His First Time Out With His Drywasher

AzViper · Jan 20, 2014

A friend of mine purchased a Royal Drywasher at the GPAA Gold Show on Saturday during our very short visit to the show. So off we went down south today to an area I thought might produce gold, I was a little leary that we may have issues with the clay. I was not much help other than to setup the drywasher correctly and clean the hopper while smashing the clay balls for him because of recently replaced shoulder. Here's some of the gold his new toy captured. He's was very excited and I am sure he will be making many trips with his DW as he has the summers off.

Terry Soloman · Jan 20, 2014

Sweet Gold - Congratulations!

B H Prospector · Jan 20, 2014

Nice gold. I bet you will be right with him won't you Kieth?

kazcoro · Jan 20, 2014

That is some good gold. Like to hit that spot for a few days.

AzViper · Jan 21, 2014

I suppose I need to drag my Royal Drywasher out. I really have yet to use it other than one time to run some sampling I had brought back. Every time I had thought of using it last summer the area was just to wet from the monsoon summer rains we get each summer in southern Arizona. The ground appeared to be damp but we could not get the dirt to clump up by squeezing the dirt in our palm of our hands. I know we have not had any rain in the Tucson area in a month, have not been following the weather down in the Greaterville area so area may have had some rain recently, but It all worked out for him though.

I was just as tickled for him as well. The day did not start off well, I had sent a text to him the night before with a ck. list of everything he needed to bring. We drove down south and was just beginning to set up when I pulled the gas can from his Jeep, no gas and no way to syphon gas from the jeep. (his ck. list will now have a syphon hose) So we packed everything up and drove back out and headed to Sonoita, Arizona with the hope that the service station was open or we would be looking at a longer drive to find fuel or trying to talk the Border Patrol Sub Station out of a gallon of gas in exchange for donuts. An hour later we had the everything setup and the drywasher handling everything that was tossed into the hopper.

kazcoro · Jan 21, 2014

I like the high sides on that hopper, and the little catch plate to direct paydirt onto the riffle box.

AzViper · Jan 21, 2014

kazcoro said:
I like the high sides on that hopper, and the little catch plate to direct paydirt onto the riffle box.

That's funny as we were discussing the high sides of the hopper during the purchased. I own the same DW and have said its the best DW on the market for the price. Its quality from top to bottom. Last Saturday we were comparing many of the other DW's at the show. I am one to only suggest to others to look at every aspect of any product and allow them to make a sound choice. I am not going to tell someone buy this or that or allow someone to tell me what is the best.

When it came down to the purchase it was between the Gold Buddy and the Royal big DW. When you look at the cost of the two DW's it was a no brainer for my buddy to make a sound decision, but I told him to ask questions and look at the build quality. He does not like to part with his money and this decision took about 2 hours to unfold. At the end he made a wish choice and owns a quality DW. He owns the other Vac I built so he's off on a good start of having quality equipment to use in the field.

goldenIrishman · Jan 21, 2014

WOW!!!! That area looks familiar there Keith! Were you in Kentucky or Boston gulch? Glad to see your friend did so well on his first time out with the new toy. Don't try any of the taller north facing slopes in the area as they're still soaked form the melting snow from a month or so ago. The north slope of Granite Mountain was frozen a couple of weeks ago and hasn't been getting enough sun to dry out yet.

I'm working up a PDF file for you here and will e-mail it when done.