Bear

Doug,

I hope you had a great, productive summer.  The weather was good most of the season.

I have a question.  What do you use to drive the trommel?  I see a gas motor in the pictures, what I am wondering what is the gear on the barrel and what sort of take off or engagement system do you use?

Call it a Granitoid unless you know 100% where it falls on the QAP diagram 

My moms uncles flag and awards.  KIA Vietnam, 1969.

Circa October 2005, Mosul Iraq.  The man on the far right died over there after I was MEDEVACed.  I got him into prospecting in AK.

After digging more trash for a skunk day.

Wow, congrats to your customer.  Back in the 90s and early 2000 I saw many nuggets from WY found with SDs and GP Extremes.
 

For the most part it was a small group of guys I knew who found all of the gold.  

I found these two few years ago in WY with an SDC.  Pretty rough with bits of quartz attached. 

Great post.  The large square nail is pretty cool.

I have a few good ones that I found mostly in WY.

In AK I find a lot of small tacks.

So cool!!

Thank you for the info.  
 

Where I dredge there are not to many boulders either  They are mostly quartz slicks or quartzite.  The bedrock is a quartz schist so it doesn’t break off into anything to big.  All the frost shattering leave a layer of clay with broke pieces of the bedrock.  Almost all of the gold is in the clay. 

Mineit,

This is a great post.  I have been meaning to comment and ask a couple of questions if you don’t mind because I also have a claim up the Steese.  Your operation looks awesome and a lot of fun.  
 

We are looking to do some light exploration this summer.  I think my claim is closer to Fairbanks but the geology is similar.  
 

How much muck is on top of gravels?

How deep is the pay/ bedrock?

Historic info says the main valley below my claim the bedrock was 10-12 feet.  Looking around mine I think it is shallower because it is in a side valley.  

I dredge up in that same area but don’t run into frozen ground.  I am pretty sure on my claim the ground is frozen based on the vegetation. 
 

Any info would be appreciated.

It looks like it would work good when screened.  Light and portable.

I like plastic sluices from Europe.  I learned about these molded blue sluices from Sweden when I was a kid.

I know they haven’t been made for a while but they work great for fine gold.

Not to compact but the best fire pits.  It is two washing machine drums with legs that screw on welded to the bottom.

7 total, still own 4.

GP Extreme 

EQ 800 

SDC 

Falcon

It’s been a while but I would like to find a nugget with the GP.  I found some back in the day with it including some moderately small pieces but nothing like the SDC.  I still use the Falcon still for pieces of quartz.  Right now I am really more of a dredger than anything else. 

I always have the freeze dried food on hand and eat a lot in Alaska.  They are light, don’t necessarily don’t have to be heated ( little crunchy), or don’t use a whole lot of water.  I mostly eat mountain house but there are other brands.  I use jet boil to heat the water.  I always keep a water purifier in my side by side, there is always water around in AK. 

Detected nuggets in Alaska, Wyoming and New Mexico.

Dredged, sluiced or panned flake or fine gold in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and found nuggets in Georgia and Montana.

Thank you for the info

Glad to see Simon is back.

I know there are previous posts about SDC battery compartment seal, I had problems with mine this summer.  
 

Here is the background that I have posted about before.

I dredge in an old cut that wasn’t cleaned that good into the bedrock.  The bedrock is a quartz muscovite schist that through frost shattering and dissolution is deeply weathered making it easy to dredge into for a couple of feet.  Because it is a cut the water is always murky and work is done by feel.  A couple of years ago I dug a big section that I thought was cleaned up.  Previously I seen a guy use an Excalibur to check where he had dredged so I took the SDC in.  There was targets so dredged deeper and recovered a couple more nuggets.  Now this has become standard practice.  
This summer while changing the batteries there was water in the battery compartment.  I cleaned and dried the compartment.  Also cleaned the seal and the machine worked fine but I would like to change it.  Through a search nobody sells replacements?

Last night I tried to get the last of some crushed quartz out of my le trap.  I gave a good smack on the bottom with my palm and cracked it.  It was a good run.  That pan was about 25 years old.  
 

Even worse no gold in the quartz.  I will defiantly get another one, I just need to figure out where.

Here is the link to the article in the ICMJ.

https://www.icmj.com/resources/news-and-events/miners-news/man-finds-9-carat-diamond-at-arkansas-crater-of-diamonds-445/?fbclid=IwAR37Lty5iQRGc7xl9Q4ECJSKwpc3v7K8IRIi-5NMbZz6xr7leHpYQzI4js0

I have always wanted to visit this park.  Large diamond was found this month.
 

When I was younger I prospected for diamonds in SW Wyoming.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-finds-9-07-carat-diamond-arkansas-state-park/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6i&linkId=100453663

Snowing in Fairbanks too

Yes the frame is removable.  If you take the frame off it makes it more like an assault pack.  I liked that medium ruck when I had one in the Army.  There have been issues with the full sized polymer MOLLE frame but I never heard of any with that one.

Hopefully all the snow insulates the creeks from freezing to deep.  As Mineit said Fairbanks has been cold.  Not the extreme temperatures but constantly cold.

Thank you for the info.  

Really I am just feeling it out if I need additional flotation.  I bought the dredge with the bigger motors and pumps to either place the dredge farther away while in the cut because tailings become a problem or work in deeper water.  The plan this summer is to go to a spot along a river where I know the bedrock is deep.

I another thread about anchoring I explained how I use cable and a haven grip tied up high.  This does keep the front of the dredge up.

I purchased a newer Keene 6” mini dredge last year with GX270 motors and PHP 500 pumps.  I used it quite a bit last summer but it was all in the old mine cuts that we dredge in.  Not once in a river.  The suction is unbelievable.

My question does anyone have experience with the bigger motors needing more floats because of the weight?  The motors themselves are 20 lbs more a piece and not to mention all of the weight from the water volume and hoses being bigger.  Keene makes the outriggers with floats for them.  I was going to make something similar uses two 30 gallon poly drums.