Drywashing Australia

[LukeOzDigger]

Hey everyone, just wanted to start a new topic on Drywashing for gold in Australia.

Here's a video of me and my mate Pete out on a quick overnighter' it's still dry enough here at the moment but finding time to get out before it starts raining might stop us from more footage this season.

Steve' feel free to move it to a more relevant section if needed, also if others want to add info video's etc to the same topic feel free just keep the topic on Australia.

enjoy'

 

[fredmason]

Hard work!!! lovely country, nice gold

fred

[LukeOzDigger]

Thanks Fred.

this is a picture of the total gold from that area mostly that hole' & some from sampling' 3.5gram.

the other pictures are sampling to our current spot where we actually  have found an old reef leader' hoping to get out in the next few weeks the bottom picture with the specimen is about 5 buckets for 1/2gram.

[sjmpainter]

LOL. Good you explained the pans, hell II assumed the loaded pan was Pete's. Every time the camera went around your dig was empty and Pete was going for it. Nice to have a good digging mate.

 I have not seen much dry washing. Everything I do in Alaska is wet.

Thanks for the post. Very interesting.

[LukeOzDigger]

LOL' sorry to confuse anyone but in the video I'm using the Thompson 12v puffer but iv modified it somewhat... 

Pete' is using a leaf blower style unit, both which on that day moved about the same amount but I had put a few trips in on that hole to get that return, not worth the time involved but' at some point I broke through the pay layer into the pipe clay, most the good ground and gold was the first 10".

if I only worked the top 10" and broke up the dry clay it produced 1/2gram in a few hard hours work, not bad gold and the perfect way to sample a larger area for the sweet spot for hopefully a few small nuggets at the end of the day.

[argyle]

I may have told you before, but I really like that sample hand blower at the end of the clip.

 

Hey is that an Akubra Bronco you're wearing mate?

[LukeOzDigger]

Argyle'

it didn't start its life out as a Akubra Bronco but it resembles one now' it's about 11 years old and soaked up its fair share of sweat too' bought a pair of Ariat boots at the same time that still polish up like new and only been restitched once...so far.

yeah the little puffer has a new home now but I can make another one easy enough, that one might star in the next video soon :)'

[argyle]

I only started wearing the Ariat's three years ago.

The one at the front is from my daily wearer and general detecting boot pair. I can't wear them trenching or reefing as the soles are too flat and I slip all over the joint (think these were made for the horse working people) I thought they wouldn't last six months but their still going strong.

I was so impressed I bought another pair, the one at the rear, just breaking them in now.

 

Looking forward to your next clip... 

[Trent King]

Its amazing how under utilized dry blowing is in Australias eastern states.

I have been to areas in NSW with mates who where pumping water 50-100m away with highbankers, set up right next to em with my little keene 140 and got just as much gold.  Dont believe that bone dry bullchit that I have heard.  Ive put slighty damp material through heaps of times and works really well in chunky gold areas.

[LukeOzDigger]

The only problem Iv got even with the puffer units on not so dusty dirt is it just doesn't like to feed real nice onto the cloth' once its on there it's fine, the main issue with the bellows puffer style is the good gravel layer that's normally full of tiny pebbles and gravels' but contains less fines and sands can get hung up on the cloth as the small amount of dusty sand gets blown out & away leaving the gravels, the puff of air will no longer move the gravels over the riffles so it gets hung up, a quick shake generally gets things moving again but gets old every few shovels full.

with the blower style you don't have these issue as the vibrations assist in keeping the gravels suspended but then there's noise and smell to deal with, on the hand operated puffers you can give it a few real hard blows between puffs but one person cant feed and puff real well.

every gold catching machine has its downfall but I still think the drywasher/puffer is one of the best investments mainly because of the amount of material you can process in a single day, but if you don't sweat or hate blisters don't get one.

Over winter I'm going to build a not so portable unit that will solve all these issues and break the clay up aswell' goto finish up the wood stove in the shed first.