Complete newb, but Im having quite the adventure, and I havent found much yet.

[Jeff95531]

I hear ya Bob. Even tho we dropped out and ran off as far as we could get...life still finds you and a way to take a shot or two every time you turn around. This year both me and the wife got a slew of new "old people" problems, major truck repairs x2 and would you believe I have to run a daily trap line for rats cuz the neighbor across the street w/horses and grain could give a crap about his infestation? Ah well...gotta get out before you freak out is what I always say.

Now all I gotta do is take my own advice.

 

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[bobw53]

You sure are working hard from all directions at once! Sounds like you are very smart to focus on the opportunity to grow your business right now...scale it up a bit, hire well, pay well and you'll be on the way to creating Custer satisfaction, great careers for others AND WEALTH for you. That's the USA at its best!! Oh, and gold. ;-)

Hey Kevin, The business thing.. I don't have all that much of a choice right now... Actually, I guess I do, I could just walk away... I mentioned up above about a less than stellar business
partner.... It is now in the legal system.. And I'm doing everything I can to bring this business to where it should have been years ago. My customers have been fantastic through this mess.
My parents have been incredibly supportive.. And Marie... My better half.. I couldn't ask for a better partner... She has been behind me 110%(by definition nobody can give more
than 100%).

Pay them well. My cleaning guy/handyman/do everything guy... $15 an hour in a horribly economically depressed area. I do everything I can to treat him well, because that
costs nothing.. He's been busting his ass for me... Worth every penny plus some... Being raised by 2 supervisors that took a ton of pride in their supervising ability, and being
a supervisor for most of my adult(and some teenage) life... Treat people well and you can get them to do anything, they will bend over backwards for you, and they won't steal your
stuff. I'm not saying "get them to do anything" as a control thing... Its a mutual respect thing, I'm no better than anybody that works for me or works under me, because in reality we
are just working together, I'm just the idiot with the responsibility.

I've got a guy in here now that I worked under years and years ago... I hadn't talked to him in almost 10 years and I was thinking about him and wondering where he was, thinking how if
he was retired now, he would be an awesome guy to have around, for his experience, his personality etc.... Apparently, the universe heard me... 3 weeks later the phone rings.. Its him..
Strange having the roles reversed, but the way he treated me and the respect I have for him, its not a big deal.

I've got a guy down the street, older guy, head trauma, he's not all there all the time but he's a good guy... He's cleaning up the yard for me. And when that is done, I've got a ton
more for him.

I've got 3 more people to contact, 2 have already offered their services, and one doesn't know yet. A guy that worked for me years ago and had to move away... And now he's back.
Right now I don't want anybody full time, I don't want that responsibility, once everything shakes out that will change.

My lawyer... She is AWESOME. Have you ever had a lawyer try to save you money, aggravation and frustration? And she tried, she tried really hard... Unfortunately
some people don't understand a good deal when it smacks them in the head... 3 times. So now we are in the legal system.. And from here on out, I'm out of control... And he is out of
control, SHE is in CONTROL... Her and her partner, and some guy in a black robe.. I feel I am in very very good hands, I KNOW I'm in good hands.

Marie keeps pushing the marriage thing... I'm a machinist, I want to make a ring. I've got her mom's diamonds and a diamond from my great grandmother... And now the gold thing...
I'm going to go get the gold and make a ring out of it... I told my lawyer this one day when we were talking and she gave me all the scrap gold she had been saving since she was
a teenager. In a red velvet bag and everything... That is how AWESOME my lawyer is. I would not want to be on the bad side of her, she'd tear me up and spit me out.

Its all Daisy's and Sunshine from here on out... I just don't know exactly which way it will go, or how long it will take. The yard is getting cleaned up, the shop is getting cleaned up and
organized. I've got an actual real accounting firm, with lawyers and everything, cleaning the books up. I've got people working for me. I'm making some money. The work keeps coming. Its going
to be a lot of fun, and it hasn't been for years.

 

[bobw53]

I hear ya Bob. Even tho we dropped out and ran off as far as we could get...life still finds you and a way to take a shot or two every time you turn around.

My turn to take the shots. If it doesn't kill me, it can only make me stronger. It CAN'T get worst than it was and I found some more stuff in the paperwork last week that has put such a big smile
on my face for the past 5 days that I'm starting to get headaches.

I've got a stable next door also. They board, and train, lessons... The whole nine. Thankfully they are VERY clean. They clean all the horse **** every single day. Occasionally with a very light
east to west wind you can smell it a tiny little bit. The owner is real nice also, they have trails all through our property, they know my dogs by name and look out for us, so I can't complain.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Bob, thanks for sharing more, makes me cheer for you as loud as I can!

 

[nh.nugget]

Well Bob,Sounds like things are starting to shine on you a bit. I ran auto body shops for years had my own for 20yrs I like your outlook on your employees. The one thing I was told and never forgot. If they don't shine you don't shine. Complements and atta' boy's go along way! Keep up the good work CHEERS!

 

[arizau]

Yesterdays project, half done. My 250 and 400 screens came in... The 400 is FINE... it feels like silk. I also realized that mesh size is about the dumbest thing
known to man.... Holes per inch doesn't tell the whole story, especially when it comes down to the small stuff. Wire size really messes with the hole size. So I ignored
"MESH" and bought based on hole size. The new procedure will be 1/8" to go through the cube, then 20,50,80,120,250,400. The 400 mesh is a .0015" hole
(.038mm for you metric minded people).

Any of you guys ever gone down that small? I guess it depends on how much gold is in there as to weather its worth it or not. I guess I'll find out
pretty soon, I saved all the stuff I classified down to -120, but its at home on the counter... Though I could do some rock crushing just to play with
it today.

Of course the 5 or 6 inch classifiers I bought are 10,20,30,40,50,60... Useless in their current configuration, but an incredible bargain at $25. I just had the screen sitting
in the bottom, I'm going to silicone them in now. Pulled out the 80 and 120 screens and rinsed off the dirt that had gone around and got stuck, 9 tiny little pieces of
gold in there, really really small stuff.

I also got sick of not knowing what classifier I was working with or grabbing. A Sharpie kind of blends in then fades, so I fixed that. Just heated up some impression stamps with
a torch. I marked them every 90 degrees. Its not the prettiest thing going, but it should serve its purpose. And again the camera fails, they are really easy to see, except when
I'm trying to take a picture..

I too have some useless sieves that I can modify. Were you able to purchase the 250 and 400 mesh material in small squares? If or if not, what was your source and approximate price? I found that Ted Pella, Inc. sells pairs of 6" stainless squares but I am still looking for a little less expensive. Also what did you use to cut the mesh to fit?

Thanks.

 

[bobw53]

I too have some useless sieves that I can modify. Were you able to purchase the 250 and 400 mesh material in small squares? If or if not, what was your source and approximate price? I found that Ted Pella, Inc. sells pairs of 6" stainless squares but I am still looking for a little less expensive. Also what did you use to cut the mesh to fit?

Thanks.

McMaster Carr. Listed under Woven Wire Cloth. McMaster-Carr

Pretty darn cheap up to 200, then the price start climbing. The 400 mesh I bought was $21 a square foot, listed under 304 stainless wire cloth.
I thought about the 500 mesh, but at $136 a square foot... My wallet didn't like that idea.

When you get that small, just standard scissors cut it just fine, as long as they aren't complete garbage (don't use the better half's sewing scissors,
or at least don't let her see you do that). Tin snips on the larger stuff.

 

[arizau]

McMaster Carr. Listed under Woven Wire Cloth. McMaster-Carr

Pretty darn cheap up to 200, then the price start climbing. The 400 mesh I bought was $21 a square foot, listed under 304 stainless wire cloth.
I thought about the 500 mesh, but at $136 a square foot... My wallet didn't like that idea.

When you get that small, just standard scissors cut it just fine, as long as they aren't complete garbage (don't use the better half's sewing scissors,
or at least don't let her see you do that). Tin snips on the larger stuff.

Much cheaper.

Thanks

 

[bobw53]

Doing the science fair thing again. This time I'm going to document this, so I know what I did...

If you don't want to go back and look. Science/math fair... K-5th... Not the kids doing the projects, the teachers introducing the kids to new fun stuff.
Every teacher has to come up with 2 booths... Gold panning.. Gold is HEAVY!!! I need to educate 70-100 kids on how to gold pan, let them pan for gold,
let them find gold, then get that gold into a vial they can take home..... In 2 hours... 4 to 5 minutes to process a batch of 4-6 kids.

I made little pay dirt cups last year... Doing the same this year.. My Dad is out here, so he's helping, he's over there screening blondes for easy panning.

Last year, 3/8" socket head cap screw for the black sand, and a heaping soup spoon full of just dirt/sand, and a few rocks...

Playing with it this year, I didn't separate the black sands by panning, I used a magnet..... Which magnetizes the black sand apparently... MAGNETIZED black
sand makes panning REALLY difficult.. It sticks together, turns into clumps and strings... -50 MAGNETIZED black sand, many pieces stuck together can EASILY
grab a piece of 25 mesh gold and drag it down the pan... What a pain in the ass. And it sticks all together in a giant clump that WILL NOT separate.

This years mix... less black sand and more blondes. (is more blondes is ever a bad thing?)... the hex head in a 5/16 SHCS for the black sand... PANNED not
magnetically separated, Then ounce and a half by volume of -20/+50 blondes... This gives them a lot more "dirt" to play with, but it's really easy to pan...

I'm going to toss in a bit of +4 rocks, that way they have to get their fingers wet and dirty...


In process.

 

[bobw53]

From last year, quadrupled the blondes (-20 to +50), and lowered the blacks. Seems to make the "pay dirt" easier to pan, but hides the gold better, at least initially.

Got all the cups made up. Approximately .04 grams each. 25 mesh, 10-15 pieces per kid. It goes in a vial and they get to take it home.

Working on seasoning pans now... Sucks... Sucks doing one for yourself, getting 15 of them ready to roll is a giant pain in the ass. It'll be fun.

Here is a shot of a cup of "pay dirt", and the gold each kid will get. GOLD does not photograph well under florescents, so ignore the shiny things.

This is a BAD pic, it looked good when I took it.

 

[bobw53]

I now have a new way to season pans... Sandblast them. then a quick dip in some soapy water, nice uniform finish, water doesnt bead,
and it grabs the gold good too.

 

[bobw53]

Haven't updated all this in a while... The science fair thing... It went fairly well I guess... It was different than last time, the whole vibe of the place was different. My Dad was here to help,
and that helped, but the mix of kids was different. I have honestly wondered how some of them have enough brain power to breathe on their own.. Kids and THE PARENTS!!!

My Dad stayed for a month.. Most of the time he was sick as a dog, so we didn't get much done or much dirt moved. Definitely didn't get the camper all fixed...

Learned all about running a dry washer too hard/hot... 30 gallons screened down to 1/4"... NOTHING in the drywasher... Tailings through the Gold Cube... NOTHING..
Good thing is we dry washed on the slab out back.. So my Dad went out and vacuumed up the slab... We found the gold, about what was expected, though I would have
preferred for it to actually be IN the drywasher, not next to it. Lesson Learned.

Went cruising up to Hillsboro the other day... Took a guy thats been helping me out. He's usually looking for something to do, and even though he has lived here most of
his life, he had never been up there... We did a little digging and a bunch of sight seeing... Took the back road back through Lake Valley, hit the middle of nowhere bar in Nutt...
If you go there, and want to put a smile on the bartenders face.... She's Hopi, Not Navajo... Real nice lady, she does the indian Fry Bread once a month... I need to head out there
and get me some of that.

A few pics.

That's actually a truck cab wedged up between a boulder and the side of the gulch, I'm guessing it came down in the flood of '72.

Old building.

Another part of a building and a big old hole. 400-500 feet deep from what I can find documentation wise.

Somebody digging on my claim... Hope they had fun, they really opened that hole up... I can tell you what they found... A little bit right on the surface, and then nothing..
Surely would be nice if they left a note.

And I'm trying to figure out if my dog is an idiot for getting a box stuck on her head, or if she's a genius for getting a box stuck on her head and eating all the crackers in the box at the same time.

More reading and more research... Lining up with things I've seen on the ground and I've got a few spots I literally want to "crack" into..

 

[bobw53]

Haven't updated this in a while again... Haven't done much on the gold front.. Its been HOT!! and the work thing..

So the better half's aunt is down for a visit again.. And she wanted to do some 'splorin... Me too, I just needed somebody to twist my arm..

So it WAS HOT!!! the other day out there... Sitting there in the truck, checking my phone to figure out where we were, and BOOM!!
What!!? Somebody shooting at us?? Then I look through the back window of the truck and there is brown stuff dripping down...
I had 4 Dr. Peppers in the bed of the truck.. A second one blew up shortly afterwards, and the other 2 cans have the ends all puffed out.

Anyways... Just some cool pics up north of Copper Flats. I'm still not sure exactly where Gold Dust is/was... Lot of conflicting info
on that... But I did find what little is left of the old cemetery.

 

[bobw53]

I thought this shot was cool with all the shadows.

*****************
And what the heck are these? About 3/8" diameter, 2" long or so, the left one is broken, and there is some green
paint on the end of one of them.. And they are really really light.

 

[Clay Diggins]

And what the heck are these? About 3/8" diameter, 2" long or so, the left one is broken, and there is some green
paint on the end of one of them.. And they are really really light.

Those are carbon electrodes from a small electric arc furnace (EAF).

Here's a small EAF at work.



Here's a medium size EAF with three electrodes.



Here's a closeup of what happens when you apply power to the electrodes.



Here are the electrodes a big furnace uses. You just replace the screw on tips when you are working with big furnaces. Pulling the whole electrode is seldom done.



I ran one of these furnaces in the early 70's. Talk about a hot dangerous job...

Heavy Pans

 

[timthegoldman]

So you use the gold cube? I bought one but haven't really had the opportunity to try it yet. I'm in central Oregon and still looking for a place close enough to travel. Would appreciate reading about your experience with the gold cube. Thanks

 

[bobw53]

So you use the gold cube? I bought one but haven't really had the opportunity to try it yet. I'm in central Oregon and still looking for a place close enough to travel. Would appreciate reading about your experience with the gold cube. Thanks

My experience.. Its awesome!!!!!! And I have TINY gold.. And it catches it... For a while I was messing with the second and 3rd trays.... I NEVER found a single thing in that 3rd tray,
I found a TINY TINY little bit in the second tray. 2-5% maybe... The rest is in the top tray.... There may be some shapes that it is simply NOT catching, but I haven't found that to be
the case yet...

I don't even mess with the bottom trays anymore.. I put that to the side and re-run it when I clean up the panning tubs. Keep a spare pump, they are cheap, $10 on e-bay or so, I've
lost 2 so far, though that may be because I left them in the water when I was done..

Classifying SUCKS, it really really SUCKS!!! The stuff from my house, no big deal, I can classify a bucket in about 2 minutes... The stuff on my claim.. From one area, lots of muck and
vegetable matter, and LOTS of little rocks that are JUST bigger than 1/8", and it can take 30-40 minutes to hand classify a bucket. I plan on building a little trommel for it one of these
days... Not that I don't like the one they sell, but I have a hard time buying things I can make..... And I like making things soooo...

When I was first infected with the Gold Fever I just started buying random things... I'm so very happy that my biggest dollar purchase during that initial whirlwind
happened to be the Gold Cube... No regrets at all, its an awesome piece of equipment..

 

[bobw53]

Just for fun....

Quicky vacation. A few days away from work... The better half's family.. I could only get away for a few days, Better Half is a teacher and gets the whole summer off, she's still up there.

Just a few pics.

Good day fishing.. They would have been cleaned and in the cooler, but that pic was in the middle of a frenzy..
Had to go and grab 2 rods that got pulled out into the water.. Best trout I've ever eaten, by miles, very close
to the best fish I've ever eaten. Got our limit. 14"-17".. Not bad.. Big enough to filet.

This doesn't seem like much, but all those rocks are quartz.. All of 'em... Pretty darn cool.. I am now on the "officially crazy" list for insisting
on pulling over so I could get a picture.

Never seen this before, and no I didn't buy any.. And the sign in the background is Silver Ore for $3.

 

[bobw53]

I haven't updated this in FOREVER because I haven't been out and done any gold digging since last July, life, work, business... All that fun stuff.
Its been pretty hectic.. I got suckered (ah-hem, asked nicely) to help my better half with the lego league thing at school, getting ready for the
competition was a hectic whirlwind, but some of the kids got their pic in the paper (and I'm in the back ground). One team got a trophy, second
place in some presentation thing out of 30+ teams, so that was cool. Now we are just playing around and learning some stuff for next year..
The kids are for the most part really good, and its something different for them, and for me too.

Students demonstrate robotics skills in FIRST LEGO League


So, my folks are out here, and that means that me and the old man are going to go find some gold.. The first week they were here we didn't get to do anything,
I was just twisted up with one miserable job that I HAD to finish.. Sucked.

Went up Friday, got some dirt and did some 'splorin... Stuff my Dad hadn't seen up in Hillsboro yet, and we went some places I hadn't been yet.. Long day,
it was fun..

And I KNOW you aren't supposed to go in there, but there are a few vids online of folks going over 1000 feet back in there, and the timbers looked
fairly good, and the rock was all solid and cows were going in there and shitting. Only went in about 8 feet.

Didn't go in here, though somebody did.

Went back up Sunday to grab some more dirt... Checking out a theory.. The first 3 short buckets looked pretty spiffy.

The theory.. The area has eroded down about 1000 feet over the past 30 million years or so. If the veins are popping up and coming out
of the ground in places, that means they used to be up above my head at some point.. The ground/vein erodes away, the gold falls. I believe
that in "follow the drywashers" he was calling it "pocket gold"... Granted he was looking for nuggets, We're just looking for any kind of gold
we can find, the more the better...

So, took some scrapings up on top of a ridge on our claim, just a flat spot at the top of a hill, a hill that has a bunch of out croppings running
down the length.. Took about 9 or 10 gallons, and it was pretty promising, nothing big, but 100s and 100s of 120 - 250 mesh stuff. Just right
up on top of the hill, just took the top few inches.

Went back up yesterday to get a bigger sample, a scrape here, a scrape there.. And started really LOOKING.. I know what the ore up there looks like,
I KNOW the rocks that will have gold, and I also KNOW the rocks that don't have anything in them. Sure enough, there was some ore looking rock
up on top of that hill, not a lot, but there was some.... And I found this guy.

I should have taken a pic before I outlined the good stuff, I didn't know how it would show up in a pic.. All I did was outline the good stuff, no other tricks involved.
But the main part of that rock, its crap, I've crushed a ton of it, there is NOTHING.. That greenish grey stuff, that's the good stuff. I believe this rock defines "spider vein"..

I really thought this desert thing would suck.. I originally wanted to drop a sluice in the water and dig and get gold... That would have been so boring.. Just on our 20 acres,
a main vein coming down the east, 2 reasonable size spider veins that have been worked on the south, a vein that apparently ran across a ridge, one big arroyo, several small
arroyos running east west, and an ancient river/arroyo channel (cemented gravels with WELL traveled gold) running north south... Its like everything you could ask for, except
running water(and BIG gold), in one spot..

Lots of fun, I don't know why I didn't get out for the past 8 months..

And a new dog, if you can call it that, its lighter than all but one of our cats.. named Spud... He's cool. And at least he doesn't look like one of those shaved rat chihuahuas.

 

[bobw53]

Just for fun.. In that greyish arc of black sand there are well over 200 pieces of gold, -250, .0025 inches or less, or 0.06ish mm.
There is gold in there so small its hard to see with a 60x scope.

Under the size your naked eye can even see, and apparently smaller than my cell phone camera can see.. That's a match head..
I think I need to pull out the real digital camera, if I can even find the thing.

Just some screens and a pan. No blue bowl, miller table, or spiral wheel.. No magic tricks and pretty easy to pan.

Valued at somewhere between less than a penny, and Nothing.