Warren Coe and Colin Stretch teamed up to build a sculpture out of old machinery parts found in the clay and on top of the quarry at Drury. “Some of the parts are very old such as the drill steels that were used to drill into the faces by hand.

Bernie McDonald is a driller from way back, so it was good to talk to him about the history of the old drill steels,” says Warren. The sculpture features a range of pilot drill sizes up to today’s size and a pair of scissors that were used to lift rocks out of the crusher.

All of the recycled parts sit on a toggle plate from an old jaw crusher. Warren says that he had the vision for re-using the parts that were destined for the scrap pile and Colin Stretch did all the hard work welding, sandblasting and painting the sculpture yellow, a very close colour match to the trucks.

Warren thinks the piece of art is not for everyone but it is an important talking point that holds a lot of history. “When people arrive at the Drury office they are going to see it, not only because it is very bright, but because it is interesting and a talking point.” Drop balls from the first crushers are also displayed in the garden. Warren often tells people they are bombs from WW1 and another workmate mentioned they would make a good boat anchor. Conversations like these are what Warren hopes the new sculpture will bring about. It is important to Warren that as he and his mates get older they can pass on some history and knowledge to the next generation.