[TheForge] Speaking of coal YAK

[Jerry Frost]

I'm taking a lunch break right now, from unloading the tRusty old pickup.
Labor day I decided I couldn't wait for other guys to get or make time to go
coal mining and went myself. Deb came along in her Bronco II While I drove
our tRusty old pickup. I knew from a prospecting run I made a few weeks ago
the Bronco would make it to the coal seam but unless I could find an
alternate route the plow frame on the pickup was going to keep it a hundred
STEEP yards from the digs.

Good thing I went when I did too last week there were some SERIOUS rain
storms and seeing as the highway was closed by mud and rock slides I'm
pretty sure the unmaintained clay road into the mine will be a tough go this
weekend.

Well it was a good day in more ways than one: first the weather was
beautiful, sunny but only in the high 50's, (It was in the high 80's for the
prospecting run and I'm not fond of sweating THAT much) The second good
thing was finding the first trail I walked took me from the seam right to
the spot we were parked. Yehaw! I can drive the tRusty old pickup, plow
frame and all right to the coal seam!

Deb set up the picnic camp while I locked the hubs, and headed up the OLD
mining road to the seam. No sweat, a little scraping in the tag alder, some
slippin and slidin on the sidehill (of course) and there I was. Just back
her up the slope and get to shoveling. <grin> About six hours later I had a
good 3/4+ ton of coal and was more than ready to head for home.

Only problem all day was I out smarted myself. AGAIN! <sigh>

Castle Mountain or Chickaloon coal is well known locally for being as good a
smithing coal as can be had, here or anywhere. Whether or not it's as good
as anywhere I'll pass on to somebody who wants to do the testing. Suffice it
so say the stuff is HOT, clean and cokes easier than a Bic lights. Local
smiths have been mining their own since the mining shut down in the late
40's. Any of the Chickaloon locals you run across are quick to tell you NOT
to put it in a coal stove, it tends to burn right through the fire grates.

Being as it's still fairly popular with local smiths who can get away,
there's a well established dig and somebody's even set up a chute and
screening table. I'm not sure why they thought it was a good idea to leave
the fines but what the hey, they went right into the tRusty old pickup like
they wanted to be there.

In spite of there being a chute and established dig onsite it's still a lot
of walking up and down the loose slope to unjam the chute and shovel the
coal off the table into the tRusty old pickup. I'm taking a break, sucking
down ice water and a peanutbutter sandwich, listening to the radio and
surveying the seam. What I notice is regular outcrops of coal/shale that
have been passed over by other smiths. After my break I climb to the closest
one and start shoveling the talus away. I quickly come on really nice shiny
coal of the really soft friable type that burns so well. I shovel down a
little deeper exposing the outcrop till I run into a mudstone and shale
lens. Then I try prying a block of coal out of the outcrop . . . Yipee! It
comes loose easy as you please so I toss it into the tRusty old pickup and
proceed to pry several hundred lbs of this really nice soft friable coal out
and toss it in the truck.

Finally one of the blocks of coal hits the bare bed of the tRusty old pickup
and instead of the kinda wood-like thwock of coal hitting metal it goes
BANG!  . . . HUH? . . . Bang? I pry the next chunk loose and finally notice
it's a bit heavier than I realized, turn it over and sure as !$^#$%^@# it's
a big old chunk of rock! Oh sure, the top 3-4" is nice soft friable coal but
the rest of the 14" is rock, light rock, shot through with sheets of coal
but pretty worthless for the forge.

Crap!

Well I finished unloading the tRusty old pickup a little while ago and
started setting up to try some of the different flavors available in my
hastily constructed coal bunker. I was relieved to notice I'd realized I was
loading rocks before I'd piled a truly embarrassing amount aboard, only
about 200 lbs or so. Still . . . I drove all that way, dug and pried, tossed
and packed and now I have a nice collection of rocks. Oh I have probably 3/4
ton of really nice coal but heck my father was a rock hound I know the
difference between a rock and a lump of coal!

Here's the real kicker. One of our friends a Pygmy goat breeder my wife
introduced to the persuit and has been mentoring came by to borrow the fence
post driver. She came over to check out my new coal forge, pile of coal and
ask how her farm sign mount was coming along. Uh . . . Yeah, the barn sign
brackets. "Make any sketches of what you'd like Robyn?"

"No, I liked what you sketched." Drats that dodge didn't work. <sigh>

"Check out the coal, I couldn't really get going on the brackets till I had
the coal forge and coal." (Maybe this will work. Especially seeing as I
regaled her with the @$%$%^& !!! rock story.

"Rocks? Coal rocks?"

"Well yes, there's coal in em but they're pretty worthless."

"Can I have one?"

"Sure," I reach into my hastily erected pallet and tarp construction coal
bunker and hand her a smallish fist sized piece of nice shiny coal. "Here
you go Robyn, high quality blacksmithing coal."

"That's really nice Jerry. Can I have one of the rocks instead? You don't
mind do you? I wouldn't want to take one if you can use it."

What I get for thinking. <sigh>

Have a good weekend all.

Frosty
------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.