is actually quite solid thankfully. We then set to work digging the ladder out. Initially we assumed that we’d buried just the one rung, but it appears that the spoil has slowly crept up around it and we had actually managed to bury 4 rungs. Once uncovered, which took most of the evening, we were able to raise it. 2 of us exited to the top so we could hold the ladder up with rope while Mike and Jon filled the hole back in and topped it off with large rocks to sit the ladder on for now. The bottom run and the feet are buckled and not looking good having been buried for some time, so replacing the ladder is now a matter of urgency. It is now tied off to 3 fixings at the top as it’s a bit unstable! James and Estelle agreed to pop back over Wednesday with tape measure and distoX to measure what we need to get to put the steel ladder in place.