Have money, time, looking for advice please!

[Fermion]

It has been awhile since I posted as we have been working on a scratch built RV expedition vehicle (another story). It is almost done and we are about to set out on our travels (lower 48, Canada and Alaska).

I have done some light prospecting with a pan and sluice. Fun, but I would like to bump up to the next stage. I want to go just to the edge of foolish and peek, but not jump off. My dream would be to build a wash plant from scratch (engineering background, I like to build) and work a small claim, running maybe 20 to 30 yards a day of $10 a yard material with cost no more than 50% (not counting equipment). Not a big operation, but quite a distance from hand panning.

I am not sure a club claim would let me do the type of operation I envision. Actually I seriously doubt it Joining a club might be a good way to learn the area find my own claim though.

I am leaning toward looking for claims with no water. I would design my plant to use recirculating water and replenish the lost water each day from a tank I hauled in. My guess is that claims with no water are not as attractive for commercial operations and might be easier to find. A patented claim would be really nice but not required.

Anyway, I am still in the research phase here but would appreciate any advice (other than go buy gold at a coin shop). I want to do this for the engineering challenge and for fun, but I want it to yield good results. I need ground that actually contains some gold. I am open to any area of the country as we are quite mobile. I am leaning toward the southwest or Alaska.

 

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[yodi]

Sorry that's way beyond my level of prospecting hopefully some one can give you some advice good luck with your diggings.

 

[ratled]

If you don't know how to file a claim, and your only experience is a little pan & sluice, you are looking to getting way outside your skills needed for such an adventure. In six months your post will be titled "Stuck in AK, have no money, looking for advice"

I think you are thinking of something like this



Maybe you should consider something smaller in scale to cut your teeth on. Even something like this could be PITA to get a approved paperwork/bond/etc wise. No club would even come close to letting you do this. Mechanical feeding being the issue for your problems.




Shoot, now a days even this is coming under attack and he's feeding with a 5 gallon bucket

This however will be allowed on most clubs. It will take way more water than you think if you think you will be able to recycle. Settling ponds are required even on this scale


ratled

 

[Goldwasher]

I would steer away from recirculation hoping to move 10 yards a day.
maybe someone has a formula for water needed per yard. What state are you in. There are places that are high channels that hold significant water in the old pits. in an area that has been worked already, yet typically has local deposits ot even the face of the cut they left off at. That's the kind off spot I would try to find.

 

[mike(swWash)]

Even if a club allowed it, $10. a yard would be hard to come on most properties. They're usually pretty picked over.
I know what you mean about liking to build stuff, a couple years ago I was a pan and sluice kind of guy with no intentions of ever getting deeper involved.....I've built a couple highbankers since and now am putting a 2.5" dredge together from scratch.

It's very addictive, isn't it?

 

[Fermion]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am coming forward very humble here, so I appreciate your advice and perspective.

It almost sounds like there is no middle ground to be had. Either you stay with the h-word that nobody likes and pan/sluice/highbank getting maybe enough gold to buy that day's lunch (if you stick to the value menu) or you have to go big, with all of the risk and hassle involved.

I certainly was thinking about an operation like ratled posted in his first video. Small excavator, small wash plant, no dump trucks or loaders, but significantly more dirt moving than you could do with a five gallon bucket and shovel. I had in mind a budget of $30k to $50k, building most of the stuff myself as that is part of the fun for me.

Still researching. I do know the basics of filing a claim. My dream was to have let someone else do the work of finding the gold and I would come into the claim after they had left...either because the remaining ground was not worth it for their large scale operation or perhaps lack of water made their wash plant non-economical. Fantasy? :-)

 

[ratled]

My dream was to have let someone else do the work of finding the gold and I would come into the claim after they had left.....

Mine too!!!!!


Find some like minded folks and see if there is a way to work with them. Clubs and mining org's are great way to meet folks

ratled

 

[specksandflecks]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am coming forward very humble here, so I appreciate your advice and perspective.

It almost sounds like there is no middle ground to be had. Either you stay with the h-word that nobody likes and pan/sluice/highbank getting maybe enough gold to buy that day's lunch (if you stick to the value menu) or you have to go big, with all of the risk and hassle involved.

I certainly was thinking about an operation like ratled posted in his first video. Small excavator, small wash plant, no dump trucks or loaders, but significantly more dirt moving than you could do with a five gallon bucket and shovel. I had in mind a budget of $30k to $50k, building most of the stuff myself as that is part of the fun for me.

Still researching. I do know the basics of filing a claim. My dream was to have let someone else do the work of finding the gold and I would come into the claim after they had left...either because the remaining ground was not worth it for their large scale operation or perhaps lack of water made their wash plant non-economical. Fantasy? :-)

Are you open to teaming up with someone?

 

[ratled]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am coming forward very humble here, so I appreciate your advice and perspective.

It almost sounds like there is no middle ground to be had. Either you stay with the h-word that nobody likes and pan/sluice/highbank getting maybe enough gold to buy that day's lunch (if you stick to the value menu) or you have to go big, with all of the risk and hassle involved.

I certainly was thinking about an operation like ratled posted in his first video. Small excavator, small wash plant, no dump trucks or loaders, but significantly more dirt moving than you could do with a five gallon bucket and shovel. I had in mind a budget of $30k to $50k, building most of the stuff myself as that is part of the fun for me.

Still researching. I do know the basics of filing a claim. My dream was to have let someone else do the work of finding the gold and I would come into the claim after they had left...either because the remaining ground was not worth it for their large scale operation or perhaps lack of water made their wash plant non-economical. Fantasy? :-)

We all love the build, tinker, solve, aspect as part of the overall scheme. You know, probably not what you wanna hear, but any thoughts of taking a job as a fabricator in one the established wash plant manufactures? You can get some insight on what makes a good plant (why reinvent the wheel - even though every one here does). It would scratch that building itch, and on someone else's dime. It will also introduce to who do that scale, where they are doing it, what it really takes to do it and might get you to leads to help you in your adventure

ratled

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

If you have capitol my man you have options, heres my 2.
Go to water! Yeah theres richer dirt away from it but its a major pain and engineering PITA!
Get a 4 or 6" dredge, ring it down if you must.
You wont have too hard a time finding decent streams/claims in alaska if you put in a little boot work.
I tell everyone looking to do this full time to think about it just like a job. Not romanticized. Spending countless hours doing back breaking work for little pay... The element wear on you quickly especially doing manual labor.
I would choose the following. Put on a thick wetsuit. Go lay in shallow warm water and vacuum up dirt.
Regardless of your path remember there is a steep learning curve with new equipment and processes/complications. Learn from others first hand! Like us! We can all help with that!

 

[specksandflecks]

Fermion, hard to tell if you are actually serious or just curious. Nothing wrong with the latter of course. Why don't you contact someone like Geowizard about opportunities at his project/s in Ophir, Alaska, for example.

That's just an example that comes to mind. I'm sure there are other operators that have permitted gold bearing ground who wouldn't mind some help if they deem you be trustworthy and not a liability to damage yourself, someone else, machinery or equipment. /.02

 

[itspaidfor]

And a few mods to the sluice no problem! Recirculating has been done in the desert for a long time at a profit. Good dirt that pays better than ten dollars a yard is still out there but know one is going to sell it to you,you will have to find it. Follow your dreams and do it. You are on the right track wash rocks!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Find the ground first then invest in equipment to match!

 

[SLNugget]

I would figure about 75 gals per yard of material. That's what we use to run a recirc reverse helix trommel near Wickenburg, AZ
And it is a PITA with mucking out the tubs an handling the material multiple times. Reducing material handling is a goal for me in the future. I am also looking into a larger dry processing operation but fear the equipment cost may be prohibitive.

 

[specksandflecks]

How about one of these?

Surplus AM General M5OA3 6x6 Water Truck in Barstow, California, United States (GovPlanet Item #550675)

 

[Fermion]

Some good suggestions here for sure. I am thinking them over. I especially like the wise advice to find the gold first, then worry about building the recovery equipment. The only downside there is I currently have a large workshop with cnc mills, lathes, welders and space. When we hit the road I am only going to bring a few tools and my Miller 211 MIG because otherwise the garage pod on our RV will be stuffed. It would be nice to work on the equipment now instead of later....but I guess I can always buy/rent tools in the future.

I have been trying to come up with some ideas on how to process dirt without a lot of water, or at least a lot of water loss. If I wanted to go the dry washer route, I might look into how sound waves could be used to agitate material and allow gold to settle, much like water does in a sluice. It would be pretty simple to set up a servo driven transducer to generate a variable frequency high pressure sound wave and see what effect that has on a classified mixture of dry material. Maybe this has already been done.

I wonder if for the water route, a system could be made that vertically stirs and agitates a slurry of material, causing the heavy gold to settle down, much the same way it does in the gold pan when you rotate and shake it in the stream. After a brief period to drain the water back into a holding tank, the top 90% of the material could be discarded with a mechanical actuator and the remaining 10% shuttled to the next stage for traditional sluicing. Maybe this could be quite water efficient and would cut 10 yards of material down to 1 yard of sluicing without any lost gold and a big reduction in water loss. Maybe just pie in the sky thinking.

Anyway, for the curious, here is a picture of our RV...not complete yet as we are building the rear garage pod section, but we did add 1100 watts of solar recently. The living pod and garage/workshop pod can be quickly removed from the 20 foot flatbed truck if it is needed for other purposes. They would make a nice little base camp.

 

[Mooch3597]

Fermion,
Your description of wanting setting up a small scale mine operation is basically what I have started to do. I have a claim in Arizona that has been overlooked simply due to there being no water nearby. Some desert regions do contain gold which can be mined at a profit at a small scale. Some prospects can be overlooked due to the deposit being rather small. The claim I have would fit your needs perfectly. I went ahead and sent you a PM for you to check out. Thanks.