John-Edmonton

I don't think there is a winner. The amount of gold anyone gets is relative to the location. 8 more working days left till I 100% retire from health care. A few buckets a day will keep the doctor away.😁

I am going to enter the 100 gold bucket challenge. It is going on in the US, Australia, UK and many other places. Pretty simple.......just save and weigh the gold from 100 buckets and see what you got! Anyone else care to join? Tonite I ran 4 buckets of gravel screened down to 7/16" using my Garrett classifier. I haven't cleaned up the gold yet. Just ran out of time. Here's how the day went.......

10 hours ago, Dean Stone said:

Thanks all, I can keep this Ohio gold in my 2" dredge ok, but just was watching some videos and was think about the Dream Mat. I don't get to go as much as use to, wife is bad, can't leave her to long. My broken back has gotten worse, but just can give it up yet. Love being in the water. My friends think i am nuts at 73 years and still want to play in the water. Have fun guys, and be safe.  Dean

Dean, you are an inspiration. Doing what you do with age pathology issues. I bet you would actually be in worse shape if your prospecting hobby ceased. I have been working with pt's with hip/knee replacements, #'d ankles, broken shoulders etc. The worst thing anyone can do later on in life is give up physical work. If we do, the body begins getting ris of calcium from our bones, making them much more brittle and prone to breaking with poor healing results. I say "go for it!" Dean. Anyone with a little common sense realizes the old saying....if you don't use it, you loose it. 👍

 Nel Coils may have unintentionally set themselves up for their "Storm" line of search coils earlier on. Should they continue to also produce a   compatible coil for Garrett's new anticipated metal detector release, they may have an "ACE" in progress. (pun intended)

I had some years ago. I found that it wasn't all that good for our very flat, thin flour gold that can float on water without using soap to break up the water surface tension. Our flour gold can take off like a piece of tissue paper in the wind with water turbulence in the sluice, so I ended up with unacceptable gold loss. Now, for gold with a little more density, it might work well.

I also did some math. Calculating the volume of those little holes  on the dream mat vs. the volume of my drop riffles. I went with riffles because of the substantial increase of capture surface  area. It allows for more gold to be captured and buried like in the real world, and many more traps to allow the gold to just "drop" as opposed to creating a reverse water flow, trying to get the gold uphill into that condensed round pocket. And, as previously mentioned, our light flour gold can take off like a piece of tissue paper in the wind.

A well know prospector from home is doing a lot of research and design   with bilge pumps and dredging. He has already designed impellers with a remarkable increase of 39.8% efficiency from 12 volt electric bilge pumps. He is now designing  a dredge  which can be operated by using a bilge pump with a dredging system, on a more portable basis for rivers and beach sands. I thought I would show you his work so far and the direction he is headed.

His dredge design video link below..........

His impeller designs below.

Got out the Le'Trap. My 3000 GPH pump draws 12 Ah, so my new 100 Ah 12 volt battery can run my pump for about 8 hours. Much more time then I could do in a day.

Here's the setup I used.

 Got a little petrifird wood today.

Here's 2 hours worth of digging.

Ha! My larger fuel tank came in the mail today. This one allows me to run my Geo Highbanker for about 12 hours. This new battery is rated at 100 Ah. My current battery is 60 Ah. Both of them will give me about 19 hours run time with the Geo Sluice and 53 hours with the California Mini. And, the new battery only ways 24 LBS. If I add a solar panel, it will be even more run time.

A cold NW wind today, however, had a good deep river valley today to protect me. Even got some snow......adds to the adventure. I used the Geo Highbanker. Being that I run it with a battery, I added some tips today. Enjoy the pics.

It all fits in a plastic fishing sled, that will float for easy transportation.

Got my highbanker up and running.

Tune your machine like a concert piano, and it will capture most of the gold in the first couple of drop riffles.

The lithium ion batteries manual says you could damage the battery if you short it out. I use an electric control to manage the flow, and it has a fuse  in case it does short out.

The PVC plastic units are light, making it easy to move to  a new location.

After my first cleanup, I was happy to see some gold in the pan.

I added some miner's moss with backing into the hopper to protect it from all the abuse I give it and to catch a bit of gold.

And that pretty well wraps up today's adventure!

What a day, what a day, what a day. It was a gamble. Very strong winds forecast, the river at a iffy depth with the potential of it rising even more. 30% showers. Assessed 3 different locations. I chose one, the gravel to dig was about the same square footage as my bathroom. Heck......if you don't take risks, you can't win. Well, the river dropped about 5 inches for the first 3 hours, then started rising again. The ice was breaking upstream, so I had to monitor a possible ice-flow attack on shore. I even had all my supplies stored on high ground, with a trail to quickly evacuate the area, just in case. Well, nothing happened, and it turned out to be an uneventful day. Except, getting some nice shiny.

On 4/6/2024 at 1:15 AM, Valens Legacy said:

Looks like all that hard work is paying off for you, I never thought of finding platinum i a pan like that, but never really knew what it would look like in the pan or sluice.

Nice looking gold for the day and I wish you better luck on your next outing.

Stay safe and don't over do yourself.

There is a tiny bit of platinum that shows up occasionally. Not enough to really go after it. Thanks for your kind words.

On 4/7/2024 at 8:34 AM, Ridge Runner said:

John  

 You may not got a promotion but due to the price of gold your hourly wage has gone up.and platinum is not bad at about 940.00 .

 You may not want to fool with that cheap stuff like platinum so I’ll email you my address and to show you what a great guy I am I’ll pay shipping..haha

 You be safe out there going it alone. Having you coming on here with your show and tell is like being there.

 I thank you for your time doing so .

 Chuck  

Too late. I threw that platinum in the garbage. It's ugly, so little of it too. Damned if I am going to spend hours with a set of tweezers picking out $00.50 worth.  For safety, I always carry my cell phone and about 50 feet of rope for those challenging steep trails. I spent the last 15 years working with folks with hip, shoulder and knee replacements. I do my best not to become a patient on my unit. And, I most certainly  don;t want to see me butt naked either. 🤣

Looks like a lot of team spirit at the Garrett factory. Lots of employees too.  Charlie has sure built up a nice empire from the ground up. I sure do miss him. I still have some correspondence from him at home. He often times used to answer questions himself. RIP Charlie!

I was lucky.....I got the last one. 

If I was still using my gas pump for highbanking,, I would not be getting out very often. Going light with equipment and not using a gas pump anymore, has really opened up a lot of territory, which previously was just too much to hull around long distances, especially at this time of year. Even a boat is of no use right now.

Anyhow, I tried a new spot in Alberta and was surprised to find a lot of platinum. I don't really like finding it, as it slows me down back-panning for my final cleanup. Anyhow, here is a what took place today. The gold is a total of 5 hours with of digging, total from yesterday and today. More snow for the forecast tomorrow. 

Here are the grey bits of platinum.

Platinum is easy to distinguish from other particulates in the pan.

And, the "shiny."

It was supposed to get up to at or above freezing temperatures today. That never happened, however, fresh air, exercise, appetite, good food and a good night's sleep. What is there not to like? Made a quick, short video of the Easter Hunt.

7 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

What size pump do you recommend to run on the sluice?

Depends on the width of the drop riffles. Up to an 8" wide, the 1100 GPH should do fine. 10" to 12" works well with the 2000 GPH and the Le'Trap runs with a 2200GPH pump, although, I sometimes add another 500 GPH pump to to run the Letrap.

8 minutes ago, chrisski said:

How much material did you run?

Was this pay dirt or concentrates?

I was using the California mini highbanker. I shovelled fresh gravel into the hopper for about 2 hours, including gravel containing a lot of roots. It's flour gold in the pan.

7 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

I picked up a 90 Ah Bosch battery for $116.00 at a NAPA Auto store near me just 2 weeks ago. Could of had a 120 Ah for just 12 dollars more.

Now to find a bilge pump at the right price.

There are lots of bilge pumps for sale at Amazon and Ebay. A lot of prospecting places sell them too, as do  marinas if you happen to live near water. Did you purchase a Lithium ion battery?  Below is an article about lithium ion batteries and a  comparison chart to simplify things.

https://tritekbattery.com/choosing-between-lithium-ion-and-lead-acid-batteries-for-e-bikes/

A couple of things to bring to your attention. Drop riffle highbankers require less water flow then your standard riffles. Drop riffles allow the gold to drop out of the water flow, like it happens in nature. Standard riffles require more water flow, to create a low pressure zone, hopefully capturing gold. Larger stones can knock flour gold out of standard riffles, but just roll over drop riffles, where the gold has already dropped out of sight. Because of less water flow, drop riffles run very well on bilge pumps. The California Mini runs nicely using a 1100 gallons per hour pump. The Geo Sluice runs well on a 2000 gallons per hour pump.

12 volt lithium ion batteries are really coming down in prices, and bilge pumps are not a great expense.  The lithium ion batteries can purchaced on Amazon or Ebay.

I did the math and pricing for running either the Californiaa Mini or the Geo Highbanker with different batteries. You could also run a 6" standard riffle unit on a 1100gallons per hour unit. These are in Canadian prices. US prices will be less.

Using a bilge pump is quiet, no gasoline, no oil, no tune-ups, no oil changes and the whole complete system is so light that you can carry it on your back and go just about anywhere. And drop riffles have excellent retention rates for flour gold. 

Thanks! You too!👊

1 hour ago, Ridge Runner said:

Hey John 

If you got a root beer I’ll sit down with you and shoot the bull with you. I found out long ago with one beer I’d chase just about anything with a dress on but now at my age it could be the end of me.haha

 You reporting the gold you finding keeps us going that can’t get out there.

 Thanks for your time!

 Chuck 

Well Chuck, full retirement  end of May. At 69 I feel blessed that I still have the body that allows me to prospect. I can't comment on the grey matter in my head. I do love the photography part of prospecting, and enjoy putting together the posts. We ALL need to keep our bodies moving and our brains challenged to get the most of our senior years.

 "When we are young, we should exercise. When we get old, we GOT-TO!"

9 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

Beer?

I have to have something a little bit stronger than that, some high grade moonshine would do the best.

Too much of that stuff and you will go color blind.👀

4 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

The roots is just like miners moss both good at catching gold.

 Chuck 

You bet! Much easier then shovelling gravel. You can literally pull up a chair, wash some roots and drink a cold beer too!🍺

11 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

That's a nice amount of flour that you recovered , how much came from the roots.

Good luck on your next outing, and stay safe out there.

I would say an easy 60-70%.