dreamsofgold
Jr. Member
The excitement of recovering my first ounce of gold is almost unmeasurable but as many of you know it was in no way shape or form easy to obtain. Since I live in south eastern Pennsylvania (little to no gold) I had to research the best possible location within a few hour drive from home base to do some prospecting. I decided to head south into the gold belt and plop the sluice and the pans in the creek and get to work. After spending several weeks prospecting different creeks and tributaries and finding nothing more then a few microns of gold I came to the conclusion that 150 years of prospectors stood here before me and to get the gold I was gonna have to work harder. Being stubborn as I am not to give up and except failure I decided to research were all that placer gold was coming from.
After determining the placer gold was weathering out of hard rock I decided to do some more research to see if we could locate some gold bearing ore. Last winter I purchased a Falcon MD20 and thus far it has proved to be an invaluable tool to find precious metals locked inside ore. It took a few more trips and miles of hiking through rugged mountainous terrain to locate anything worth recovering but, we found it! This is where the real work began! lol After extracting it from the ground via hammer, chisels and sweat, we loaded two backpacks 60lb each and hiked the ore out the same rugged trail we made to get in.
We smiled the entire way home with excitement knowing we had gold in the bag and all we had to do was get it out of the quartz. Easy right? NOT! First tool i grabbed was my air hammer. Running on 125 psi with a brand new rock chisel I go at the rock like fat kid at a cake eating contest. The gold inside the rock was laughing at me, you cant get me! I was determined so i headed for the hammer, then a bigger hammer until finally I am armed with biggest hammer I had which was opposite end of a 10 lb. wood splitting ax. After about 20 whacks from two different people I managed to chip off a few inch sliver of ore. What I saw inside sent me to the hardware to purchase a 50lb rock bar. After exhausting every muscle and bone in my body the ore was now reduced to small 3" pieces. Some pieces you could visibly see tiny little flecks of gold and others only visible with any eye loupe. Knowing how hard the ore was to bust I decided to fab up a quick impact mill. I acquired a 6 HP Briggs & Stratton pressure washer with a vertical shaft and a bad pump for free. I quickly fabricated a rock smasher (1 week) and it was finally time to shine. The impact mill worked beautifully reducing the hard quartz ore to a powder with only a couple of runs. Only two things left to do! Classify and Pan it out!
I vigorously agitate that pan, sweat dripping off my nose with anticipation of reaching the bottom. I removed all the magnetite and swirled it a few more times. Ahh there it is! Finally a visible accumulation of gold at the bottom of the pan. Success! It wasn't about the monetary value, it was about the challenge, the chase and feeling of accomplishment. Now onto bigger things. I am actively searching for the right gold claim and or partner to start up a legitimate operation.
After determining the placer gold was weathering out of hard rock I decided to do some more research to see if we could locate some gold bearing ore. Last winter I purchased a Falcon MD20 and thus far it has proved to be an invaluable tool to find precious metals locked inside ore. It took a few more trips and miles of hiking through rugged mountainous terrain to locate anything worth recovering but, we found it! This is where the real work began! lol After extracting it from the ground via hammer, chisels and sweat, we loaded two backpacks 60lb each and hiked the ore out the same rugged trail we made to get in.
We smiled the entire way home with excitement knowing we had gold in the bag and all we had to do was get it out of the quartz. Easy right? NOT! First tool i grabbed was my air hammer. Running on 125 psi with a brand new rock chisel I go at the rock like fat kid at a cake eating contest. The gold inside the rock was laughing at me, you cant get me! I was determined so i headed for the hammer, then a bigger hammer until finally I am armed with biggest hammer I had which was opposite end of a 10 lb. wood splitting ax. After about 20 whacks from two different people I managed to chip off a few inch sliver of ore. What I saw inside sent me to the hardware to purchase a 50lb rock bar. After exhausting every muscle and bone in my body the ore was now reduced to small 3" pieces. Some pieces you could visibly see tiny little flecks of gold and others only visible with any eye loupe. Knowing how hard the ore was to bust I decided to fab up a quick impact mill. I acquired a 6 HP Briggs & Stratton pressure washer with a vertical shaft and a bad pump for free. I quickly fabricated a rock smasher (1 week) and it was finally time to shine. The impact mill worked beautifully reducing the hard quartz ore to a powder with only a couple of runs. Only two things left to do! Classify and Pan it out!
I vigorously agitate that pan, sweat dripping off my nose with anticipation of reaching the bottom. I removed all the magnetite and swirled it a few more times. Ahh there it is! Finally a visible accumulation of gold at the bottom of the pan. Success! It wasn't about the monetary value, it was about the challenge, the chase and feeling of accomplishment. Now onto bigger things. I am actively searching for the right gold claim and or partner to start up a legitimate operation.
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Time to change moniker from "dreamsofgold" to gotgroovygold! 
