Peak Gold Mines has teamed up with a number of local businesses to recover some important local mining artefacts which were last week delivered to the museum.
Two smelter metal convertors standing a bit over two metres high and weighing approximately eight and 10 tonnes, as well as two large pieces of gear work from the old Great Cobar Mine’s smelter, now have pride of place on the museum’s Open Cut Walk.
Dating back to 1907, museum curator Kay Stingemore said the convertors were an important part of the final stages of the mine’s smelting process.
She said the men who worked on the convertors were called Tappers.
“They were skilled and their work was very dangerous.”
She said the mining artefacts were an important part of Cobar’s history.
“John Collins had the idea many years ago to try and recover the convertors and it was Dale McLeod [from Peak Gold Mines] who finally made this happen,” Mrs Stingemore said.
Mr McLeod said the project had been approved by Peak’s general manager Greg Bowkett and had been a collaborative effort with BCD Projects, Countrywide Cranes, Broughton Field Services and DTS Resources to get the old mining equipment from the Great Cobar site to the museum and to mount the convertors onto concrete supports.
“All have donated their time and equipment,” Mr McLeod said.
“When everyone gets together and does
a little bit, we are capable of doing good things.
“I think that’s more important than just
writing a cheque to make a donation,” he
said.
Mrs Stingemore said sadly it’s only the second lot of artefacts the museum has from the Great Cobar Mine and that there is hardly anything left from the Great Cobar workings.
She said it was exciting to have the convertors finally on site and is looking forward to doing some restoration work to get them ready for exhibition.
