20,000 Ounces Under The Beach

[Capt Nemo]

Had a historical discovery on the miller table tonight. I found a piece of cable used in ships rigging. This roughly dates the bands to the late 1800's. I do have pics of ships washed up to the treeline in this area. If abandoned, the locals would strip them and then burn them for the iron spikes. This is the second piece I've found in this area.

WARNING! CONTAINS GOLD PORN!

 

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[Capt Nemo]

Here's all I got out of that yard. A lot more black sand than gold in those bands. Looks like the damper screen I put into the bed aided in fine recovery, as I've never seen quite this amount of super fine pieces.



I found this much in a 3 1/2 gal bucket of the stuff I dug in November last year. Too bad it got either buried or washed out this winter.

Next time, I'm thinking of ignoring the black sand and just start digging straight down to water. With the surface gold, there's got to be even better gold down deep.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Panning the table tailings yielded 2 #150s, and 10 from 250-400 with 7 being in the 350-400 range. I've seen gold down to the 250 range with the beds, but the super small stuff was rarely present. This is more like I panned the material rather than fluid bedding it. Seeing the beds now capturing this tiny stuff is a real good sign. Now I'll have to test the damper screen with my shallower beds.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Headed up Thursday and found conditions were similar to the last trip. Somebody added a bunch of stones around my last dig site. I decided to try moving west from my hole to see if the gold gets better. I have a thought that the gold may drift up like a sand dune, and get thick in spots and then thin out on the tail. As everything is slowly moving east on that beach, it kinda makes sense. Though, I'd still love to go up in the grassline and punch a hole down to bedrock to see what's down there. But that would take a load of lumber for shoring the hole.

Friday, I started at sunup. The Model 5 bed ran great until the 7th bucket when the pump bucket clogged up with organics. After a full cleanout, I went another three before another clog, so I could only get 7 buckets run before having to do a full cleanout. That slowed things down a lot! Every cleanout means not only hauling 7 fresh buckets of water for running, but an additional 5 for filling the tank. Having 25 yards of soft sand to haul buckets through doesn't help. Did 2 runs, and then superconcentrated the 3 1/2 gal cons bucket with the Bucket Buddy. Glad I did a test pan of the tailings, as I found that the Bucket Buddy doesn't like gravel. I classified everything to #16 windowscreen and ran it again. No losses. But from the losses that I saw before, I was on some good gold! I got another run of the Model 5 in, and then had to batten down the hatches as a thunderstorm was bearing down. Could hear that storm for hours before it struck. Got in the car and turned on the radio just in time to get a severe weather statement. During the storm there was a lightning strike that just missed where I was digging by maybe 15 yards. We must have been on the trains path, as the storms wouldn't quit until 1 hour before sundown, and then another 2 storms past sundown. Oh well, we got 21 buckets run.

Saturday, still had the same fun problems with clogging. Since I had to do a cleanout every 7 buckets, I would just keep running when the 7th bucket was full, and go until I'm almost out of water. Got 5 runs in with 3 more supercon runs before a fatal flaw developed. On the 5th run, one of the battery clamps cracked. I got her through the 5th run, but just after I shut down and clipped the clamp to the battery box, I heard a snap from the battery. The other side of the clamp cracked! I needed a soldering iron and some copper/brass sheet to fix, and that wasn't happening! At least part of it is still holding so it's fixable. Cleaned up everything for packing in the morning. Well, I got 56+ buckets run, and by the size of the tailings pile I had a good 1 3/4 yards in. I still had time for another two runs, but couldn't do it without power. The solar panels had the charge controller cutting out between runs, so they were keeping up with the usage.

The Model 5 running just before the clog. Set the head 5 spraybars full open and the tail 5 to 50%.


The damper screen on the last 6 spraybars worked well. The material above the spraybars was semi-dead and would act as a bit of a riffle.


Not a lot of rock, but LOTS of organics in the reject pile.


Fatal flaw!

 

[Capt Nemo]

AH S$#@!!!! Didn't cure the Bucket Buddy problems!!! Have to run back up tomorrow and grab those concentrate tailings piles!

Here's how bad the tailings were from last night's concentrating run. This is just one scoop from a 2 gallon bucket! I must have left 3/4ths of my gold on the beach!


Considering the amount of tiny fines I saw that I haven't seen before, I think the Model 5 with damper screen is doing great. I'll grab some of it's tailings as well just to check. I've had a lot of problems with tiny fluid beds that larger ones don't seem to have. Just something I'm overlooking on the tiny ones. The Bucket Buddy with the #8 damper screen and +1/8" gravel would be the equivalent of a jig. Yet, it didn't seem to like the gravel, and then gave me a clean pan after #16 classification. Then it started puking gold on the same classified material again.

I guess from now on, I'll just have to run the Model 5, and use the Model 4D for concentrating, as both seem to catch the fines well.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Just got back from grabbing the tailings. Have about 3 1/2 buckets from the cons, and two of the Model 5 tailings. I also grabbed 7 gal of the patch I was digging to see how much gold there is per cubic foot.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Panned down both Model 5 tailings buckets to black sand. Took a test pan of 2 scoops of the concentrate made....Nothing! Still have 2 gal of the black sand to go, and I hope it stays that way!

 

[Capt Nemo]

Finished panning. 14 pans total.

Found a speck of ~#300 in pans 5 & 6, and found a speck of #100 in pan 9. The #100 may be contamination from the shovel or scoop, as I didn't clean them after handling the Bucket Buddy tailings. I'd see more if the Model 5 were missing them.

So, I can say the Model 5 isn't loosing anything of importance if it's loosing 1 speck of #300 per bucket of tailings. That's really good for a fluid bed!

 

[Capt Nemo]

Started panning down the Bucket Buddy tailings. I fanned back one of the pans after dumping out part of the cons and hit 1 x #200, 1 x #150, and 3 at #100.

Hey Houston! We got a problem!

 

[Capt Nemo]

Lot's O FUN today!

Decided to make another sand run up to Superior, as I could use the tailings to fill a couple of new muskrat holes.

Here's the area I dug out and ran on previous trips.



The beach had changed a bit from my last trip up. The beach was eroded away to the west, and the bar is about where the waterline used to be. The tree root is where a new 1" thick layer of dark sand begins. That sand has enough black in it to run, but further up the beach has better amounts. The storm that did this washed a lot of bark and root gobs up to where I was digging.



Bought a new item sorely needed for beach work. A Bug A Salt gun! This wonderful device blasts the flies with table salt and kills them. It's like a shotgun. Only problem is we ran out of salt too quickly. We started with a full hopper (80 shots) and were out of ammo in a few minutes, but we wasted probably 130 flies! Yup! We were in combat! Short of everything except enemies!

On the way back disaster struck!

Was going through a dip in the road that had a bridge at the bottom. As the headlights began illuminating the hill in front.....DEER AT THE END OF THE GUARDRAIL!!! I jumped on the brake and was slowing for the deer on the shoulder, another decided to cross the road. OH S@&%!!! Slammed on the brake and nailed it doing about 15-20 MPH. Also heard the buckets of sand rattle and a swooshing sound. Pulled over and got out and went to the back to get my light out to see what the damage was. Didn't find the deer, but the only thing broken seems to be the fog light bracket up front. Then I took a good look at the back.





Looks like I'll be running a vacuum cleaner instead of running sand tomorrow after I show the insurance agent. This one will make the wall of fame!

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Dang, that was a close call. I am glad you made it out with only a damaged fog light. I've hit a few deer in my day. Ditto on the Bug-a-Salt. I have one, and got my buddies one last Christmas. We love it. Let us know what you pull out of those sands.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Just got done panning down all the sand. My estimate is I only missed about 1/4 of a soda can of sand that I couldn't vacuum out of the car. 9 gallons of black sand out of the 6 cubic feet of sand. Did see a couple specks while rinsing buckets, so there's gold! Tomorrow, I'll bed all the cons. I got the muskrat hole almost filled with the blond sand tailings. Need to make another run to finish.

Just got the estimate of $2100. The deer caught the fender and the driver's door too. No worry! $0 deductible on the insurance for a collision. The guy at the body shop was suprized that he couldn't even find a paint crack on the front bumper. The only thing that will cost me is the rust starting on the bottom of the other doors, that I'm going to have fixed and painted along with the repairs. That will be $450. So kinda good timing for this to happen.

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Great to hear on the repair. I am interested to see how much gold you pull from the 9 gallons of black sand.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Did another sand run today, and this time no deer! Peak fall colors in some areas, and either pre/post in others.

Came back with 8 full buckets (40 gallons). Decided to cut and run after a DNR vehicle drove past. I don't think he saw all the buckets, or he probably would have stopped. I've got enough to fill that hole, so I'm good.

That bar that was there in the pic is now completely washed away, and another 10' of beach. The log with it's roots in the waterline was washed down to where I was digging, and rolling in the surf. There might not be much beach out from the grassline next year if this keeps up.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Finished the Bucket Buddy tailings. Bucket Buddy ain't a buddy any more!

Here's what it puked, and what the Model 5 bed is able to catch.


I'm going to replumb and test again, and if it fails, it's getting junked.

 

[Capt Nemo]

After removing the magnetite, I panned down the tailings again.

Here's what the magnetite was holding back.


The biggest piece tried to escape when I was washing out the garnet sand. Caught it check panning the garnet. Only proves that this gold likes to flit around like glitter, and may be the reason I have so much trouble with the active fluid beds. The gold is too flat!

 

[MidMoTreasure]

Wow, it pays to save the tailings. Have you had a chance to have your come-to-jeebuz meeting with your Bucket Buddy yet?

 

[Capt Nemo]

I have to cut the plumbing off and rebuild it. I'm thinking that having a nearly dead tail on the bed keeps the gold from blowing out. I put too many jets on the tail and it gets a little too lively to hold the gold in the box. It seems that when the Bucket Buddy holds it's gold, the tail is almost locked and slowly sinking. I may try building a new one with an angled tail to get it away from the rising area of the rear jets, and force a dead tail situation before the tailspout.

That's what you get with prototypes. Even the Model 5 highbanker has had a few mods added, and that's been working great capture wise from the start. A rebuild will shorten the bed about 4" at the head where I had to add a stuffer block to fix a dead space that I thought would stay fluid from the water coming off the grizzly. As I'm running at 1/2 throttle on the tail, I can drop the 800 GPH pump for a 500 GPH version and cut 1.5 Amps off the 9 Amp power draw. I might be able to do the same with the pump for the head. Cutting both pumps back, I could add a 1200 GPH on the header box where I need more water, and still be 1 Amp less draw. That would give me a full solar panel doing nothing but keeping the battery up.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Here's the haul from the 1 cubic foot sample. Not very good! Multiply by 27 for a yard. I've seen 10 times this amount out of half the volume from this same area of beach, so I'm digging for nothing.



Here's a little wisdom about magnetite. Do not remove it until you have removed the bulk of the gold from the cons. If you remove or magnetize it can clump and then float above the blond sand. If those clumps have grabbed gold, you just lost it! It's best to pan first, then remove magnetite, and pan again.

Floating magnetite clumps.


Magic wand with the floating magnetite attached.


The magnetite found on Lake Superior is almost loadstone, and all it needs to become loadstone is to become magnetized. Once that occurs, it will permanently clump.

 

[Zaroc]

Capt, let me know the next time you’re running up to Superior. Maybe we can do some prospecting together. I’d love to learn some of your gold seeking tricks!

Z