Looks like our German friends are actually selling Mini Compadres, anybody speak German?

http://www.detector-scout.de/compadre---mini.html

I just discovered a trick. If you right click on your mouse , scroll down to where it says 'Translate with Bing' , then all the German words suddenly become English. Sure is a pricey conversion at almost 300 Euros, around $400 US?

I never had much like for the Tesoro Golden Umax until I saw this video tonite. Looks like this user has almost

achieved the Holy Grail of ring hunting and aluminum discrimination. Maybe older is better? Can any of the recent detector offerings

pull off these miracles?

Do you have any before and after photos of the acid cleaning process? Is hydrochloric acid like the muriatic acid you get at a pool supply store? Will it clean red mud/dirt off of gold specimens too? And do you use it straight out the bottle or? Acids can be nasty things to handle. Sure looks pretty.

I'd rather get this one from Google.One more toy for us big boys...wonder what powers it and how it remains upright, gyros perhaps?

I didn't know there were any lift kits for my Forester? Got a link ? I have NEVER been stuck with mine, altho the stock tires are totally useless in even an inch of snow. I now have 6 years on a set of General Altimax Arctic winter tires which have only wore down 1/32 nd inch in 6 years.Wonder if they will go for 10 years?

In mud holes, my car tends to float over the top of the mud vs sink in.

 There are no skidplates and rocky trails can be quite hazardous. I owned a 91 Toyota 4 Runner, wished I still had it...It got 21 mpg on the highway but the V6 only had 150 ponies and no passing power at hiway speeds, but I loved that electric rear window for ventilation and carrying longer items.  I went to Maine one year to dig for gold on the Swift river with it and slept in back.

I already have a 2009 Forester.It gets 22-26 city, 26-30 hiway mpg.Its kinda cramped for camping and hauling stuff tho and burns thru brake pads and rotors both, every 35,000 miles. 100 k on the odometer this month. I have no need for a ZED but a 4wd camper sounds appealing in a few years if my health holds up.

I like the European looks and the fact you can now get a diesel option vs the gas hogs of yesterdays 4wd van conversions.

Supposedly the Sprinter 4wd van gets around 17 mpg with the diesel, dunno about the Quigley Ford Transit conversion van? I might wanna sell the house and go the 4wd camper van route at some point soon. Need an affordable way to haul detectors, gold mining machines, and me around in comfort on and offroad without a fullsize motorhome and reasonably easy to park and sleep in.

The fully equipped Sportsmobile 4wd Sprinter van conversion is a measly $100,000 plus. Looks like a base 4wd unit from Mercedes is around 50 grand, dunno about the Transit 4wd van ? Quigley wants about $13,000 for the 4x4 conversion plus the original cost of the van from Ford , wonder what that is ?Ford also has a diesel option for the Transit .

I think I will save my pennies for one of these instead of a new detector.

You said the Gold Racer has Discrimination and VDi? Does that mean park and schoolground hunting can be done with it as I can do with my old fashioned MXT? Any Notching ability?

I have a 4 inch Tesoro coil that could hook up to a Tesoro detector, not sure which model, the one above the Compadre?  Then modify a coil stem to the length you want and improvise a handle,  You would have to detach the control housing from the S rod and put it in a waterproof box, maybe an Otterbox and maybe float it somehow in a small innertube ,and get a waterproof set of headphones and run the headphone cable down to your head from the detector. But all the waterproof phones I know of have proprietary connectors, like the Blue  ones Garrett uses on the AT Pro or Infinium or the Detector Pro Headhunter Diver. Be sure NOT to raise the coil or phones above the control box as water will run down the cable and short out the connector and control box. I've unknowingly made this mistake myself.

Heck, I am tempted to try this myself for swim areas where they don't want me wading with a detector in hand. But then I would need air to breathe...complications....

COLUMBIA, SC By the end of this year, miners expect to begin unearthing potentially billions of dollars in gold north of Camden after nearly a decade of efforts.

OceanaGold., an Australian-headquartered company, has cleared parts of its mining site, begun construction of a mill and started excavating mining pits near the town of Kershaw, company officials said.

Once work crews scrape away rock that sits atop the gold, OceanaGold will begin extracting the precious metal and processing it in the mill, officials said at a geology conference Thursday in Columbia. OceanaGold should be pulling gold from the first of eight mining pits within eight months, officials said. A tailings waste pond also is under construction.

“We went from exploration, where we were employing a hundred people, until now, when the job site is four times busier,’’ OceanaGold’s James Berry told The State newspaper. “We’re getting ready to get to the ore.’’

The company, which led a tour of the site Wednesday for more than 30 visiting geologists, provided a brief update Thursday during the Geological Society of America’s southeastern conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.

After the meeting, Berry said the company still has plans to mine up to 2 million ounces of gold. The company has located another 2 million ounces that could be mined later. At more than $1,200 per ounce, the value of the gold identified in Kershaw would be nearly $5 billion.

Efforts to open the mine began about nine years ago when an exploration company located substantial deposits at the site of the historic Haile Gold Mine, Berry said. But the initiative took years, in part because OceanaGold’s predecessor, Romarco Minerals Inc., had to secure an array of environmental permits. The company’s proposal sparked large community meetings, questions from state and federal regulators, and skepticism from environmental groups.

The OceanaGold mine, with pits of more than 800 feet deep, would be the largest mining operation of its kind in the eastern United States. It will extract gold from open pits, but the company also has considered a shaft mine.

Conservationists were hesitant to endorse the project because it could destroy as many as 1,100 acres of wetlands and increase the chances that acid would drain from the mining operation into groundwater and streams, as had happened at other mining sites in South Carolina. But Romarco secured its final environmental permit early in 2015 and within seven months had agreed to merge with OceanaGold, which also operates mines in Asia.

Many environmental groups backed away from their opposition after Romarco agreed to buy nearly 5,000 acres of land near Columbia and Kershaw for use as nature preserves. The state Sierra Club was the lone holdout, eventually challenging a mining permit. The club settled the case after Romarco agreed to double the amount of cash it would post for an environmental cleanup. Romarco agreed to post $10 million in cash as part of the settlement.

Berry said the company today has taken extra precautions to protect the environment, including a system to control acid drainage -- a persistent problem at gold mines across the country. He also said the mine’s economic impact is helping the town of Kershaw.

The former textile town had one of the highest unemployment rates in the area at one time. The company has said it expects to employ up to 800 workers through the project’s entire 13-year life

Made a small acquisition yesterday. 2 x 2 foot sheet of HEAVY Raised Expanded aluminum that sits 5/16 inch tall

to try out in my dredge and hibanker riffles. I had a small section of this stuff  in my mini highbanker, always wondered why it did so well at catching fine gold with just an 18 inch x 7 inch sluice? Then I noticed I had a 12 inch long piece of this super duper raised expanded aluminum in it .Was almost impossible to find it online and locally. Wasn't cheap, cost 80 bucks with shipping for a 2 x 2 foot piece. But the strands are 1/8 inch thick x 3/16 inch wide, diamonds approx 5/8 inch x 1 3/8 inch, overall Height 5/16 inch vs my normal 1/8 inch tall expanded.Should be able to take a good beating in the dredge sluice.Cuttable with small Sawzall or handheld grinder.

Thanks to Chris at Arizona Outback for this video on the unit:

Does the Gold Racer make a sharp beep beep, to let you know when it is ground balanced like I hear the Racer 2 does?

There actually some good YouTube reviews on MX Sport and how easy it is to use.

Have you  tried putting in a layer of raised expanded aluminum or steel mesh ? That's what we generally do here in the states on a sluice with no riffles or under the riffles. The diamonds help catch the gold particles better. They are about 1/2 inch x 3/4 inch roughly. Is there really gold in Scotland? I've never been overseas yet...maybe after I retire in 5 years...

-Tom V. ps, my long ago relatives came from Holland to the USA back in the 1700's or so they say...

why is that one nugget all red? UR the man for sure...

It says the machine makes a Low Tone for Positive Hotrocks and Iron? What about Cold Hotrocks? My Lobo makes a Boing Boing noise over them. Will this Nokta make the Boing noise too?

Some detector coils are tuned to that particular machine and I would think cutting the cable might affect the tuning?

Happy Bday Lunk, you give the rest of us some hope...ps, what is the weather like in Quartzite in Feb/March/April? Do you camp out in the desert or get a motel room or ?

-Tom

Very informative gold dredging link, check lists,basics, and photos

http://shacksgold.com/dredging.htm

ok guys, she is all welded up and ready for trial runs.I took Bobs and Jasons advice and put in Keene riffles. Keene did a horrible job on the riffle tray, 1/8 inch gaps under the dredge riffles and 3/8 inch gaps under the stream riffles in front. I cut out the 1st 3 stream riffles and had 1 welded back in, minus the huge gap. I made some steel flats to rivet onto the dredge riffles and eliminate the 1/8 inch gaps. Miracle mat installed in 1st 12 inches,  2 feet of moss and carpet underneath the 30 inches of 1/8 inch raised expanded steel under the riffle tray and holding down the 1st 3 inches of Miracle mat. Why do miners like to put in a Perforated metal screen at the front of the riffle section? I will try it without the Perf and see what happens. I raised up the Miracle mat with moss underneath to keep the flow less turbulent.. Had a rail welded almost all the way around, easy to grab onto , 2.5 inch sluice box slope built in,approx weight  80 pounds ,rope tow handle.Does it make any difference what end of the drege the tow rope is on? Am using a nozzle I got off Ebay with a crevice buster built into it via a ball valve,has anybody else used one of these? Need 70 degree warm water for my 60 year old bones before I can jump in the creek yet.

   It rained real hard today and a pond formed in the backyard so I dragged the dredge back there, and she floats perfect, nice and level.

So, I take it you would air test for nails and such vs the goodies before you go in the field to hunt or during the hunt?

Sounds a bit complicated vs a turn on and go machine. Can you get more gold targets doing this too since shallow BIG gold nuggets tend to sound like ferrous trash? As Digger Bob showed us with his TDI and that 5 pound Butte gold nugget last year..