Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, the motor and gearbox that once drove the ball mill, now sitting.
Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, the motor and gearbox that once drove the ball mill, now sitting.

Number Six Ball Mill Drive

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
14mm · f/8.0 · 8s · ISO 100
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The Number Six ball mill drive at Kandos Cement Works. Rusted machinery and a steel staircase occupy the floor, the equipment coated in grime and paint splatters built up across decades of use. Exposed electrical conduits run along the brick wall to the right, and a small motor sits on a grated platform to the left. Light pushes in from a distant roller door, falling across a dusty floor where a small green object catches the glare.

Edition
Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD
Size
Type
Colour
✓
Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.
See certificate sample →

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In situ

Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, unframed print displayed in situ on a wall.Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, white-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.Number Six Ball Mill Drive at Kandos Cement Works, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Number Six Ball Mill Drive
Series
Kandos Cement Works
Catalogue
KCW-025
Process
Giclée
Captured
13 February 2016
Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/8.0
Shutter
8s s
ISO
100
Focal length
14 mm
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size
297 × 210 mm
Location
Kandos, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity
C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Kandos, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The drive assembly for Number Six Ball Mill at Kandos Cement Works sits at one end of the mill bay, a massive electric motor coupled through a reduction gearbox to the mill's pinion shaft. The motor is painted pale grey, with a manufacturer's plate still legible on the casing. The gearbox housing is heavier steel, oil-stained around the inspection covers. Bolted to a deep concrete plinth, the drive sits at the height a worker could service it from a low platform alongside. Cabling runs from the motor terminal box up to the overhead trays. The pinion that engaged the mill girth gear is still in place; the gear teeth show wear patterns from decades of meshing. A heavy guard, removed for maintenance access, leans against the wall.

A ball mill is a slow-turning horizontal cylinder loaded with steel balls; clinker enters at one end, is reduced to fine powder by the tumbling action, and exits at the other as finished cement. The drive moves the whole cylinder at the right speed for the grinding action to work. Number Six Ball Mill at Kandos was one of the cement mills on site at closure. Cement Australia invested $10 million in plant modernisation in 2007, including a new Kiln 6 stack, but the works closed four years later in September 2011 for high fixed costs and considerable distance from market. The drive has not turned since.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

The motor and gearbox that once drove the ball mill, now sitting in silence. At its peak, this machinery powered the relentless grinding of raw materials, reducing them to fine powder for cement production. The wear and grime speak to years of constant motion - an industrial heartbeat that never stopped until the plant was finally shut down.

Brett Patman

Kandos Cement Works

The series

Kandos Cement Works

40 photographs

Kandos Cement Works made Portland cement at Kandos, south-east of Mudgee in central western New South Wales, from 1916 until 2011. The New South Wales Cement, Lime and Coal Company, registered in 1913, built it 3.5 miles east of its limestone quarry, which fed the works by aerial ropeway. By 1927 its rotary kilns were steel cylinders 143 feet long and 9 feet in diameter, fired with powdered coal, and the finished cement went into 30 storage silos.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM KANDOS CEMENT WORKS

39 other prints in this series

All prints
Number Six Raw Mill at Kandos Cement Works, a ball mill sits heavy in the half-light, its riveted steel drum tilted toward.
Number Six Raw Mill$100.00
Clinker Shed at Kandos Cement Works, steel trusses span the full width of the shed, supported by heavy columns streaked.
Clinker Shed$100.00
Inside Kandos Cement Works, a cyclonic separator dominates the frame. Its vast, corroded steel structure and complex pipework carry rust and accumulated grime in every joint and seam.
Cyclonic Separator$100.00
Raw Stone Shed at Kandos Cement Works, dark heaps of crusite and stone dust cover the floor, rising in uneven mounds.
Raw Stone Shed$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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