Keene Engineering New Product Development

[AMDS]

Good afternoon,

I'm Scott Posey, the Mining Manager at the new AMDS Mining Superstore. I'm a lifelong avid gold dredger and prospector. Our new facility is open now and I hope you will stop by and visit.

I am traveling to visit with Mark Keene at Keene Engineering next week. We will be discussing new product development and ideas for the new store. What would you like to see? How about a trommel fed by a mini excavator? Do any of you have a mini excavator, and if so, what is it's capacity? Any questions for Mark in general or other suggestions? I'm really interested in hearing from you.

AMDS is becoming the sponsor of this particular forum and I plan to be here regularly. If anyone has questions, well, I am the manager so get a bit busy at time, but please be patient and I will get back to you. Thanks for taking a look at this, and hope to see you soon.

Scott Posey, Mining Manager
AMDS Mining Superstore
3032 Commercial Drive
Anchorage, AK 99501
907-277-1741
scott_posey@akmining.com
 

[Steve Herschbach]

Welcome to the forum Scott. It’s been great hanging out with you and Darun the last few days. The new facility looks absolutely fantastic, you’ve both done a great job!

[Hard Prospector]

Keene needs to produce a 1/4" drop in classifier for the A52 sluice, simple and rugged......just shovel in material.  Covers the flair and maybe half down the sluice run. One was made for it by another company that went defunct. There's some around and they work really well. One will come up for sale second hand occasionally and it sells  quick.

Mark takes after his Dad and is all business,  Pat is a good miner and  a character.

[phrunt]

Great to see you on the forum Scott, an experienced dredger with product knowledge of the current offerings on the market is a valuable asset.  Love the look of the newly renovated store by the way.

Just a measly a52 operator here, I do like the idea of the drop in classifier spoken about above, I'd also like a viable solution for dealing with extreme black sand clogging my sluice.  All I've tried is the little aftermarket magnet attachment for the front that didn't really help at all.

[AMDS]

12 hours ago, Hard Prospector said:

Keene needs to produce a 1/4" drop in classifier for the A52 sluice, simple and rugged......just shovel in material.  Covers the flair and maybe half down the sluice run. One was made for it by another company that went defunct. There's some around and they work really well. One will come up for sale second hand occasionally and it sells  quick.

Mark takes after his Dad and is all business,  Pat is a good miner and  a character.

Keene has something similar, here is a picture of the classifier screening system. I personally have not used it but, i have gotten a lot of good feed back from several customers. 

[phrunt]

I have an A52S and I've converted an A52 to an A52S also, that classifier system works OK, you have to get your flows just right or it clogs up quite badly, a good fast flowing creek/river is required and the gravels not too big.

[Hard Prospector]

49 minutes ago, AMDS said:

Keene has something similar, here is a picture of the classifier screening system. I personally have not used it but, i have gotten a lot of good feed back from several customers. 

Yah,  I've seen this thing in action  and works ok but its expensive and has issues.

I wish I had a picture of the one  I've seen around or the name company who made it.....bummer

The one I'm talking about is 1/4" holes (only) in heavy duty stainless punch plate.  It has  folded over "U" shaped lips that just drops over the edges of the A52 sluice sides.  NO WINGNUTS that always disappear.  Just insert,  shovel on to and even more importantly, pull out for a clean up......super simple  

90% of the time ,  reducing the material to minus 1/4"  is plenty enough.

A classifier should not be expensive or complex.  Rugged, effective and simple is key

[Steve Herschbach]

I agree that Keene has a tendency to being overly complex in many things they make. I prefer simplicity.

I’ve never seen these myself but maybe what you are talking about?

[AMDS]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

Great to see you on the forum Scott, an experienced dredger with product knowledge of the current offerings on the market is a valuable asset.  Love the look of the newly renovated store by the way.

Just a measly a52 operator here, I do like the idea of the drop in classifier spoken about above, I'd also like a viable solution for dealing with extreme black sand clogging my sluice.  All I've tried is the little aftermarket magnet attachment for the front that didn't really help at all.

Man i have tried magnets and different matting and the black sand is a challenge. I have placed a magnet in my dredge box and it helps with the magnetite's but does not solve the problem. The only thing i found when i did that, I would catch some flower gold mixed within the sand.   

[AMDS]

31 minutes ago, Hard Prospector said:

Yah,  I've seen this thing in action  and works ok but its expensive and has issues.

I wish I had a picture of the one  I've seen around or the name company who made it.....bummer

The one I'm talking about is 1/4" holes (only) in heavy duty stainless punch plate.  It has  folded over "U" shaped lips that just drops over the edges of the A52 sluice sides.  NO WINGNUTS that always disappear.  Just insert,  shovel on to and even more importantly, pull out for a clean up......super simple  

90% of the time ,  reducing the material to minus 1/4"  is plenty enough.

A classifier should not be expensive or complex.  Rugged, effective and simple is key

I will talk to Mark while i'm there and see if we can come up with a better solation, easier installation method and cheaper on the pocket book.