1515Art

Zortan, there’s a lot to explore out there be careful and prepared it’s a lot of fun exploring, take chances and the fun can end quickly I carry sat com with me and plenty of gear although many roads are 2wd when the conditions are dry, stay out if it’s wet! this google earth KMZ file is a fun guide and will give you some interesting places to look at along with some information on the area and roads. http://www.forgottennevada.org/sites/newmap.html?mid=zXc1EpOap-5U.kejh8GxmneDQ good luck, have fun and be safe

Mitchel, I think you’ve found gold already so many friends and supporters cheering you on in the wonderful land of Oz. I wish I could offer some small clue but lost I’d be And site seeing I’d be doing probably more than you are I’m sure. Anyway great thread and I’m excited to see that first nugget and then all the others. There’s a lot of positive energy focused in your direction best of luck.

Thanks Mitchel, Just a preview of your future gonna be some big nuggies with your name on them waiting for you😀!

Brain I asked about the wholesale price on the little piece pictured with the keys and for some pictures of other smaller stuff and she sent over some pictures of stones that look really expensive and some tiny pieces that are cut for stringing and no price info so I’ll just post these cause they are beautiful,to look at and when I get an update I’ll add the info to the post. Some really colorful rocks coming from this mine.

Brian, I’ll get some pictures see If you like what she has.

It’s beautiful material for sure, I don’t know yet about websites, I’ll ask and post it here if there is one. She had a bag full of little polished pieces I noticed many were already drilled with holes for stringing into jewelry, my mind was lost thinking about the yellow stuff so with the brain on yellow overload and no ability to control my arms and legs forming coherent sentences was a struggle and I wasn’t paying complete attention to the opal, but I don’t think the little pieces of polished boulder opal were very expensive? Some were in the $50 range I think, not sure if that was retail or wholesale. The big chunk in the picture was marked 45,000. In RMB that puts it retail around $6,700. And wholesale somewhere around $4k, next time over she’s going to bring the really good stuff for us to see I’m not sure yet what that’ll be but I’m guessing something nice. If you want any of this let me know I’ll see what she can do.

We had a friend come by the studio with some opal samples she brought back from a friend of hers who has an opal mine in Australia. The pieces she brought this time over to the studio were small samples of Boulder opal. The mine is a 3 day drive from Melbourne and over 200k of that drive is off road into the bush a very difficult and somewhat risky drive she says requiring careful preperation and notice to the locals to come looking for you if you fail to come back out is also a good idea. This is a chunk of the local boulder opal, The next question on my mind was is there any gold????? I’m thinking Australia, minerals and gee I wonder and if so, is the owner finding any gold? She didn’t know and sent him a message asking because a friend was interested to know, he’s going to be visiting the US later this month and I invited them both back for a visit when he is here if they have time I’d love to learn more about his adventures. Anyway, my friend sent over some plctures I think might be of interest, seems there is a few nuggets to be found here and there along with the other goodies in the ground.

No worries here😀 all’s good this is happy land and I get it completely. I had a funny experience the one time I ran my Keene set-up on an AMRA claim and looked up from loading gravel into my hopper to see a sheriffs officer standing there watching me way back off up a long dirt road. Luckily Shannon had things worked out there and he just wanted to know how I was doing, the experience did rattle my chains a little.

I like it, that looks like a lot of fun nice job.

Ha, yep that would be best I guess it’s just that I was having fun trying 😊 and at least my 12v volt recirculating set-up will work good for what I need I think. Most times I drag a bunch of river stuff out hunting and wind up spending all my time swinging the zed and never do any panning or sluicing, this year I might change things up a little.

Jarod, thanks and what size intake and discharge did you use and did you use a 4 to 1 for the jet diameter. I considered putting pumps in series and using a bilge pump with a live well pump like you suggested but instead trusted the utility pumps with a rated useful lift 3 times that of the bilge pump would be better unfortunately I didn’t get that performance difference. 3 1000gph pumps I’m guessing is someplace around 12amp hrs drain of your batteries? That’s another place I should have gotten more from my pumps the 1/4hp 12v pump pulls 13amps and the supposed big pump I paid $225 for is I suspect a Chinese knock off because it’s rated to draw 20amps but instead put less drain on my battery that the 13amp pump? Unless the difference is because the rule brand (?) is really somehow more efficient? Cool your set-up is working good with two smaller pumps rumnning like that, I thought about running both my big pumps in series but with my current battery I would be lucky to get 45 minutes run time and not worth the trouble dragging everything around. I’ve need to test my nozzle on the gas pump and see if it’s any good in the first place I guess? What are you feeding material into? clark

That’s funny 😀, your sense of humor eases my pain, for the record anytime you feel like teaching me anything you don’t know I’m all ears👂👍.

Thanks Steve, Actually I had fun doing it, learned a little and came up with a few things new to play with this summer so all was not a loss. I figured the most help I could give someone else headed down the same road was to post my mistakes and possibly save em a buck or two😁.

Hmmm, I hate to admit defeat but in case anyone else is headed down this rabbit hole I thought I post my wrap on this project. I’ve tried just about everything I have access to within reason to make a truly useful 12v powered suction nozzle worth the trouble of dragging out into the gold fields and I just can’t get there, close but not really practical. Lift above the water level and bends in the hose line just kill performance and this is pretty much true with every example on YouTube I’ve seen as I followed dozens of other builds. I even built an underwater sluice set-up and the suction into it was... adiquate, so that I could pump gravel, rocks and lead pellets into it and the collection worked perfectly fine, but adiquate suction really needed to be stronger before I’d waste much time using it for real. In total I built 4 different pvc nozzle designs 2 were regular jet nozzles, a 1” discharge and 1 1/2” discharge and two infinity jet nozzles a 1” discharge and a 2” discharge. The last infinity nozzle worked the best and is the largest of the bunch and probably one I’ll keep and test with my little Honda powered 90 gpm gas pump. The infinity jet was bit more trouble to make finding parts at Home Depot That will work is the challenge, I used a number of adaptors and fittings cut and drilled out to make the last infinity nozzle tuneable to the pump pressure and volume. This nozzle has a 1 1/2” intake that discharges into a 2” outlet pipe the nozzle is tuneable from about a 1/16 gap out to infinity (2”) with a sweet spot around a 1/8” gap.providing the best performance with the 12v pumps. Id thought 30 years of moving water around and all the calculations I had to learn that go with it would have helped, but obviously it’s a lot easier when everything is powered bu a 1500 gpm American la France pumper on one end of the hose line instead of a little electric pump trying to overcome the laws of physics. So, anything I missed or something you can see in my last design I can improve on? This is my last build and I think it should work well powered by the Honda pump and have no trouble feeding into my little floating highbanker set-up? infinity jet. View of jet assembly. View looking down the 2” discharged at the nozzle alignment. Nozzle discharge gap in relation to the 2” ABS discharge tube.

I think Fred’s right, I asked my wife and she didn’t recognize the design she’s been in the business for this stuff a long time and can usually spot the brands from a distance, she asked if their were any marks? She said 24K gold like that has been popular in China for a long time it not popular now with the younger generation as much. my only question and it’s not possible to tell from the picture, could it be very old??? That might be important. Taking a second look at the clasp I would not think it to be ancient.