Redz

Been pretty cold in Southern California too. One day it went down to 60 F!

Nice trip! What was the breakdown for each activity?

It is personal preference, but I switched to the proline pan, made in the sierras, and have not looked back.

http://www.prolinemining.com/prospecting_tools_p_s_gold_pans.html

Replaced mine with a wood one, or a woody

You can readily adapt a 10,000 mah lithium battery pack for RC hobbies. They are cheaper and less prone to EMI

If you lay it on the ground and keep coil cable vertical (by unwinding a little), you might learn more about the coil cable influence

Nugget on a stick? (Nugget not included)

8 hours ago, geof_junk said:

8. Australia was the second country in the world to allow women to vote (New Zealand was first).

Not quite true. Indigenous women didnt get to vote until 1962. New Zealand only allowed vote but not standing for office. Finland allowed all women to vote and stand for office 1906.

Did you try lifting the stabilizer too. That should give smaller gold

For sure! With ore that rich the only pain would be having to fish out the golden pellets from the impact mill

Yes, if you reduce the feed size you will reduce the wear

Your picks look good. I considered discs too. I just made for my own use. 

My jaw is separate as easier to move and load that way, but is a lot easier to get consistent 1/4 to 1/2 inch feed than a dolly. 32 kg in a dolly must not have been fun.

The sugar grains and intermediate grains are what I wanted to avoid, as they are a pain in the final stage. You can reduce them with smaller discharge, but then it slows up the process a lot. 

This is my AR600 one. I used to use 400 but wanted more durability

I have also switched to AR600 for building picks and these applications. Endurasteel is also good

The plates dont create a chunkier output. It is the same if not more consistent than when I tried a chain, since that is mostly controlled by discharge plate.

The reason for the roller mill is two fold. 1. It allows higher rate of throughput through the system, as you are not constrained by output size in the impact mill as much for fine grades i.e. you can have slightly larger slits in discharge plate yet get finer more consistent output faster. 2. The roller mill allows you to control output size very consistently since it is adjustable, and you can get a much finer grade of output. But it is really consistency, as there is much less variation in the distribution of output size if you are going to table it.

These only really matter if you are processing more than a couple of rocks in a test sample

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don't pretend to be a welder.  My set up is impact mill on top of roller mill so I have consistent size with one pass. I have jaw crusher for breaking down to size for the impact mill. With this I have never had to change chains. Still has metal in crush, but much less as hardfaced. I made it some time ago so also hardfaced near removable disharge plate where it was wearing.

Sure, will take some

I have plates with hardfacing on the final chain link

  Here's my winged dragon

5 hours ago, DOOGY-MD said:

Detectorists should not be on archeological or historical sites anyway!

Where in Europe is not either one of these?

20 hours ago, jasong said:

And in the end it pays better to spend time finding new patches than trying everything in the book to squeeze another drop of juice from a dry lemon in old patches. Most old goldfields are dry lemons these days.

I could not agree more. There is little like the excitement of a patch no one else has found, and the overall weight more than makes up for the days where the gold wasn't where you thought.

I see this as being particularly useful for problematic hot rocks, especially if you can grab your sample on the spot. Perhaps even as a smart ground balance.

3 hours ago, jasong said:

 I'm 90% sure it's coming from an ancient paleo-river

Gold still seems pretty coarse particularly on edges, like it hasnt come that far. But maybe that is just the photo

Have you considered using a post hole auger to test before you dig?

Looks like a piece of quartz