Ten YEARS ON: ROOF CONTROL

Series

Series Name
Mining Review 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.
10
Date Released
Jun 1956
Stories in this Issue:
  1. 1UP TO DATE
  2. 2Ten YEARS ON: ROOF CONTROL
  3. 3ANOTHER CENTURY
  4. 4KNOCKED ‘EM IN THE OLD FORD ROAD

Story

Story No. within this Issue
2 / 4
Section Title
Ten YEARS ON
Summary
BFI synopsis: changes in the technique of roof support systems over the past ten years
NCB Commentary - No branch of mining is more important than roof control underground. The pit is always slive with forces which must be controlled.
And yet in ten years far-reaching changes have taken place in the techniques of roof control in British mines.
Traditional mining support is the timber prop - home grown in native forests or imported from overseas. Timber still has its place in the pit, and probably always will. Ten years ago timber and rigid steel were the main-stays of roof control and safety in the mines. Steel alone couldn’t be used; timber ad the natural flexibility to yield and give way against the differing loads imposed on it underground. In the pit, roof and floor are always on the move.
The Germans first made all-steel supports that would give with the roof. Friction controlled the load - and they’re widely used.
Then, born out of wartime aeronautics, came the hydraulic steel yielding prop, controlled like an aircraft’s undercarriage. The Dowty prop, as it’s known, can be set to yield at a given pressure.
Innovation - made possible by yielding supports - the prop-free front. New coal winning machines demanded a clear space in which to move up and down the coal.
The answer - cantilever bars, projecting out in front of the supports, but locking rigidly under the downward pressure of the roof. Each new development in coal-winning has meant a new look in roof control to keep pace. Without a revolution in support methods, none of these machines could have been installed.
And the revolution is still going on. Here is a glimpse of the future - but it’s working now. Supports which do their job in one place, lower, move forward and set themselves up again to keep pace with a fast-advancing coalface. From supports like these it’s only a short step forward to the coalface of the future, where miners will work at a distance as technicians, not on the coal.
Tomorrow is nearly here. In ten short years one of the basic crafts of mining has developed a long, long way.
Researcher Comments
Commentary recorded 7th May 1956.
Keywords
Industry and manufacture; Mining; Inventions and discoveries; Fuels; Energy resources
Written sources
British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
Film User   Vol.11 No.123 January 1957, p29.
The National Archives COAL 32   /12 Scripts for Mining Review, 1956-1960
Credits:
Production Co.
Documentary Technicians Alliance
Sponsor
National Coal Board

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