Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

 

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[southfork]

Any price on that? All I found were 220V types, which would require me to install a complete new electrical panel, as mine is full. I'd probably need a building permit, an excavation permit, and hire that electrician, so 220 volts is out.

Amazon product ASIN B09TQPRY7B I have 220 for my welder I use the same circuit. Is there room for a 30 plus amp 220 breaker in your panel? do you have 220 service? It's a job for an electrician for sure get a bid to found out how expensive.

 

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[desertgolddigger]

Amazon product ASIN B09TQPRY7B I have 220 for my welder I use the same circuit. Is there room for a 30 plus amp 220 breaker in your panel? do you have 220 service? It's a job for an electrician for sure get a bid to found out how expensive.

I have zero available spots in my circuit breaker panel. The last 220 volt switch went to my electric dryer.

The electric dryer runs on my single 30 amp circuit. I would need a splitter cord plugged into the outlet. Then I could plug the dryer into one splitter socket, and a 75 foot RV extension cord into the other. It's doable, but first I need to discover my own hard rock mine that'll produce at least a few thousand dollars worth of gold. Can't afford any more expense until I discover something more than my daily dose of 1/100th of a gram. I'm not even paying for my chains right now.

 

[arizau]

QUESTION: Can someone provide me a link to a mechanical rock crusher, preferably an electric type, if such a thing exists. I'm getting really tire of hand breaking things down to 1/2 inch or smaller. The smaller rock is a lot less stressful on my chain mill, and seems to mill easier.

Have you considered a pipe "enclosure crusher"? It's still manual labor but effective and less messy. Stand a short section of 3, 4 or 5 inch id heavy wall pipe* on your steel plate. Add a few rocks to cover the bottom and pound away with a long pipe with a steel cap on one end. Sweep up, recycle oversize and your good to go.

Good luck in whatever you do.

*maybe find at local scrapyard

 

[desertgolddigger]

Have you considered a pipe "enclosure crusher"? It's still manual labor but effective and less messy. Stand a short section of 3, 4 or 5 inch id heavy wall pipe* on your steel plate. Add a few rocks to cover the bottom and pound away with a long pipe with a steel cap on one end. Sweep up, recycle oversize and your good to go.

Good luck in whatever you do.

*maybe find at local scrapyard

I don't have the physical strength to continuously do that type of thing. I've got a two pound sledge hammer that gives me a really workout as it is. I usually can manage 1/2 of a five gallon bucket of large rocks before my hands give out. That's one reason I've been mostly running gravel 1/2 inch and smaller from "The Pit" for the past six months or so.

I sometimes wonder if I should ever get lucky enough to find my own mine/prospect, if I'll have enough strength to actually work it well enough to get enough out of it to be worthwhile.

I just never had the brute strength you guys have. I've always had to do things smartly, using a lot of thought in order to come up with ways to do the same thing you guys can muscle your way through.

 

[arizau]

I don't have the physical strength to continuously do that type of thing. I've got a two pound sledge hammer that gives me a really workout as it is. I usually can manage 1/2 of a five gallon bucket of large rocks before my hands give out. That's one reason I've been mostly running gravel 1/2 inch and smaller from "The Pit" for the past six months or so.

I sometimes wonder if I should ever get lucky enough to find my own mine/prospect, if I'll have enough strength to actually work it well enough to get enough out of it to be worthwhile.

I just never had the brute strength you guys have. I've always had to do things smartly, using a lot of thought in order to come up with ways to do the same thing you guys can muscle your way through.

Maybe you don't see it the way I do? Picture this: you are standing upright and lifting and pounding a multi pound section of pipe with both hands. Seems easier than swinging a hammer.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Maybe you don't see it the way I do? Picture this: you are standing upright and lifting and pounding a multi pound section of pipe with both hands. Seems easier than swinging a hammer.

I think I do understand. It's the total weight, multiplied. I can swing a two pound sledge hammer, but lifting what is probably 10 pounds, then dropping it, in the long run is going to tucker me out quicker.

And I don't have to empty a big heavy pipe constantly. I just sweep what I break with the hammer to the side, and then into a bucket.

I'll stick with my heavy metal plate and sledge hammer for the time being. The jaw crusher would only be purchased if I happened to find a very rich deposit, that can pay for all the equipment I've purchased, and that jaw crusher, and power cords.

 

[southfork]

I break up a five-gallon bucket full of quartz into manageable pieces with a single jack. I place the rock on a big chunk of steel inside a wheelbarrow to catch the pieces and a big whack. It doesn't take long to make big pieces small the wheelbarrow gets it off the ground a little easier on the back. Don't forget safety googles and a respirator. Once you have a jaw crusher you won't go back it's so fast I go through a bucket in minutes.

 

[arizau]

I think I do understand. It's the total weight, multiplied. I can swing a two pound sledge hammer, but lifting what is probably 10 pounds, then dropping it, in the long run is going to tucker me out quicker.

And I don't have to empty a big heavy pipe constantly. I just sweep what I break with the hammer to the side, and then into a bucket.

I'll stick with my heavy metal plate and sledge hammer for the time being. The jaw crusher would only be purchased if I happened to find a very rich deposit, that can pay for all the equipment I've purchased, and that jaw crusher, and power cords.

Not quite the way I perceive it, but you know your limitations.
Good luck.

 

[Reed Lukens]

You can buy a cheaper jaw crusher from Golden Manufacturing like we did, then just throw an old gas motor on it.

 

[russau]

CONGRATULATION'S Reed to you and your Bride to be ! Pretty nice crusher also !

 

[desertgolddigger]

Today was another sluice day, as well as maintenance on the chain mill.

I had what I consider a good day, with 4/100ths. Hopefully I'll hit a bucket with a good payout some day. of a gram. So, the week total is now about 12/100ths of gram.

I need help with the "Land Matters" website. I'm having difficulty getting any kind of indication of who might have filed a claim in the area I want to search. The website isn't telling me how to search for things. I'm not very computer savvy, so some instructions written may be understandable to most people, but only confuse me.

Can anyone write up a help sheet, and possibly email me that. It has to be very simple, or you'll leave me in the dust like the website has. PM me, then I can send you my email addy.

 

[Kona Koma]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

Wow! Hard work but rewarding.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Haven't been going out mining, as it's still pretty warm. So I decided to finish installing my electrical all the way to my sluicing hut. Currently it's on a 100 foot extension cord and plugged into an outlet with a built in breaker. Unfortunately it trips every morning I go out using my big sluice, which is kind of irritating, as I usually go out around 5 AM.

I purchased a red tagged (90% off) 4X4x8 pressure treated board from Homely Despotty. It's going to be used for the two posts that will hold the outlets in my Back-backyard. I dug the holes, placed the two cut pieces in them, filled the holes with concrete mix, and watered thoroughly. They are solid as of a few hours ago.

I'll trench for the conduit to be laid, hopefully this Sunday or Monday morning. I'll probably do the wiring on Tuesday, and Hopefully be up and running on Wednesday. Then I just have to restore everything I had to tear apart.

I should be finished with all my upgrading, and cleanup by Friday. I can then give you my photo tour of my little mining processing setup.

Since I've basically not gotten a lot done when it comes to processing my ore, I decided to empty the bottom of my Placer mining equipment box. This is stuff that somehow manages to get below the screen in the drywasher box, and ends up falling back out into the storage box while I'm bouncing along the dirt roads on the way out from the club claim. While not a lot of gold, it added about 25 percent to my placer mining totals, which are a meager 1/10th gram since August. Still a lot better than I'm getting with my hard rock mining endeavours.

Sure will be glad when it cools a bit more, so I can go out and do some serious prospecting to find my own digs.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I've finally been able to get on "The Land Matters", and at least see the two colored box types with the notations about placer, and lode mines. But I haven't been able to find a way to download the data for San Bernardino and Riverside Counties concerning active claims. I'm trying to locate those four data bases in KML format so I can import them into Google Earth. I once saw a Video the showed how this was done, but cannot locate it now.

I'd like to get these claims plotted on Google Earth so that when I do go out prospecting, I'm not on someone's claim.

Can anyone show me the links to these four data bases in KML format for importing into Google Earth. As I remember, these bits of data plot the claim boundaries, so you know where you are.

Just to let you know, I spent the last two hours trying to locate these data bases. I found four listing old mines and prospects, and placer mines, but nothing of current claims.

 

[arizau]

I've finally been able to get on "The Land Matters", and at least see the two colored box types with the notations about placer, and lode mines. But I haven't been able to find a way to download the data for San Bernardino and Riverside Counties concerning active claims. I'm trying to locate those four data bases in KML format so I can import them into Google Earth. I once saw a Video the showed how this was done, but cannot locate it now.

I'd like to get these claims plotted on Google Earth so that when I do go out prospecting, I'm not on someone's claim.

Can anyone show me the links to these four data bases in KML format for importing into Google Earth. As I remember, these bits of data plot the claim boundaries, so you know where you are.

Just to let you know, I spent the last two hours trying to locate these data bases. I found four listing old mines and prospects, and placer mines, but nothing of current claims.

I plot the corners of areas of interest (unclaimed land) on my portable GPS then only prospect within those boundaries.

Good luck.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I plot the corners of areas of interest (unclaimed land) on my portable GPS then only prospect within those boundaries.

Good luck.

The problem I'm having is discovering the claim boundaries so I can prospect outside those claim borders. There's hundreds of lode and placer claims in the area I drive to.

My problem is figuring out how to use the BLM data system to get those claim boundaries. I'm sure to many of you, it's very easy to figure out how to access these data bases. It's a big mystery to me how to extract that data.

"The Land Matters" plots big squares, and lists both placer and lode claims in that square. But it doesn't define it in 20, 40, 80, etc. plots with the boundary lines depicted. And for the most part, none of these claims have discovery markers or corner boundary posts. So how do you figure out what land is what; claimed, or open. It's frustrating.

I've given up trying to figure these websites out. To me they're unusable.

 

[Assembler]

The problem I'm having is discovering the claim boundaries so I can prospect outside those claim borders. There's hundreds of lode and placer claims in the area I drive to.

My problem is figuring out how to use the BLM data system to get those claim boundaries. I'm sure to many of you, it's very easy to figure out how to access these data bases. It's a big mystery to me how to extract that data.

"The Land Matters" plots big squares, and lists both placer and lode claims in that square. But it doesn't define it in 20, 40, 80, etc. plots with the boundary lines depicted. And for the most part, none of these claims have discovery markers or corner boundary posts. So how do you figure out what land is what; claimed, or open. It's frustrating.

I've given up trying to figure these websites out. To me they're unusable.

Some times you need to locate the discovery marker then go from there and the online sites may not help much there. The County file record can be better for each given claim.

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Haven't been going out mining, as it's still pretty warm. So I decided to finish installing my electrical all the way to my sluicing hut. Currently it's on a 100 foot extension cord and plugged into an outlet with a built in breaker. Unfortunately it trips every morning I go out using my big sluice, which is kind of irritating, as I usually go out around 5 AM.

I purchased a red tagged (90% off) 4X4x8 pressure treated board from Homely Despotty. It's going to be used for the two posts that will hold the outlets in my Back-backyard. I dug the holes, placed the two cut pieces in them, filled the holes with concrete mix, and watered thoroughly. They are solid as of a few hours ago.

I'll trench for the conduit to be laid, hopefully this Sunday or Monday morning. I'll probably do the wiring on Tuesday, and Hopefully be up and running on Wednesday. Then I just have to restore everything I had to tear apart.

I should be finished with all my upgrading, and cleanup by Friday. I can then give you my photo tour of my little mining processing setup.

Since I've basically not gotten a lot done when it comes to processing my ore, I decided to empty the bottom of my Placer mining equipment box. This is stuff that somehow manages to get below the screen in the drywasher box, and ends up falling back out into the storage box while I'm bouncing along the dirt roads on the way out from the club claim. While not a lot of gold, it added about 25 percent to my placer mining totals, which are a meager 1/10th gram since August. Still a lot better than I'm getting with my hard rock mining endeavours.

Sure will be glad when it cools a bit more, so I can go out and do some serious prospecting to find my own digs.

You might need to upgrade your extension cord. The power loss on lighter gauge wire can contribute to that breaker opening, and it lowers the voltage at the equipment which is not a good thing.

 

[desertgolddigger]

You might need to upgrade your extension cord. The power loss on lighter gauge wire can contribute to that breaker opening, and it lowers the voltage at the equipment which is not a good thing.

Using 12 gauge.

 

[southfork]

Using 12 gauge.

How long is your run? my mill was tripping on 12 and a short run 25 feet maybe. Using number 10 now no problem.