School is back in... Time to work!!!!!

[KevinInColorado]

Sweet setup I use Folgers canisters for my cons too!

Once a year sweep up the sand/dirt under the racks of pans to get the gold flakes that will inevitably fall off the pans and classifiers while they are hanging there drying.

 

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[TheGoldProspector]

Well no new gold pics but we are going out this weekend and I hope to do well. Here's the work area. I am thinking that I'm going to want to add a shade tarp over it so the sun doesn't fry what few working brain cells I have left.

View attachment 983948
The panning area. Table is handy for small items like vials and tweezers. The chairs are about due for new cushions but that's low on the to-do list at this time.
View attachment 983949
The shelf/pan rack. Holds my main pans on the front and 5 classifiers on the back side.

View attachment 983950
The sluice area. Recirc system will be upgrades soon as well as the sluice stand.

Nice setup. Hands down!
Cheers to more color in your pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

Thanks guys. i just went with what seemed right for the layout. Most likely it wouldn't work for anyone else though since I'm a southpaw.

One little problem with the surface though. Our cat seems to think that I just built her a nice big litter box! I think I've come up with a fix for that. I'm thinking of picking up 10 gallons of finishing resin and mixing up 2-1/2 gallons of it with 10 gallons of the rock and spread it out. Let's see her dig through that! It will still drain water fine but she's not going to be able to use it as a litter box any more!

 

[KevinInColorado]

LoL
Cat: thanks boss, I LOVE my big new litter box!

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Lol

 

[Jeff95531]

Thanks for finally getting some pics up Jeff. Your pics have been approved by the following regulatory agency.



Now all we have to do is check the pool to see who had April 24 @ 3:31 p.m.

Seriously tho, thanks for posting them. I love the work area as it's got enough room to work but all is close at hand. Well done and good luck this weekend.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well one reason I don't post many pictures here Jeff is because of the hassle I have to go through. I have to take the pics with my POS phone and then e-mail them to myself. I'm also not wanting to post many pictures of the claim at this time because of the GPS tags in the pictures files taken with the phone. The setup at the house is one thing, but the claim is another if ya know what I mean.

And by the way.... I see that you've been getting your graphics from A.I.C.I. again... ("Art Institute for the Criminally Insane"). Over the years I've gotten many "awards" for pages I've done. I'll have to see if I can find them for ya.

Now.... Time to go get equipment ready to rock n roll this weekend! There is a possibility that Robis' work might prevent us from getting out there but I want to have everything ready in case they slip up and actually let her have some time off.

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Hey Jeff.
Finally got my spray bars done. Can't believe it took that long to do. Now I've got to get the kiddie pool or another bigger tub to hold the water. Maybe put the sluice into a big tub. Just trying to figure out how I can keep water loss to a minimal. Plus have a sort of filtration in the tub. Hopefully clears water from debris and clay.

I ran the buckets from the bottom of the canyon I dug. Roughly 12-15 gallons. Man that dark soil is dirty. Didn't get but a couple specs 3-5 fly poops. Nothing else. Except I may have a rock with silver in it. Got it yesterday and forgot to take a pic. Hopefully after I do my pools today I can show you what I got. Ran this dirt first since it was closer to the bigger rocks. Makes me wonder if I should even try the rest that was above it. But of coarse I'll run it.

In doing my wash plant. I used my 1200 gph pump for the wash and used the 2400 gph for the sluice. Seems to be doing the job. Just need to add more holes to spray down towards the grill. Might add deflectors to have my spray go down since I didn't put them on a downward enough angle. Plus the holes are getting plugged. Hence the need to create a filter type system in the tub I have the water flowing into from catch tub. More to come.

 

[elgatodelnoche]

Glad you got that working Garret! Sorry to hear about the clogs though. There is always something to ruin your day.

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Yeah that happens, but I can deal with the clogs. Just slows it down a little. But just happy to be running dirt again. Just need to get out in the hills again.

 

[elgatodelnoche]

Did you incorporate a clean out plug in there?

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well we managed to get out to the claim yesterday for an over nighter but It was the worst trip we've made to Greaterville since we started going there. We brought the Munchkin with us and we got a really late start. I had enough light to get camp setup and dig a couple of buckets before it got full on dark.

During the night the Munchkin became sick and ended up puking all over my down sleeping bag, one of Robis favorite shirts and a good portion of her end of the tent. Not sure what caused her to become ill, but when we got up this morning she was fine again. Then it was Robis' turn to start feeling sick. In her case it was from the heat as this was the warmest weekend we've had in a long time. She hasn't had a chance to get used to it yet so we packed up early and headed back to the homestead so my ladies wouldn't have to deal with it.

All in all I only got a half dozen buckets this trip. The ground in the bench we were digging in looks pretty good but until I have a chance to run it I'm going to with hold my verdict on that section.

 

[KevinInColorado]

At least you dodged the illness right? Seems there IS a bug going around, both my wife and I have been extremely, briefly sick, one after the other. I mentioned it to my neighbor today and he said his mom's assisted living center is on quarantine because of this bug. Yikes!

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Sorry to hear about the rough trip Jeff, I'll talk to ya prob tues afternoon. And we too had a bug of some sort pass thru hear a week ago. Momma and the little one both missed a day, I got it the following day and managed to push through, mostly by spending the day near the comfort of the truck.

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

We had that bug hit us as well. Took awhile to recover. That week I had told a client that I've been fortunate to not get sick. Then boom me, then kids, then the wife. Sure was a bad week. But then I did get the wash plant done. So I guess not too bad.

Jeff on that bench did you hit bedrock yet? Just wondering because of the lack of color in that lower dirt. I even went through the material that was processed to see if I missed any. If I did it must've been super microscopic. Lol.
Sorry I still didn't get a pic of the silver I got. Or at least what I believe is silver.

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Did you incorporate a clean out plug in there?

I have threaded cap ends so I can blow it out if I needed to.
I'm hoping to run the rest of my dirt this week. Hopefully. Then I'll either head north for a day or two. Got to check my spots out. Then hopefully I can get down to visit with Jeff again.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Yeah I dodged a bullet on the sickness thing, but then again I'm one of those people that rarely gets sick even when everyone around me are dropping like flies. Or does that fall into the old saying of "No Brain... No pain"?

Garrett, We were digging on a different bench than the one you and the kids were working on. Maybe 50 yards up the wash. Haven't gotten it down to bedrock yet but I have been seeing some small colors in what I've run so far. I'm a little disappointed in how little gold I've found so far as the gravels looked great while digging and classifying the materials. I'm thinking that my next week long trip out there is going to be when I can really hit the good stuff. I won't have to worry about anyone but myself moving dirt so I'll be able to be very methodical in how I clear it out.

 

[goldenIrishman]

I really am hating this wind!!!

Well we had the wind going nuts here yesterday. It was flinging everything it could pick up all over the place. Pans were flying if not secured or weighed down. Gusts were really messing with my panning style. Water was blowing out of my sluice to the point that I wasn't sure which was getting wetter... Me or my materials that I was trying to run. My water jugs were also blown out of the holding rack and spread out across the yard.

BUT.... The topper was when I went down to the shop to find that the wind had actually picked up and flipped my empty mining trailer, doing some pretty good damage which I will have to repair before I can head back out to the claim for an extended trip. I can't haul all the gear and supplies for an extended trip with the truck alone and I sure don't want to have to make several trips to get everything out there! Time to get out my B.F.H.* and some dolly blocks and start pounding everything back into shape I guess..... Maybe I should start with my head first?


* Big Fricken Hammer for those that don't know that one

 

[goldenIrishman]

Latest Report....

Well I made it back from another nine day trip out to the claim. Managed to get a lot done out there despite the weather. Saturday thru Monday it was HOT out there and really hard to get motivated. I had to remind Chris to drink plenty of water since he's not used to the dry heat that dries sweat instantly.

Robi dropped me off out at the claim on Saturday and headed back home as soon as the trailer was unhitched and the truck unloaded. The joys of being on call for work... NOT!!!! As hot as it was I pretty much took my time getting camp set up, but still had just about everything done by the time Chris showed up. I set my tent up on the portion of the slab that I had already cleared off and gave Chris the spot that we usually set the big tent up on. By the time we got everything ready to go it was getting dark so we didn't get any digging in.

The next morning we hit it early and were soon running materials through our respective systems. Chris chose to dig in the wash about 20 yards up stream from where I was at. After digging and running five buckets and only finding a few small flakes, he decided tha a change was called for. I was taking a break from digging so I went to look at a spot with him. The spot he was thinking about didn't look all that great to me but about ten feet further up I spotted a slight bend in the bed f the wash and a small bench that had developed there. I told him to give it a try and sure enough he started getting gold. his first clean out after moving had more gold in it than all his earlier ones combined.

Digging in both locations was a bear thanks to all the rocks in the mix! I figured out that I had to dig three buckets of materials to get a single buckets worth of classified stuff ready to run. the gold was nice size but there really wasn't much of it. (Or so it seemed to me) Still I made it all the way down to bedrock and as I started to follow it down stream I came across a channel that the water had cut into it. The materials (including rocks) had built up nicely in the channel and I was finding some really nice pieces of gold.

While I was out there I also managed to get some improvements done. More of the slab is now cleaned off but it was like trying to dig through cement that has set up in the bag. I used the dirt to level the area where we set up the big tent and we now have a very nice pad that the is fairly level, free of big rocks and sized just right for the tent.

Chris took off on Friday to get a motel room and some rest before making the drive back to Houston and so I was solo until Robi showed up Saturday afternoon. We ended up filling ten buckets with materials (6 from the current site and 4 from a test site.) to bring home, broke down and loaded up camp and were home by four thirty. After a week+ out there, I'm sore as can be but happy with the progress being made out there so far.

No totals yet as I've still got to run the materials we brought back,

 

[goldenIrishman]

Here are a couple of shots from the claim. The first one shows the progress on clearing off that foundation slab. That overburden is about 20 inches thick and almost as hard as cement. What I've cleared off so far went to level one of the tent pads. I still have to figure out what the heck to do with the rest of it though....



The second shot shows my efforts to remake the Grand Canyon. Gold started out good but has tapered off. It should pick back up as I work my way down the bed of the wash towards the next corner.



In this section there's a LOT of rock! I've been having to dig almost three buckets of raw materials to get one buckets worth of 1/4 inch classified. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE over burden?