Hard Prospector

I've always tried to patronize small business as my folks were SBO's and I grew up seeing the ups and downs of that way to make a living. Bought all of my new detectors from a mom n' pop prospecting shop and glad I did because they were proud of their old school customer service and always did me good should there be a problem with the machine. Unfortunately, these upstanding folks have been the exception to most of my recent dealings with small business operations over the last several years. From boat and rv dealers to gun shops, I could go on and on about the crappy customer service and outright lying I have experienced with many these people. Especially in regard to any warranty issues, once they have your money your the last person they ever want to see again. I really think customer service in general has tanked in recent years no matter the business or venue and its really too bad.

I believe good things are happening concerning the SL these days at White's.......just a bit of patience

That was big of you to help that older couple even though your efforts/sacrifices should have been appreciated just a bit more. I do believe in karma and in my book your good deed just scored a pile of points on that one.

Hey Rod, like we discussed a while ago, the SL has never had the power input to effectively use the larger coils for practical nugget shooting in most conditions. Whites, Coil Tech, Minelab whatever, any coil larger than a 6x10 and the SL becomes unstable and noisy in mineralized hot ground typical of most gold fields. Using larger coils on the SL in these circumstances usually results in backing way down on the sensitivity while turning the ground balance up substantially to stabilize threshold. This results in poor performance at depth especially searching for small nuggets. Good performance with this machine is achieved by using the smaller coils allowing for sensitivity to be turned way up and ground balance setting kept low...... often turned off completely. Larger loops can work quite well (on the SL) in more mild ground conditions like finding 50 cal mini balls on old battle fields or gold rings at the beach. The stock 12" spider works well in these areas. I've spent a lot of money trying the larger coils on the TDI SL and while I have found some gold with them, 90% of my nuggets with this machine have come from using the ;TDI 6x10 DF, Miner John 5x9 FOM, and TDI 4x6 Mono Shooter coils. Two of these coils were made by the late White's Chief Engineer Dan Geyer and are sadly no longer available. It is said that Dan Geyer understood the Eric Foster design and potential better than most anybody. It would have been interesting to see where Dan would have taken the TDI series by now had he not passed so suddenly several years ago.

Tried it out at the Vegas gold show this weekend, feels great with the little round puck coil but somewhat front nose heavy with the larger stock coil......for sure lite for a Minelab. Rep assured everyone it would be out very soon, I for sure want one. Kevin Hoagland has been field testing it for some time and is supposed to have a story/report out in GPAA magizine in the near future (I was told by the GPAA staff at the show)

Cool vid....thanks for posting

I believe White's is in the process designing a new battery pack for the SL to increase input to 14-16 volts (from the existing 12volts.) which by itself will substantially increase performance..... especially on small gold. There may be other mods the engineers at White's are considering to improve the SL's performance as well. You might want to sit back and wait a bit.........Rob

I've seen Jim around Randsberg a few times, once he gave me some good drywashing tips. Nice guy and a real prospecting legend. Glad to hear he's doing well.

I heard this at a club meeting a few months ago and took it as fact.......I must be mistaken and stand corrected.

Does anyone know what Kevin is working on these days (since he left GPAA) ?

Very nice......I'd head right back to that spot with a pick, shovel and drywasher to mop up the crumbs.

The Falcon has worked great for me to check a quick sample of the drywasher cons.

I'll check it out....thanks Steve

When placing an ad in classifieds, sometimes it will not upload the photo(s) this past month. Then if I try again a day or two later, upload no problem.

The Whippet, like other small drywashers is good for sampling or modest output. I'm looking for a machine that can really produce

I've talked to "The Gold Lady" or Retta and her husband in that You Tube video and they think highly of the Keene 190. Also talked to others who would prefer the 151 over it, I believe the $2000 price tag scares many off. Jury is still out but leaning toward buy one.

Most seasoned desert drywashers, including myself, own a cement mixer for this very reason. I use it whenever I can "practically" get it to the site as it makes small work of caleche, clods or whatever conglomerate crap needs reducing. I use the hand crank model w/wheels as its more portable when I have to drag it to the spot. Once reduced to my satisfaction, i will just run the material right into the drywasher. If the area is mostly known for fine gold, I will classify to at least 1/4" then run it.

The clay clods can be easily broken up by pounding it with a concrete tamp. Also using a cement mixer really breaks down the clods, just throw in some big chunks of iron stone or granite with the material.

Bellows/puffer drywashers will catch an impressive amount of fines so long as ; the material is classified down to -1/8, is "talcum powder dry" and the drywasher properly tuned

Considering buying a Keene 190 but having a difficult time finding reviews or anyone who owns one. Any experiences or input would be appreciated.....thanks!

To the Australian's, "I have always like your style and the way you look at life"

I think if you look at mining as a part time venture compared to a full time vocation, most will get a lot more out of it in the long run.

The four hour drive home made me think a lot about what I could do out there in the wet desert dirt and the first thing that came to mind was how easy the sampling will be in those conditions. Not as much fun as mining but the rewards could really come in later when drywashing conditions return. I know guys that run portable ("sort of") wet recirculating recovery systems out there and the recovery is great on the finest gold but..........its a labor intensive muddy pain in the butt. I sure never thought I would be considering it. Sort of reminds me of that saying; "Man makes plans and God laughs"

Just got back from my claims near Ridgecrest and couldn't believe how much rain and snow this area of the high desert received in the past 2 months. Looking north west to north east, the southern Sierra Nevada, Inyo, Argus and Panamint mountain ranges were just blanketed in snow down to 4000"........just beautiful. I can't remember the last time I've seen it like this. Standing puddles of water all over the claim, so much for drywashin. Even dug several holes with the slightest hope of hitting something dry enough to run but no chance. One hole that I dug 4' deep by 4' wide actually had water starting to seep in at the bottom! The only time mining the desert that I actually wished I had a power sluice back in the truck instead of my drywasher. Decided to go into town, have a beer and consider my options as I didn't feel like driving all the way back to San Diego so soon. Ran into an old timer at the bar who I've seen working his claims near by and wandered over to say hi. He said that he'd seem me around as well and was glad that I came over and introduced myself. Dennis was his name and has been drywashing the area for over 40 years and a heck of a nice fella. He said that the last time he'd seen so much winter rain around here (Randsburg) was well over 10 years ago and most areas were not even fit for drywashing til fall! So I bought him a beer and split my Subway sandwich with him while he told me a couple stories and shared some great mining tips. Even though I didn't find so much as a speck of gold this weekend meeting this old miner was a rich experience in its self. Suppose I should get serious about that power sluice idea after all.

Because your vehicle hasn't been reported as "stolen". You would be surprised how many fixed, real time cameras that are posted on the freeways (usually over-passes) but often the larger avenues on stoplights headed south within 10 miles of the international border crossing. Monitored by the government constantly, plenty of time for the highway patrol to make a stop. Even when stolen cars make it across, they are more difficult to move these days even in Mexico. Easier to hide a couple $20,000 detectors which likely have had buyers in the waiting. I feel bad for these guys having their detectors sacked. I would like to think that the perps were a couple of local opportunistic punks that will soon make a mistake and get pinched.