Sunday, 19 October 2008

Some Progress!

Well, the sun came out today, so I went underground. My nephew wanted to earn some pocket money, so I enlisted him to help clear out some of the more managable bits of stuff from the bunker. I hadn't been inside for a few months now, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Flooded? Overrun with spiders? Actually no.... it was nice and dry and relatively bug free.

We removed lots of the bits and pieces. There were lots of these little metal "caps". Anyone any idea what they might have been?


There were also quite a few of the old lamp shades on the floor, only one of which is still hanging.


This is the strange canister that appears to be designed to be worn on someone's back. Plant sprayer or bee fumigator (there's a beehive in the back too remember)?



Here's all the junk we removed....

There was a lot of this alloy-type tubing, which had "porcelain"(?) insulators attached to it? No clue as to what this might have once have belonged to. Anyone any ideas?



All this clearing enabled us to sweep up the floor a bit half way along. The concrete underneath the thick layer of dust and rust particles was smooth and dry.



A few more pictures of the tunnel from today:





I haven't really attacked the front yet. I need to deal with all the tangled barb wire in order to get to the floor underneath, and whilst I could laboriously cut it up into small pieces, I can't help but think that it would be easier to remove it in one tangle once the doors are fully open.

at

16 comments:

  1. Chris Bachmann19 October 2008 at 14:23

    The caps look like typical exhaust caps used for stoves and the like. They could have gone up to ground level and the caps would have kept out the rain. Or maybe they were intended to and they were never installed?

    Here's a similar one.
    http://www.shepherdshut.co.nz/giovanni_stoves.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Psha22 October 2008 at 01:38

    Those ceramic insulators are used on electric fences. Here's one: http://flickr.com/photos/mnesterpics/2420580239/

    But what about that canister? My first though was flamethrower, but that's probably just my imagination running wild.

    Love the blog btw, keep up the exploring!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ash22 October 2008 at 09:29

    Greetings from Seattle! I am so glad to see an update on your tunnel. My first thought about the photo you posted of the caps was also an exhaust or chimney cap.

    ReplyDelete
  4. rod.bibeau23 October 2008 at 21:45

    about time for the update! I check on a less frequent basis now than when you first discovered it, but still coming back.

    The caps look like stove top or vent caps.

    i eagerly await more pictures.

    Rod

    Duluth, MN, USA

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown25 October 2008 at 05:39

    the first pictures look like chimney caps http://www.markandbuttons.com/images/products/chimney_caps/SS_Round_Cone_small.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  6. AWM27 October 2008 at 10:30

    Could it be a flamethrower? Given that rifles were stored there it's possible that other weapons were too.

    Doe's it look anything like these? http://www.waffenhq.de/infanterie/flammenwerfer41.html

    Rick

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown3 November 2008 at 10:25

    As psha said, those ceramic things are insulators. They aren't just for electric fences, however, they're used for all sorts of electrical wiring. Shielding around the wiring wasn't very good back then (before plastics were widely used), so anything that carried a significant amount of current had to be suspended by ceramic or glass insulators to keep it from grounding out.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Avenger15 November 2008 at 15:06

    I would assume the caps weren't for use in the bunker itself, unless you've found actual piping going through the roof. Probably, they were used or intended for use on the exhaust pipes of heating stoves in above ground structures. If you've ever seen old episodes of MASH, the stove they have in the center of the Swamp is typical of these.

    That isn't any type of flamethrower I'm familiar with. They almost always have separate tanks, one for fuel and one for propellant, usually air or oxygen. The tanks are thick metal, like welding tanks, and are carried on a simple tube steel frame, with the backpack straps attached to that. Probably a pump sprayer of some kind, but who can tell what for now?

    ReplyDelete
  9. olimortimer18 November 2008 at 04:42

    What, no more updates :-o

    ReplyDelete
  10. rat25618 January 2009 at 15:33

    Hi

    The ceramic jobbies are insulators, and i can tell you that they were used to carry both power and telephone lines. my grandfather was an communications engineer at the end of the war and i've still got some things that look like that at the back of a shed somewhere!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dan Marsh6 March 2009 at 14:38

    It seems feasible that the rods with insulating porcelain cones were used for telegraph wires, given that near enough all bunkers were linked up with a telegraph system, for military communications.

    Presumably, the wires used at the time were bare with no insulating outer layer, which would explain the need for porcelain insulators where the wires are attached to the poles.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unknown13 April 2009 at 16:23

    Any updates?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous14 May 2009 at 10:00

    hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....

    ReplyDelete
  14. PhotoFlow330 May 2009 at 20:01

    Any progress on the bunker or is it a dead project?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Unknown24 October 2009 at 13:54

    Its been over a year, any new updates?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Unknown11 June 2010 at 12:23

    Your Fumigator is a Flamethrower. it would be filled with napalm and a smal area for compressed air. the back would be work like a backpack while a hose going to a spraying nozzle would ignite the napalm on its way out

    ReplyDelete