GGs $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

That is a great design! Are you going to manufacture and sell them?
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

ThTx said:
That is a great design! Are you going to manufacture and sell them?
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Thanks for the compliment ThTx :icon_thumleft:
I'm not into production, I just like to make my own stuff for the fun of it.

Go for the gold!
GG~
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

it appears to me that your riffel set is aimed backwards(aimed aimed towards the exit of the tray) riffels in a drywasher are oppisite of a water system. but its early and i have only had 1 cup of coffee so far, maybe my eyes arent working right yet! right John!haha
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

russau said:
it appears to me that your riffel set is aimed backwards(aimed aimed towards the exit of the tray) riffels in a drywasher are oppisite of a water system. but its early and i have only had 1 cup of coffee so far, maybe my eyes arent working right yet! right John!haha
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It's an optical illusion :tongue3:
The riffles actually are set at 110 degrees. That would be 20 degrees toward the material from a 90 degree angle.

Have another cup on me :coffee2:

GG~
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

3rd cup down! ahhhhh i feel better already! haha static will be created when hot air goes through the plastic tubeing.aslong as you dont have any metal inbetween the source and the material. metal will short out/ground the charge!this is why i like the Keene 151 blower for their drywasher. the air is ducted around the engine sending real hot ait throught the plastic tube to the drywasher.i made my own drywasher and its all plastice to the box. the punchplate that i have inside of it was made from Lexan plastic and i used a peice of S.S. punch plate as a guide for drilling all my holes in it. i also counter sunk all the holes from the bottom side to creat a slight increase of air pressure under the riffels. i puposly didnt drill under the riffel bars so it would creat a dead spot. been to New Mexico many times using it.
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

My blower produces really hot air as well. But I do have metal (aluminum) between the air and the material being ran so I guess I am losing any static charge created by the plastic hose, Sooooo back to the drawing board :tongue3:

Wait a minute I know it will catch gold even without the static charge, so maybe it isn't as effecient as a store bought costing hundreds more, I can still have fun with it until I design a better one. :icon_sunny:

Actually I wont even get a chance to try it out in the field for another year, so I will have plenty of time to get it perfected by then. :icon_thumleft:

GG~
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

Supper Job I like it :headbang:
 

Re: GG's $65 Wastebasket Drywasher (updated)

GG so your from S. Indiana.........your not to far from me.ive been to Indiana several times over the years also.i was planning a trip this May but with the price of fuel jumping up i may have to cancell my trip.
 

I never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity of the folks on this Forum. Wastebaskets!!! Who would have ever thought!! Not I!! I'm new to this game, and have been reading as much as I can about various products to buy/build, but would NEVER have thought of using wastebaskets. Also would not have thought of using ironing boards as a source for classifier screens as I've seen on some other postings.
You guys are GREAT!!
 

rlborde said:
I never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity of the folks on this Forum. Wastebaskets!!! Who would have ever thought!! Not I!! I'm new to this game, and have been reading as much as I can about various products to buy/build, but would NEVER have thought of using wastebaskets. Also would not have thought of using ironing boards as a source for classifier screens as I've seen on some other postings.
You guys are GREAT!!
Click to expand...



Perhaps you'll like these drywashing how to videos part 1&2...............

How to Use a Drywasher Part 1

How to Use a Drywasher Part 2

GG~
 

The time has finally come :hello2:

Leaving for Gold Basin AZ tomorrow morning headed to the prospectors get together held this weekend at the GPAA claim BAHDE #10
Will finally get to field test the wastebasket drywasher (it's been 3 years since I built it).

Of course I'll also be swinging my GMT looking for a nugget or two. Hopefully I'll see some other folks from T-net at the rendezvous.
I know Bunk (Calvin Bunker) will be there and I'm looking forward to sharing some of his famous bacon and beans on Sat. evening for all that attend.

It's my first stop on a 6wk prospecting trip that will take me down through Arizona and over to San Diego and then up to the motherlode country of northern Calif. and then on to prospects in northern Nevada.

I'll try to upload photos and stories along the way but they may have to wait till I return back to Indiana sometime in November.

Y'all take care now y'heah.
GG~
 

The wife and I had a great meal in Tulsa Ok with my pard Greycloud and his wife!

Many thanks for the warm hospitality, and the wife says hello to you and yours.
Stopped at Meteor Crater Az on the way to the claim, had always wanted to see that big ol hole in the ground in person.

The wind was gale force and almost took the door off the van when my wife opened it. Did some damage to the front fender and bent the hinges but it still closes, thankful for that. Employee at the crater told us of a van that blew over the day before and about a trunk lid that when opened blew into the rear window of the car smashing it completely out. So I guess our sprung door wasn't so bad :tongue3:

At least the attraction was open (private owned) unlike the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon as well as all the other federal parks :cussing:

Heading out to the GPAA claim today was told that a one ouncer was found there earlier this year so I'm excited about spending 4 days there.
Sorry wont be any photos until I return to Indiana to upload them.

Y'all have a good un and I'll keep ya posted,

Going for the gold
GG~
 

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elgatodelnoche said:
Congrats on a nice clean design. It looks mighty light too. Good luck on your trip!
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Thanks for the props!

Spent a few days at Gold Basin AZ and the weather was perfect. Beautiful views in all directions (photos to follow) also met some great folks there at the prospector rendezvous. Heard many stories of nuggets found there in all sizes up to 4 1/2 ozs. :o

To say the least I could hardly wait to get started........

I set up my drywasher in a remote part of Elephant Wash and found that 4" below the surface the ground was too wet to drywash due to a freak rainstorm days earlier so I had to dump the dirt out onto a tarp for it to dry prior to running it.. Needless to say that got old pretty quick. but I had to test out my DIY drywasher and am happy to report that it preformed as expected but due to the wet ground I only used it for a half day. (have a bag of concentrates to run when I get home)

The whole time I was running the drywasher I kept thinking about those huge nuggets that had been found and couldn't wait to get to swinging my GMT
Spent the next two days going after big gold. Sorry to report that those nuggets had been replaced by bullets and fragments of bullets along with some very hot rocks.

Right now I am at a wifi hot spot in Quartzsite AZ getting ready to head out to La Posa, an 11,000 acre goldfield listed on page 98 of the currant GPAA mining guide.
Hopefully I'll bust my Arizona nugget hunting cherry out there or die trying :tongue3:

I suppose my next report will be from the Sierra Nevadas in the Motherlode of California.

Y'all take care,
GG~
 

Ya know what, I bought my first gold machine 2 mos ago, Goldmaster V/sat.
Did the same thing around my areas down here. replaced the nuggies with hot rocks,.22 shell casings, .38 casings, and lead bullets and fragments.
I even found a spark plug behind and under a rock in the wash. My coil was screaming on that one.

Anyway, have fun, keep swinging, and will check back on the pics.
 

Keep us posted Goodyguy and smell every rose you pass. Tell Brother John hello for us too.
 

Quartzsite was great!

Met lots of nice folks and Victor from Gem World was one of them, a genuine sourdough who knows the area inside out and is an expert geologist and professor of physics.

Turns out that the La Posa recreation area was shutdown (all 11,000 acres of it) due to the idiots in Washington DC not caring that government should be FOR the people. Anyway, after talking to the owner of the local prospecting shop it was decided that my time would be well spent out at the GPAA claim just outside of town.

It's a 160 acre claim that has many dry washes running through it and after a few hours of digging the usual trash targets I came upon a wash that had cut through the side of a hill exposing a 14 foot high wall of very hard packed caliche. Wouldn't you know that about 3 feet up from the bottom of the wall on a shelf I would receive a faint but promising zip zip with no indication of iron showing up on the display.

All I had with me was my detector and a short handled pick. After what seemed like an hour hacking away at the concreted cobbles I had only gone about 6 inches down and my sweat soaked hat along with sore, soon to be blistered palms and the fact that the signal was getting stronger told me that I needed gloves and a larger pick or dynamite or a jack hammer or something that would do a better job than the toy I was working with.

As it was now getting dark I took my bearings ( a tall cactus and a mountain in the background) and headed back to camp to figure what tool in my limited arsenal would best do the job. Next morning I headed out with my detector, leather gloves, a backpack filled with water, my camera, a short handled crack hammer, and an assortment of cold chisels, and a 4' long pointed prybar, along with my pinpointer.

After about an hour of using the hammer and chisel method the hole was getting wider and about a foot deep when I decided to turn the coil straight up and down and detect the sides of the hole (the pin pointer was useless) turns out the target was another 2-3 inches into the side of the hole and not straight down like I had been digging.

It was a nice little nugget and sort of looks like a baby fetus from the side, photos to follow when I get back to Indiana.
After celebrating back at camp it was time to get a good nights sleep before heading to Calif early the next morning.

So here I am at McDonalds just outside San Diego using the wifi and planning the next leg up to the motherlode country near Railroad flats.
Was going to visit Gems of Pala but right now they are only open on Sat & Sun and I'm not going to wait.

To be continued..........

GG~
 

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Great time in the Motherlode!!!

Had a Fun visit with a friend whom owns a patented 50+ acre mining claim in the rugged Sierra Nevadas complete with lode and placer deposits.
Within an hour of arriving I found a 3.2 gram nugget buried about 10 inches down in the bank along the side of the Mokelumne River using my GMT!

Of course I offered it to my friend since it was found on his property and to my disappointment he gladly accepted. Oh well, to me it's the thrill of the chase more than the gold itself as I donate all my gold sales to the Make a Wish Foundation due to a promise I made to myself when I first started prospecting. So my disappointment was more for the children than myself. His property was beautiful and I did get to keep a small picker as a souvenir of our visit to his claim. (photos of the picker and nugget to follow)

I was invited to spend a few days on his claim but we had to move on due to needing to spend as much time looking for our own patented claim to purchase in the area north of Reno NV. for our place of retirement.

Right now we are staying at Lake Tahoe for a couple of days due to the wife having free hotel accommodations at Harrahs. A nice change from sleeping in the van.
I did manage to get some time in this morning metal detecting the sandy beach along the Lake at a picnic area off the side of the road. Found lots of bottle caps, bits of metal, and a shiny penny. Did notice lots of black sand along the waters edge and I plan to go back there later today to see if panning will turn up any gold.

Y'all take care and I'll keep ya posted.
GG~
 

Hopefully there will be even bigger nuggets down the road and they will stay in your pocket GG. Nuff Said.
Smell every rose you pass out there in God's Country.
 

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My 2nd drywasher turned out pro-ish =)

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