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

Ok ladies and gentlemen... Here's the full story of this weekends trip to Kentucky Gulch.

I spent the majority of the day Friday sorting and packing gear and had everything ready to go when Robi got home with the Munchkin. Since everything was staged I was able to get the truck loaded in record time and everything fit like a well made glove. Hit the road and only stopped to pick up some ice for the cooler and we were pulling into K.G. right before sunset. Found the barrels and buckets right where AzViper said they would be and noticed that the cabin was empty although the website said it had been rented for the entire weekend.

I hauled the equipment box down towards the dig site trying to locate a somewhat flat spot to set the tent up. Let me tell you folks, finding a flat spot out there is one step removed from impossible! There are so many old test hols and tailing piles it's not funny! We finally found a spot that was barely large enough for the tent about half way to the work area and right off the trail. Tent went right up as I've gotten back in practice on it, the air mattress inflated and the rest of the camping type stuff finished up in no time. Of course it was too dark by now to get the sluice setup and ready to go for in the morning so we kicked back, had some dinner and watched the first season of Saturday Night Live ( back when it was good) on the portable DVD player.

On Saturday morning I was up before the sun and hauling the sluice down to the work area. I had everything in place and we were ready to start digging and classifying by 8AM. RObi wanted to run a good sample from an area she had grabbed a 1/2 bucket from the weekend before so we started there. Very easy digging compared to the area we had been working but I wasn't going to gripe about that. It didn't take long to have four buckets run through the sluice and so we went to pull the carpets out and as reached for the bottom one I noticed a nice picker sitting on the upper end of it. If we had been classifying with the #8 screen this little "Chunker" might have been tossed into the tailing pile! It's odd for me to find much more than a small piece or two in the last carpet section. We pulled and cleaned the other two carpets Robi was happy as a clam. As we rinsed and rough panned the cons before bagging them up we could see some nice pieces of gold poking their shiny little heads up from the black sands! SO we now know for sure that there is some nice gold in "Robis' Location".

We moved back to the area we had been working for the last two weekends and kept on working once the carpets were back in place. We spent the rest of the day digging and classifying to 1/4" and running it through the sluice. By the time we decided to call it quits for the day we had run 16 buckets worth of materials (I need a better sluice here folks!) and bagged up all the cons. So it was back to our campsite to clean up and put on the feed bag before stretching out to watch more SNL before we sacked out.

During the night, a couple of small thunder storms swept through the area but we stayed high and dry in our tent. When we came out, the grass was still soaked and we were more than a little sore from Saturdays efforts. (Have I mentioned that this place is NOT all easy digging?) After grabbing some breakfast we headed back to the work area with the intention of matching or beating Saturdays bucket count We were doing great and after a few buckets had been classified I was getting into the groove and had worked the stiffness out. About the time Robi started running the seventh bucket of the day I noticed that the batteries were running down as the pumps were loosing pressure. Well no juice meant no sluice so we cleaned and bagged everything and spent a little time looking over some other sites to test on our next trip. WE knew that we were going to grab some buckets "to go" so we broke down and packed up everything from the work site that wasn't going to be needed on Monday. We headed back to the tent where we found that the battery didn't even have enough juice left in it to top off the air bed. :( So after spending a night on an airbed that was way to squishy for my taste we were woken up by some major lightning and thunder. It decided to pour on us off and on for about an hour and a half. I was starting to think it was going to be a repeat of the previous weekends soak down while loading up. We lucked out though and the rain stopped long enough for us to grab the materials we wanted and get packed up to go. Packing was a little tougher to go home than it was to get there thanks to AzVipers present of the barrels.

I had just finished loading everything up, tied the load down ad was just about ready to hop in to leave when I noticed that the left rear tire was one step removed from flat. :Ok.. No problemo I think. We've got a compressor under the seat and I can take care of this little problem in no time. So I go to get the compressor and what do I find? Zip,,, Zero,,, Nada!!!!!! One of Robis' boys had taken it out of the truck! Three guesses on where I wanted to plant a crop of boots..... Well once again the luck of the Irish came through for us. The entire area was loaded with quad riders and where there's quads there almost HAS to be air! Sure enough the first group we came across said they had a compressor back at their camp so we followed them and soon had the tire back up to operating pressure. Made it home with only a stop for gas and pulled in about 3 PM. So I got the truck unloaded while I was making up a pot of real coffee and by the time the uffload was finished I was ready for a cup of mud!!!

So today I spent doing maint and panning the cons down. Cons from two dozen takes a while to pan down and just a I was setting up to get started on that it started raining here at the house. So I grabbed the barrel I use for the sluice reservoir and set it up on the back deck under cover. "Take that Mother Nature! Rain all you want to now!" Got all the cons we had brought back panned down and came up with a little more than we had gotten for the first two trips combined. I've still got to sluice the 10 buckets down so all in all we didn't do too badly for the weekend. We got some nice little nuggies and lots of good pieces and got to spend three days in a munchkin free zone.

I'll let you know what I find in the buckets later this week. I got the sluice set back up and ready to run so I can jump on those first thing in the morning.
 

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Sounds like a great time, minus the few minutes of flat tire related stress. You mention needed a better sluice, what are you using now?
 

Right now I'm using a homemade mini long tom that was designed to run the sandy materials in the washes by the house. It's not made for field work even with the mods I've made to it. I want to upgrade to yet another home brew system but this one will be wider, shorter and move even more water.

Don't get me wrong Dan. This one I'm using now does a great job of catching the gold, I just can't "force feed" it. I can dig and classify about 4X faster than this thing can run the materials. Next one will be at least 18" wide but only 4 ' long. The current one is 6" X 6'.
 

Oh ok, cool. Thanks for the reply. Been staring at my Keene a51 again, and deciding how I want to set it up as a recirculator.
 

Give me a call and I can give you some ideas on how to go re-circ. There are some tricks that I had to learn the hard way and maybe I can save you some of the "Growing pains". I've almost always got the phone on me so call anytime.
 

We will not be going out to the gulch this weekend. Instead we're heading up to Turkey Creek to check it out. We promised that we'd take the Munchkin camping this weekend because we didn't want to have a six year old bored to tears for three days of digging out at the site.

That Turkey Creek is also reported to have gold couldn't have had any influence on our decision on where to go. Could it? I'll be traveling light. Pan, Classifier, magnet, gold poke, and trowel is all I'm taking with me. Well MAYBE a couple of buckets in case I do find anything. But that's all... HONEST!

Robi and I need a little break from the Gulch as we've been out digging for the last three weekends in a row. We've pretty much got a handle on that area and I want to get a new box made up that will allow us to process more materials faster.
 

Well We made it up to Turkey Creek this weekend and though we didn't find much gold we had a good time. This was a trip to make up for not taking the Munchkin with us to our regular digs over the Labor Day weekend.

The area itself is beautiful. Lots of Pines, Oaks and Sycamores alongside a very nice creek running down from the Chiricahua mountains. Water was moving quite well and there are quite a few small waterfalls along its course. If it wasn't part of the National Forest System it would be a great place to set up a stream sluice of maybe a highbanker. Since it's NF land it's panning only. We did a lot of exploring around the area while there and the Munchkin had a blast. We set a lot of "First" for her on this trip. It was her first REAL camping trip. The first time she got to toast her own marshmallows and the first time she got to handle her own fishing pole. No fishing there but Robi had been told there was so she got the Munchkin a "Barbie" fishing set. That little thing actually casts very well and the Munchkin took to it like a gold nugget to miners moss. Now I'm going to have to take her fishing for real sometime soon.

We got out to the camp site fairly early Saturday morning only to find it was packed to the gills. We continued up the road a bit and soon found another site to set up at. We were the only ones at that location although there was room for another tent or two. The munchkin was soon practicing her casting in the stream while I started sampling with the pan and classifier. I didn't have much luck, only finding a couple of "micro" pieces out of about three buckets worth of materials moved. Now if it had been as productive as our regular site I'd move our digs over there just because it's a much nicer area view wise.

So next weekend we're heading to the Friends of Kentucky Camp work party on Saturday and then out to the dig site for Sunday and Monday. I whipped up a new highbanker style sluice that will allow us to move a lot more material in a much shorter time. Much less of a "finishing sluice" and designed from what we've learned about the area. It's shorter, lighter, wider and should be able to handle anything we throw in the header box. Water rate for now will be the same at 1950 GPH. For now I'm going to modify the stand from the old system but in time I'll build a much lighter one out of PVC pipe and fittings.
 

Ok folks....

I've been busy in the shop again and have just about finished up the new sluice. I ended up making it narrower than the 18 inches I was thinking but it will still move a lot more materials through it than my old Long Tom.

For construction I used 1/2" nine layer Birch ply throughout and it came in lighter than the old one and should be a lot less prone to warping. Here are the specs:

Main Box is 48" long X 12" wide with side walls that are 4.5" high on the inside. Glued and screwed together. I used some USMC black dye on the inside surfaces so gold will show up better during clean ups. (we want EVERYTHING!!!!) Everything got several coats of poly to seal and waterproof the wood. Water supply is my trusty 1250 GPH bilge pump. The pump may be upgraded to a stronger unit at a later date depending on how well this one works. :icon_scratch:

The Header Box is also 12" wide but only 18" in length. Three inch side and back walls and again dyed with USMC black to make gold show up easier. The grizzly/classifier screen is 1/4 galvy hardware cloth. The 1/4 cloth also dips down a little bit in the gap between the header and main boxes to keep water from escaping down the screening. The dip also will work as a nugget catcher for anything that is too large to go through the screen. Water supply for the spray bars is from the 750 GPH bilge pump. If I upgrade the 1250 for the main box to a 2000 GPH unit I'll move the 1250 up to the spray bars. I think 3250 GPH should move some materials... :tongue3:

Now while this is not exactly what I had been thinking on the design before, I went with what I had on hand in the shop to get it made. The narrower width will still allow me to use a bucket to catch the tailings but just barely.

0909131224a.jpg0909131224.jpg

Forgive the cell phone photography!!!!

As it sits now I just have to give everything one more coat of poly, modify the stand for the Long Tom to work with this unit and hook up the plumbing and it will be ready to rock. It may not be everything I wanted it to be, but it will process a lot more materials than the old one and that is the main thing. I guess well find out how much of an improvement it is soon.....
 

drywallman said:
Good looking sluice. Betcha can't wait to run some gravel thru it!
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Ya got that right Dan! I've been doing some tuning on it this afternoon and had to add some flashing to the area where the header box meets up with the main box. When running a re-circulating system ya DON'T want any leaks and this thing was bleeding like it escaped from a slasher movie! The temp flashing (aka Soda can aluminum) fixed the leakage problem and it is ready for field testing this weekend. I'll replace the "Orange Crush" cans with some real flashing later. If it works as well as I think it will we should be able to at least double the amount of materials we can run a day. I need to be moving as much material as possible as I'm going into "gold grubbin" mode. I've got some other projects that need funding if ya know what I mean! With what we have learned about the area we are working we should almost triple our take so far.
 

Well I spent more time this morning making some mods to the header box in an effort to stop the leaks without having to use some ugly flashing. This is what I figured out and how I fixed the problem.

I noticed that the water from the spray bars was the main culprit for the leaks because it was bouncing off the bottom of the box after it had passed through the screen of the grizzly. I also noticed that the water from the header box was hitting the sluice to far down the run effectively costing me processing area to catch gold in, What was needed was a way to do two things. Block the water from the spray bars from hitting the bottom of the sluice directly and to move where the slurry would hit the sluice back up towards the top of the box.

What I ended up doing was making up some rails that were 1 inch high and attaching them to the bottom of the header box at the top and sides of the opening. To these I added another piece of the ply I had used to make the system in the first place. A coat of the USMC black dye to the inside portion of the "shelf" and reinstalled everything for testing. BINGO!!!! The shelf now prevents the water from the spray bars from leaking out of the system and the slurry will now hit right in front of the spreader for the main water to the sluice. The shelf also hangs down low enough that any water off the corners is below the top edge of the sluice.

The new box is now water tight and ready for some field work. I know it's going to be a vast improvement over the old one and allow us to process more materials faster. Robi is excited about this and she hasn't even seen the new system yet!

EDIT: Once I get this thing dialed in I am thinking of doing up a set of plans and a parts list for it if anyone is interested in making one for their own use. It's really straight forward on the construction and a piece of cake to build.
 

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The truck is loaded up and we're on our way to the dig site to test out the new sluice. Work party today but we're going to be out there until Monday so that will make up for it. I've made up a full dozen mats for the sluice system so I won't have to be washing them out on site after the first one has been checked. Just roll up the full mat and put it into the bucket and replace it with a fresh one. That way we don't have to stop as long for clean-outs and we will e able to run more materials. Keep your fingers crossed ya'll. This could get interesting!!!
 

Good luck today, my partner and I are headed out to my hole, to take some high bench samples, and run the metal detectors over a giant sand bar.
 

Well this weekends trip was a lot of fun! We didn't leave until Saturday morning because we were going to take part in a "Work Party" for Friends of Kentucky Camp. The weeds out at the actual camp were almost as tall as myself in some places and it was getting to be a great hiding place for rattlers. When we got there, four other members were already knocking down the weeds so Chris, (El Hefe) out Robi and I to work on restoration of some of the Adobe walls for the Gold recovery building. I had planned on running a whacker but playing in the mud wasn't bad at all. Kind of reminded me of when I was a kid all those centuries ago.

During the course of the day, we got to know the other members that had shown up as well as two of the Forest Service Officers that work that area. All good people and not a bad attitude to be found. Got a lot of clarification on just what we can and can't do in the area from the Forest service guys and it seems that they were happy that Robi and I were asking all the right questions and showed that we wanted to work with them instead of against them.

So the work party ended and Robi and I were free to get our camp set up. We managed to get everything in place and still had time to run some materials through the new sluice before it got dark. Everything seemed to be working well but I did notice that the new box is a lot more sensitive to angle than the old one was. When we got up the next morning at "0-dark thirty" I got the coffee ready and we were back down at the work area by 7AM getting materials classified.

We spent the majority of the morning classifying a stock pile of materials and filling buckets and bins, before we fired up the sluice and started running materials through it. While Robi manned the sluice, I kept digging and bouncing over to the sluice and pumps to keep things running for her. We ran two buckets worth of materials and shut the sluice off to check how well the new beast was catching gold. After rinsing the mat out and panning it down I was happy with what we found. Sooo.... It was back to work and instead of rinsing out the mats when they were full, I simply rolled them up and put them into a bin and then replaced it with a new mat. Now the sluice I'm pretty happy with how well it works but I do want to upgrade the pumps so I'm pushing at least 3500 GPH which will allow me to go over to the Gold Hog mats. That will allow me to do fewer clean outs each day and keep us processing materials instead of swapping out mats.

So Monday we woke up sore and without a lot of drive for digging too much. Since we already had a lot of materials ready to run that wasn't a problem. We decided to do some testing on a couple of new spots in the gulch. Robi and I each picked a spot that we thought looked good and I got two buckets from each spot. We ran Robis' sample first and though there was gold it it, it wasn't anything spectacular. In fact it was pretty much just like everything else we had run from this area. Then we got my sample which came from further upstream done up. Sluice it down, clean out the mat and pan it all down. Well on the second pans worth of cons I was about 1/2 way down to where I would start looking for color when I saw a major glint in the corner of the black sands. Calling Robi over I asked her to get me a nugget vial out of the tool box as well as a pair of tweasers. I cleared a place in the pan and grabbed the nugget up and set it down to flush off any black sands with a little water and neither Robi nor I could believe our eyes. Sitting there in the pan was a nugget that looked to be about a 1/2 gram in size. By far this is the largest one we've found at this location. Needless to say we were STOKED!

So...Now I've got a short week to get all the materials we brought back run, all the mats we used this weekend cleaned out and panned down and all the equipment ready to go back out there next weekend. Most likely we'll be moving the digging up to where we found the nice nugget but will still set the sluice up under the trees where we have been. It's going to mean having to haul the dirt further but I have a feeling it's going to be worth the effort.
 

Congrats on finding a new hot spot!
 

goldenIrishman said:
Now the sluice I'm pretty happy with how well it works but I do want to upgrade the pumps so I'm pushing at least 3500 GPH which will allow me to go over to the Gold Hog mats.
Click to expand...

Check out Johnson Pumps,

Johnson Pumps.jpg

Electric Heavy Duty Bilge Pumps, 12 & 24V 4000 GPH. Designed to meet and exceed the tough demands of commercial and recreational duty. This pump has a liquid cooled, 12-pole motor with double ball bearings for extended service life. Impeller is carefully designed and tested to maximize head and flow, Removable check valve included, High impact ABS plastic
 

I've got a Johnson pump but just not the larger one is all. They're good stuff without a doubt. I'll call ya here shortly. I forgot to turn the cell back on when we got home last night.
 

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