Eric Willoughby
Sr. Member
- Jun 4, 2009
- 474
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I went dredging this weekend and just had a custom built hot water heater made for my dredge. Boy was I excited to go dredging and feel that warm toasty goodness trickle in my wet suit. I arrived at my chosen area, got the dredge all geared up that night, although I did have a heck of a time trying to get the heater threaded onto the exhaust elbow, felt like I cross threaded it a bit, but it was just temporary until I got the header designed better.
I got up at sunrise, I fired the dredge up, got everything nice and hot, and soon I had hot water, wow, it was nice. Then after an hour, I felt cool, too cool! I poked my head up, and there was my heater drooping from the elbow in the exhaust pipe, somehow the threads on the pipe split and sheared off.
So I flipped the elbow over where it had better threads, and the heater screwed in a lot better, problem solved! Or so I thought.... after a couple more hours of dredging, it happened all over again, only this time it wasn't the threads of the heater, it was the threads from the main header pipe that sheared off!! The hot water heater was dangling by the water lines and the red hot housing melted a hole in my water supply hose leading from the pump to the jet!
Auggh, back to the drawing board!!
I dredged for the rest of the day cold and gritting my teeth, but from the test pans, I was showing some very promising color! I had spent hours trying to punch down and through hard-pack and it is very old hard-pack at that! I only had to suck away 3 or 4 inches of sand and rock and I was in a gold bearing layer! I managed to dredge a nice comfortable hole and was about to get past the hard-pack layer where the large flakes and picker nuggets live, and then it got dark.
Ok, so it was off to the van and had some stone cold beef stew and baked beans for dinner, had went right to sleep. I woke up at 6 am to see it pouring down with no end in sight. Heck with it, I am wet anyways, so whats the harm with rain? I got my wet suit and squeezed and tugged my way into it and all the while, I pulled a muscle in my back! I then dredged for about 45 minutes before I realized that leaves were clogging up my foot valve and restricting my pump flow, I was fighting to clear up my foot valve, and that's when I had realized something else, the water got really murky and quite a bit faster, and not long after, it was getting deeper! Daggummit, the river is rising! Well, it took me 2 hours to get all my stuff packed up just after the hunt was getting good, and the weather goofs are saying it is going to rain like this all week, which means whenever I get back to the area, my nice hole will be filled in and I will have to start from scratch all over again!
If I ever get to meet this guy Murphy in person, I am going to blacken his eye!
I got up at sunrise, I fired the dredge up, got everything nice and hot, and soon I had hot water, wow, it was nice. Then after an hour, I felt cool, too cool! I poked my head up, and there was my heater drooping from the elbow in the exhaust pipe, somehow the threads on the pipe split and sheared off.
So I flipped the elbow over where it had better threads, and the heater screwed in a lot better, problem solved! Or so I thought.... after a couple more hours of dredging, it happened all over again, only this time it wasn't the threads of the heater, it was the threads from the main header pipe that sheared off!! The hot water heater was dangling by the water lines and the red hot housing melted a hole in my water supply hose leading from the pump to the jet!
Auggh, back to the drawing board!!
I dredged for the rest of the day cold and gritting my teeth, but from the test pans, I was showing some very promising color! I had spent hours trying to punch down and through hard-pack and it is very old hard-pack at that! I only had to suck away 3 or 4 inches of sand and rock and I was in a gold bearing layer! I managed to dredge a nice comfortable hole and was about to get past the hard-pack layer where the large flakes and picker nuggets live, and then it got dark.
Ok, so it was off to the van and had some stone cold beef stew and baked beans for dinner, had went right to sleep. I woke up at 6 am to see it pouring down with no end in sight. Heck with it, I am wet anyways, so whats the harm with rain? I got my wet suit and squeezed and tugged my way into it and all the while, I pulled a muscle in my back! I then dredged for about 45 minutes before I realized that leaves were clogging up my foot valve and restricting my pump flow, I was fighting to clear up my foot valve, and that's when I had realized something else, the water got really murky and quite a bit faster, and not long after, it was getting deeper! Daggummit, the river is rising! Well, it took me 2 hours to get all my stuff packed up just after the hunt was getting good, and the weather goofs are saying it is going to rain like this all week, which means whenever I get back to the area, my nice hole will be filled in and I will have to start from scratch all over again!
If I ever get to meet this guy Murphy in person, I am going to blacken his eye!
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WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF MINING!! 
yOU HAVE LEARNED LESSON #1 ON HEATERS-they must be bolted to the frame and connected to the enging exhaust port with the flexible metal exhaust pipe-hence no weight bearing on that bouncing like a mad dog engine. Mostly they screw into the exhaust hole and strip the threads or crack the head. I hope you have a mixing tank so you don't melt your back with scalding hot water--oh and you need a garden hose prefilter on your water feedin to remove any tiny rocks that get sucked up through your footvalve--party on-tons a au 2 u2 -John
never EVER pee in your suit-thiourea in urine in a killer and stink and infections abound from sitting in a dirty diaper for hours!! Think zipper!!! tons a au 2 u 2-John 
