1515Art

Thanks everyone, it feels good to get that first one out of the way after relocating and the drive is a lot closer now so I hope to get out more now. Good luck to all and see you out there!

The top row are all bullet fragments the piece on the second row made it to the pocket but I don’t know what it is. It seems light weight so I discounted it being from space, but being different earned pants pocket status for future testing and research, lol. at the rate I bring home rocks I probably should have bought a bigger yard, at least this one is tiny😀

{ Sounds like a plan I’ve yet to find any space rocks so far I’ve just found rocks that are taking up space. I sent in an application to GSSN last week and I’ll probably go to their meeting on the 6th to introduce myself and check thing out. I was doing a little research on GPAA but I’m seeing a mix of reviews so I think I need a little more research before buying in.

I was running the 7000 hot as I could maxed no filters normal hi yield semi auto SP1 enhancer, this was a soft sweet signal that finally sounded like something other than surface trash down about 4” on a hillside just above a wash in what i latter learned is a heavily pounded old patch with little left to give. It came out in one piece looking rusty and worthy of tossing aside except it was not magnetic so I began scraping, chewing and bending. Yellow began to emerge and that’s when I should have slowed down except it looked more like pyrite to me so I kept working at it and I was surprised it only bent a little before breaking, looking at it now it appears spongy and that may be why it broke the way it did. I’m not actually 100% convinced yet that it’s gold seems like it could be perhaps mixed with something else? This would be the first piece in a new area for me and I’m unfamiliar with hmmm the gold there and host rock and well everything. I was finding a lot of lead and bullet fragments so it seems there should still be more although today only the one (now it’s 4) for me, if in fact it really is gold and not mostly pyrite or something. my scale is in Santa Clara so I don’t know the weight?

I’ve looked at them closer and ground windows into them just for a better look at the structure and no doubt in my mind I’ve found a couple of very fine extremely common earth rocks. I’m learning ... slowly. Thanks for the help and tips and until my next great find may it be more of a challenge, really they should be getting closer with each try right, lol???

Yep, thanks... more rocks and probably won’t be the last undeserving mineral getting a free pocket ride from me, 😆.

I hoped you’d chime in on this and well I didn’t think they were but I kept trying to talk myself into it the two small ones have a lot of iron in them and attract a magnet like a piece of metal, but did streak lightly blackish brown, the large one initially left a light brown mark that could have been just from the surface then it was hard to leave a mark after a few passes on my tank lid, so I had to ask because obviously don’t know what I’m doing? Eventually I find one out there and the difference will be obvious, it’s hard to go by pictures cause there’s always one you can find to create doubt in my own mind if I look to long, lol.

And turn on the light, lol 😂 the lucky part is in a couple more days be just a memory. Something around the edge of each step would make them easier to see i could also change the soldier course to a different color stone that would help. I need a tile guy anyway for some other work I’ll do it then.

Been going back and forth to the new place in Las Vegas setting up all the little things that need to be done to move in and flying back and forth on frontier’s Special rates sometimes for as little as $15 one way the only catch is you can only take a little personal bag with you on the airplane. Got tired of renting a car and not having any prospecting gear so I loaded up the Jeep and drove it down for a longer stay and a planned first hunt. Friday had everything ready and my Jeep fully loaded for an early start in the morning, that evening I headed out the front door no shoes or shirt to check the mail box and in the dark missed the edge of the front step rolled my foot and did a summersault down the front steps praying I was going to be able to walk when this was over as I watched the world spin around me out of control. When I came to a stop laying there foot throbbing I summoned up the courage to raise up and put weight on the injured limb, painful but I could hobble, I downed a few Alive and met friends for dinner at an all you can eat seafood buffet my foot still hurting but slowly improving. Next morning after warming up and more Pills I’m limping but feeling like things are worth a try and head out the door for the little over 2 hour drive to gold basin, Arizona from my house. By the time I got there after a few stops and marking my claim borders on the gps my hunt started around 7:30AM navigating the wash with my hurt foot a challenge and my detector kept signaling on my metal free Keene boots? Turns out the pair I’d grabbed and threw in the Jeep I’d used pulling up carpet puttin in a new wood floor and both shoes had a dozen or more staples stuck in the bottom, without pliers I got all but one tiny piece out of the bottom of my shoes the little staple end stuck in the bottom of the shoe on my hurt foot interfering every time I forgot it was there. Learning a new place I learned where not to hunt but I felt good about my detector small targets were slamming and I’m sure I’d have heard the gold if I’d been over any by around 2 in the afternoon my left knee was hurting as much as my right foot from taking up the slack walking uneven terrain and standing up from digging that I decided to call it a day and I’d accomplished my goal of some exercise and finding the place to hunt. As I was directing the 7000 around the area I kept 3 rocks that hit hard on the gpz, the two smaller very magnetic the larger magnetic but less than the little ones. The smallest roughly 130g on a little analog food scale the larger around 230g and the large stone (?) somewhere between 5 and 10#’s I’d guess for both pieces found several feet apart from each other. looking at other examples on the web they seem to hit the correct marks, any thoughts? Just earth rock or did I get lucky?

When you get it figured out I’m curious to see how it goes if you feel like sharing post a picture.

Thanks everyone for playing along with the game it was a ton of fun and I had a great time running it, till next time and now let’s go find some gold!

What got you into plating you obviously had it worked out pretty good seems if you want it to look professionally done there’s a lot of steps to go through like everything else. Thanks for the warning I probably will never do any plating it does sound like you need to be cautious with all these chemicals that foil pack I was wondering about had CYANIDE under at least 4 layers of protection. Unwrapping when I hit the MSDS under the third layer of protection with several metal potassium cyanide’s listed I carefully put it all away. Now I gotta figure out what to do with it. I remember Monsanto had a facility in Santa Clara back in the 1970’s where they made and stored a chemical called Parathion in 55 gallon drums. Hundreds of drums on large steel racks and roughly every 10 feet as you walked through the warehouse there were little boxes mounted eye level each with Eppi pens in case you accidentally came in contact with any of this chemical you had under a minute to get to one of those boxes and give yourself time to get to the emergency room or you’d be dead in minutes. They also had one building where the chemicals were so volatile the roof of the building it was made in was designed to blow off during explosions, time sure have changed. I inspected most of the plating shops in town back in the early days things were pretty loose and wild with not much regulation when you could do anything... we had a lot of fires and accidents back then and the combination of PVC tanks and immersion heaters burned down a lot of buildings.

This was not only something fun to do, but actually helped me out a lot because truth is I really like all this stuff and have no problem filling every available spot with it just in case at 66 I’ve had plenty of time to acquire, now thank you Fred your words helped give me strength 😀, some of the things I don’t really need it’s easier to part from if I’m happy with its new home, or sell it for what I think it really worth and then trying to make sure the person who bought it’s OK, I’m not a good business man that way I guess. Long story short I had fun and have a little less to move and I hope everyone else had fun. Thanks to RidgeRunner and all who have done this and encourage anyone so inclined, pending permission from the boss of course, thank you Steve. You won heaviest box!

That silver box I thought might have been a respirator had a box inside the foil pack and a sealed metal can inside the box and inside the can was another sealed foil pack and an MSDS for CYANIDE. I did not open the last pack carefully put everything back and tuck it away someplace safe. Is there anyone semi local to me that knows what they are doing with this stuff and wants it?

This was a lot of fun for me anyway and I hope also for everyone else too. The contest is over we had 25 entries and i have the lucky prospectors, every entry was printed on the same size slip of paper and I put all the names in a pot and then drew 3 slips from the pot one extra in case one of the first 2 lucky draws for some reason declines. No more waiting..... drumroll please; Congratulations to, Chris Ben for first place: Kiln and Morgan Dollar 2nd place, Iron Digger: Pen Plating System 3rd place, macumba man : consolation prize coin set With the kiln the silver dollar is taped to the packing material at the top of the box, None of the liquid is included due to the cost and difficulty of shipping hazardous materials if by chance I can ever find a way to pass the plating solution over to we can try to work it out. All 3 of our winners PM me where you would like this shipped and I will send them off to you ASAP

Can you bring a bucket of dirt home?

3 more days to enter if you want the little kiln and the Morgan silver dollar. An update I put my digital temp probe I use for ceramics into the crucible with some high temp fiber to hold the heat in and set the temperature at a couple different points. The good news is the kiln easily reached 2057 F even with the lid up and the make-shift cover, bad news is the controller is constantly on so it needs to be manually controlled and the temperature monitored separately, I shut it off at 2057 F to prevent over-firing so you’d need to figure out what’s wrong the controller (my multi meter is packed up), fire by color or use an external probe to monitor temperature. i was watching some tube videos an this is kind of cool they call this a coffee pot style because after melting the metal you can flip up the lid with your thumb and holding the kiln by the handle with the crucible in place pour the gold like it was a coffee pot.

Makes me sick hearing of this and really sorry you were violated this way, be confident many eyes are open and watching for you anyone trying to offload your property is in for a difficult time.

Ferrite generated a flux magnetic hyper-tuned field polarized the rust into a tightly focused wave of pure energy, it’s a Jeep thing. Good you kept it under 80... not that you’d have a choice😀.

thanks, 1.56 is much better than a sharp stick in the eye anytime in my book. not sure if I will be able to ship the plating solution, anyone ever try to send something like this in the mail, ups or fedx.

The acid I’m not sure yet the container is still factory sealed with the dry acid waiting for the water to be added, the other cleaners go with this ionic cleaner. The blue bottle is a factory sealed one quart bottle of one step 14K plating solution dated from 1992 probably fair amount of gold in the suspension? the little spray bottle’s probably harmless cleaner of some sort in that little pump bottle and the silver foil sealed package is a mystery but feels a bit like the box could hold a respirator of some fashion and that might explain the packaging.

you’re right, I took the bottom cover off and wiggled the wires and returned function for switching modes PV/SV except PV (present value) is just displaying a negative number suggesting a poor connection to the thermocouple, the thermocouple could be bad as they burn out but this hasn't been fired enough for that so I think you hit it right on the money.

See the prize update the kiln might need a part.

Thanks Jason, after all the dust settles and I learn my way around id love the chance to reach out for a little help understanding the new ground that'd be great, but only when you can without causing any issues I'm really interested in the jade project, we are still doing the stuff with China that's more about my wife's friends and her network not the location in fact one of the good things about moving to Vegas is location for her projects and some of her friends live there, some a gonna move there even a new friend in the same neighborhood as the house I might make an offer on she found the place for us. Really amazing news on the jade prospect, was a lot of hard work you earned it congratulations wonderful story and makes me really happy to hear the new deal sounds even better funny how little opportunities and strokes of luck happen keeps life interesting. again really appreciate you reaching out to help, well be in touch and best of luck on everything, clark

Chuck, hardly know what to say except thanks for the very kind words. Any time you are down there, well you know...