Kevin in Colorado...and elsewhere

[KevinInColorado]

I'd be happy to David! I will send you a PM with my contact info...

 

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[KevinInColorado]

Look what I got!! My new Whippet dry washer arrived in the mail yesterday. I set it up in the living room and ran it for a minute, seems great. I'm so excited to get out and run some dirt. A family trip to southern Utah next month is going to have to include at least a little digging time I think

PS That smile on my face is partly due to how light and comfortable the unit is on my back, battery included.

 

[mytimetoshine]

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Look what I got!! My new Whippet dry washer arrived in the mail yesterday. I set it up in the living room and ran it for a minute, seems great. I'm so excited to get out and run some dirt. A family trip to southern Utah next month is going to have to include at least a little digging time I think

PS That smile on my face is partly due to how light and comfortable the unit is on my back, battery included.

Yes!!! Can't wait to her the reviews Kevin. I want one too!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Well, it rained, it snowed, the dry washer stayed in the truck

Despite the wet 37 F weather, we sample panned in two creeks east of Moab UT today.
...yup pickers!
The intrepid prospectors (my nephews):

...at creek 1 and here's creek 2:

The two pickers came from crack cleaning at creek 2 [emoji106][emoji106]
Another pic of the second creek with loads of bedrock to work!

 

[brianc053]

Glad to see an update on your activities, Kevin! (It feels like it had been a while since last hearing from you)

Nice pickers!

- Brian

 

[KevinInColorado]

It had been a couple weeks since I got out digging

 

[mytimetoshine]

Utah gold Cool!.

 

[utah mason]

Awesome! Love the smiles, looks like good times with the family. Glad retirement is starting well.

 

[49er4ever44]

East of Moab you say?? Abouts how far from Grand Junction were you guys? Any idea if they allow gasoline powered equipment out there? Awesome gold by the way and can't wait to see that dry washer in action!

 

[KevinInColorado]

East of Moab you say?? Abouts how far from Grand Junction were you guys? Any idea if they allow gasoline powered equipment out there? Awesome gold by the way and can't wait to see that dry washer in action!

It was up on the hillside above Moab so figure your time to Moab and add about 45 minutes to get up the hill. The state of Utah has rules (don't they all these days?!) which you can find here:
http://geology.utah.gov/online_html/pi/pi-50/pi50regs.htm
This is also helpful: http://geology.utah.gov/popular/gen...-gold/where-can-i-get-additional-information/ * ...for state provided info in general. Motorized ops are allowed once you get the free permit online.

There's also gold on the Delores and the Colorado rivers between you and Moab.

Look on mylandmatters.org to see where there's current claims, then try other locations near the claims (but not ON them of course!). There's a claim about 2 miles north of where I was for example. The little creeks where I was don't have enough material or water to make a dredge practical from what I saw but you could give it a try.

 

[49er4ever44]

Awesome! I've never been to Moab so it looks like you just gave me a reason to go! I've got a big highbanker with a 3" pump so maybe I can find something hospitable. Thanks for the info/links. I'm in research mode now lol

 

[KevinInColorado]

Thought this was a fun piece of info. A good reminder that 50 years ago average people only owned gold in their wedding ring but today there's gold in everyone's pocket...in both our cell phones and those new chip enabled credit cards. Just imagine the new demand for gold all of this represents and how much of it will end up in the landfill...
Apple recovered 2,204 pounds of gold from broken iPhones last year
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/15/technology/apple-gold-recycling/index.html

I have extracted a bit of it myself with hydrochloric acid (I just use a little pool acid). Here's a view of some of the gold from a single personal computer CPU chip I processed last week:

 

[DigginForGold]

Not bad for a single computer chip ey. I wouldnt have thought there was nearly that much in there. Awesome stuff.

 

[mytimetoshine]

Looks like a lot. Is that some of your fancy camera work kevin? Did you happen to weight it?

 

[Duckwalk]

Nice job Kev! I have ALOT of those laying around along with the memory dims...

 

[KevinInColorado]

Looks like a lot. Is that some of your fancy camera work kevin? Did you happen to weight it?

It is a lot since every pin is gold plated and there are hundreds of pins! That pic isn't even all of them from one chip. I just did it last week and haven't separated all the pins from the acid bath yet. I haven't weighed it and really won't: I gather it with mercury and then retort (once a year at a friend's shop). You can see the long silver blob of mercury in the soap dish on the right. Also that green tint in the liquid is from dissolved copper. The copper salts are toxic to fishes but easy to remove for proper disposal. Fun with chemistry!!

Ducky, we should talk before you try this as I have some tips!

PS I've also processed quite a few SIM cards from cell phones and credit card chips, they work great and often release the gold in "big" sheets!

 

[shofs]

I finally got my bazooka shipped in and got it out for a test run today. Setting it up was tricky at first. I spent a good hour trying to make a little dam to increase water flow next to the spot where my test pans came back hot. But after watching and reading way to much about the bazooka I knew I needed more water flow and the only spot I could find was a good ways up stream. I wasn't planning on being a distance from the sluice so I didn't have a bucket. But I was determined to test the sluice and I knew that my test pans were yielding about 20 small flakes per pan. So I managed to fill and lug over my pan with dirt 4 times and just kind of slowly poured the contents right in the sluice. If only I had figured out how to set it up closer! The bazooka ate each pan up in seconds. Either way I'm happy with the results, 4 goldpans worth of unscreened dirt gave me about 112 little flakes so thats right on track with my test pans, I couldn't be happier with the performance!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Got out digging today in my local creek. The house sold so we are packing and working to be ready to close in two weeks but my supportive/indulgent wife still encouraged my gold fever

A couple of fun photos, first the gold:

Second, as I was packing up I ran one sample pan of an interesting bench deposit and got over 40 colors in one pan! I just about fell over. I marked the spot with a green plastic straw stuck in the dirt so if you see my mark you know where to dig!!

 

[shofs]

When it comes to scavenging gold plating from electronics keep an eye out for old VCR and stereo equipment. Every day Goodwill stores have a certain "sticker" color that is $0.99 and you can almost always find 2 or 3 pieces of large electrical equipment.

 

[shofs]

Just got back from a small local creek and I was having trouble setting up the bazooka sniper. There seemed to be plenty of flow in the middle of the stream but there wasn't really any large rocks to build a dam out of and no drops to tip the sniper off of. I ended up cutting cubes of clay off the bank and trying to stack them as a wall, like ice blocks on an igloo. It sort of worked, kind of. I had flow but just not enough to clear even the medium-small rocks off the top plate. It did however mimic a miller table in that the blond sand was washed off pretty quickly and the black sand slowly crawled down leaving a few colors to suck up. For you bazooka owners out there whats the secret to getting that proper water flow??