Stamp mills were usually built on the side of hill to use gravity in the process. Coal breakers were usually at least partially built above the tracks so cars could be loaded by gravity.
If I remember correctly, the Mt. Union plant used roller crushers. An example of a S scale breaker would be the Lehigh Valley Models kit or B.T.S's coal mine kit. In the case of coal, you just want to break it up into its desired usable size, which varied with the end user. Stamp mills worked differently. The stamps were essentially vertical hammers that pulverized the ore. A 10 stamp mill would have 10 of these stamps, a 20 stamp mill would have 20, with typically five stamps in a battery. A typical arrangement for gold or silver was ore was dumped onto a grizzly, which vibrated and would separate the fines, and fed a jaw crusher, which broke up the large pieces. The ore then went to a bin, which then fed the stamps which pulverized it. The next step was an amalgamation table where mercury was used to bind with any free metals and separate them from the rock. The mercury could then be driven off in a retort. In some cases the ore than went to shaking Wilfley Tables which would separate the heavier ore from the lighter rock. Further refining usually sent the ore to a smelter where something like the cyanide process was used to separate the metal from the ore. Sometime around 1995, Western Scale Models made a kit for an S scale model of a 20 stamp mill with castings for all the interior machinery included. There were only 100 kits made but they do show up every so often, usually still unbuilt. Several other stamp mill kits have be produced in S scale but without the interior. Dave Heine Easton, PA Thanks Dave. Is the breaker building in any way like a stamp mill or is the crushing done differently? Thanks Rachel Covington _____ From: David Heine <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 6:30 PM Subject: RE: {S-Scale List} Re: S tuff for sale 2 Rachel, In the case of Mt. Union, the last facility was a Chance flotation plant. The coal the EBT brought there was mine run, which meant it was all different sizes and had some rock mixed in with the coal since it was straight out of the mine. The plant crushed the coal and mixed it with water. Using cyclones, etc, the heavier sand/rock particles could be separated from the less dense coal. Essentially washing the coal of impurities, The coal was also graded by size. There were other methods, using boys to separate the rock and coal by hand, for example. This why you see a large breaker building at many coal mines, it is a place to prepare the coal coming out of the mine for its intended use. Dave Heine Easton, PA
