M-3 GoldenIrishmans Monsoon Mining Thread

[Clay Diggins]

Jeff, a swamp cooler that mounts to a 5 gal. bucket...From one desert rat to another this I could sure use so please elaborate.

5 gallons is way to big. Been using the MightyCool MW1 9 inch cooler for years. Works great until the monsoons raise the humidity. Runs off a 12 volt battery for a week.

MightyCool

Cool Pans

 

[goldenIrishman]

I found it at Home Depot guys. It uses a 12 volt pump and fan and a block of that honeycomb "Swamp cooler" pad. Runs about $100 for the unit with the bucket but it will use any 5 gallon bucket with a screw on type of lid. Snap lids on one of these would be like a snap on lid for a crack vac... A real PITA. They're about 1/3 the cost of the least expensive unit on the site Clay gave the link to but they're also larger in size. I haven't picked mine up yet because the Home Depot here couldn't keep them in stock. I'll talk to Eric (the manager at my local store) about getting one in on a special order since they're seasonal.

Like Clay said, these types of units will work until the humidity goes up. Would have been great this last season since we didn't really have much of a monsoon come through. Next year we'll most likely be building Arks as mother Nature tries to make up for what we didn't get this time around.

 

[Hard Prospector]

Threw down the dough on the Mighty Cool MW1, a little pricey but hoping it will take the edge off the desert heat while trying to get some sleep in the back of my truck this summer in the Mojave....Thanks Clay

 

[goldenIrishman]

Lol... Right now cooling is the last thing on my mind! Had to come in and thaw out. I've been running the samples we got yesterday and working in water in the cold is not exactly my idea of fun! Access to this new area is really good and unfortunately it appears that every shooter in the Tri-State area has been out there for target practice! In many places you can put your foot on the ground without stepping on spent shotgun shells as well as just about every other kind of brass. Nice area though and if we find anything worth claiming it will be a nice place to work.

Well time to get back to running those samples while I've still got light. I want to get everything down the sluice and at least rough panned to see what if anything we come up with.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well I finished up the first sample form the new area. SCORE: Mother Nature - 7 GoldenIrishman - 0. There was some -100 stuff in the sample but I'm not going to be making a living off of stuff that makes "Fly Poop" look big. I'm not discouraged though. After all this was only the first sample and there's a LOT of ground that needs testing. I'm trying to convince Jan that I need a good drywasher setup for testing. I can't see hauling the sluice and water for it out there for day trips and a drywasher would allow me to spend more time in the field running dirt instead of hauling the samples home to run through the sluice. Once I find an area that looks pretty good I'll haul the sluice and water out there.

 

[Hard Prospector]

You could always ask Santa Claus for a 12v Thompson Jeff, its my go-to drywasher for specs and crumbs. After all "tis the season"

 

[goldenIrishman]

That's pretty much what I'm thinking of getting. It's light, portable and quiet. I know the blower types have better production rates but since this is for testing I'm not worried about being able to run massive amounts through it in a day. It may only be a 12v puffer, but it will beat dry panning hands down.

 

[goldenIrishman]

It's been almost a week since I did an update here and of course the holidays have been making things hectic around here and I haven't been able to get out to the field for more testing. Since I've been having to hang out around the homestead, I've been slowly but surely been working my way through all of the magnetic sand on hand with the rod mill. It's not a fast process but since I'm out of fresh materials to run it's not like I don't have time to work them.

I've been doing the grinding by mesh size and when a batch is done it will pretty much go through the 100 mesh classifier like water. Once it's out of the tumbler, I have been running it through the 100 mesh screen and rinsing it very carefully to remove the rusty looking stuff. once the water is coming out clear, I do the removal of the magnetic materials under water and put them into a pan to dry. Once I have the magnetic stuff out of the pan, I do a quick tap and wash to walk the gold up to the top of the pan and then I take a sample to examine under the microscope. Everything else but the sample goes into a holding container where it is awaiting the final processing by amalgamation. The last few samples have been showing quite a bit of micro gold and the materials coming out of the rod mill will be well worth amalgamating. Yesterdays sample got a "Holy " response out of me as soon as I looked at it through the scope. Highest concentration of micro gold I've seen under the scope since I started using it! I still have the slide set up and will try to get a picture of it later.

I'm thinking of looking up information on how to do recovery of micro gold using the "Flotation" method. Not sure yet if it would be practical for me to give it a try or not but I figure it can never hurt to learn new things. I'm still trying to get away from using the Mercury if I can.

Tonight is the Mohave Prospetors Assoc X-mas party which is a pot luck. I'll be contributing a batch of my infamous "Miners Black Beans". They're also doing the big draw of the year for some mighty fine prizes! All non winning raffle tickets from the years other meetings are in the draw. If I remember right prizes range from mining gear, a metal detector, concentrates and even a drywasher. (Something I could really use!) So keep your fingers crossed for me and Jan this evening folks! We could use a little extra luck tonight!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Last night was a very good time for the MPA. LOTS of great food and good people. New officers elected (no... I wasn't running) as well as the year end raffle draw where all the non winning tickets from previous meetings were used. I managed to come home with a new heavy rock hammer at no cost. Lots of other prizes went to new homes as well.

 

[goldenIrishman]

They shoot.... THEY SCORE!!!!!

Well Jan and I just scored a new Fisher Gold Bug. Not even a month old. The guy that had bought it didn't realize that you can't use a detector if you're in a wheelchair so he let it go for only $400. As we've been in the market for a new detector this was a good find for us. It's going to make testing go a lot faster in these areas that we have been looking at which should translate to getting a good piece of ground claimed even faster. Now I've just got to get my detecting tool belt put back together to hold the essentials and I'll be out beeping once again! I've got a couple of areas I've been wanting to hit with a detector in the worst way to see if my theories on them are correct or not.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well we just got back from the swap meet (aka Flea Market) and going out to lunch. Scored a new compass to replace my current one which I've had since high school. This is a military style lensatic type which will be much more accurate than my old Silva ever was. Now I'll be able to shoot an azimuth for plotting my position by triangulation and be sure I'm within a few yards. We also found Jan a nice belt and pouch for holding her stuff while detecting. Also replaced my old wallet which I've had for the last 15 or so years that was getting pretty well worn out. The same folks that had the compass also had several nice back packs. I'll pick one of them up at the start of next month. Not quite as nice as my old L.R.R.P. pack from the Army, but large enough that I can live out of it for several days at a time with no problem. I've been finding quite a few areas that I want to prospect that I'm going to have to hike into since there are not any roads that go anywhere near them. The pack has plenty of tie down points too so I'll be able to tie on a small puffer style drywasher for testing and a folding solar panel setup to power it.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Why is it that digging in the dirt here at the house is nowhere near as fun as digging for gold out in the field? Spent the day doing some landscape work with the help of the neighbor and his Bobcat. We moved some major dirt and we should no longer have "Lake Tooman" at the end of the house come the next monsoon season. We also got the pull thru drive way done that goes back to the processing area, filled and placed 75 sandbags to direct the water flow from the neighbors yard into a wash instead of right through the processing area. All in all a hell of a lot of work got done in about 8 hours instead of months with me doing it with shovel and wheelbarrow.

I'm not sure which would make me feel better right now. A handful of aspirin and a hot shower or a 9mm round.

 

[KevinInColorado]

As part of s family of plumbers, I vote for the hot shower!!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well I'm afraid the hot shower didn't do much even when augmented with aspirin and Valerian root. Woke up feeling like I had been run over by a steam roller. I don't like taking any meds much stronger than aspirin, but in this case I just might have to. At least I am over having to move dirt around in the yard for now and can start working on the pile of dirt we stacked up by the processing area to be run through the sluice. As I mentioned before we found gold on the property before and this pile came from the same part of the property. There's about 2 yards to go through so I'll be working on that for a while.

 

[Hard Prospector]

Why is it that digging in the dirt here at the house is nowhere near as fun as digging for gold out in the field? Spent the day doing some landscape work with the help of the neighbor and his Bobcat. We moved some major dirt and we should no longer have "Lake Tooman" at the end of the house come the next monsoon season. We also got the pull thru drive way done that goes back to the processing area, filled and placed 75 sandbags to direct the water flow from the neighbors yard into a wash instead of right through the processing area. All in all a hell of a lot of work got done in about 8 hours instead of months with me doing it with shovel and wheelbarrow.

I'm not sure which would make me feel better right now. A handful of aspirin and a hot shower or a 9mm round.

Steak dinner, cold beer and coupled shots a whisky works wonders on my sore muscles after a day of moving rocks and dirt.

 

[goldenIrishman]

shoveling it against the tide...



By the icons above and the title for this post is should be easy to tell that I'm currently NOT a happy camper. Between people that don't know how to file a PROPER claim, people that don't know how to read a map CORRECTLY and governmental employees that drag their feet and can't be bothered to do their jobs in a timely manner, I feel like I'm trying to clean up the beach during the storm of the century.

I've just returned from the County Recorders Office (pretty much the only one I'm NOT ticked off at right now) where I found that the records for one of the prime areas I've been looking at are more messed up than Hogans' Goat!!!! Several claims in that area are not shown on the LR2000 yet and it's easy to tell that the people claiming these parcels can't read a freaking map to save their lives! Claims that were filed in one township/range/section were amended to the adjoining T/R/S to the east. (learn how to read a map people!!!) BLM is showing BOTH claims on the LR2000. It's looking like I've got no choice but to contact the claim owners and ask them which one is the correct location.

While looking at the records for the section in this township, I also found evidence of over claiming. The same piece of ground has been claimed three times in 2 months by two different people. The filed location maps all show the same thing. All are measured from the exact same survey marker (benchmark) that is located at the junction of 4 sections. All distances are exactly the same. One person claimed it twice under 2 different names and the second person claimed it under yet another name. Can you say FRUSTRATING? I knew you could!

I really hate to say it, but it seems that there are some people that shouldn't be trying to file claims. It's easy to tell that they can't read a map at all, (being off by six miles is pretty bad!!!) they can't be bothered to do their due diligence, and to top it off they can't fill out the paperwork correctly. Maybe I should start offering classes at the local college on map reading, filling out claim paperwork and how to do proper due diligence. I might be better off doing this since I do not feel I can go into these areas and be certain that I'm not prospecting on ground claimed by someone already.

I'm also feeling that all miners should get together and DEMAND that the BLM get off their collective butts and get their records straight! The laws state that we as miners are required to do our due diligence and their procrastinating on getting entries made into the LR2000 is tying our hands. Out of all the people I've had to deal with while doing my due diligence only the ladies at the Mohave County Recorders Office have shown me that they're on the ball and doing the job that we the people pay them to do. They've been nothing but helpful during this process and are well deserving of kudos. Maybe we could get them to transfer over to the BLM? Nawww... I like them where they're at!

More on this if I am ever able to get it straightened out........

 

[Hard Prospector]

The Fed's seem to have no problem taking our money earned or not, were as local government(county) often seem more personable and more attentive to local matters.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Well we managed to get out with the new Gold Bug for a bit today and if you're not talking gold, we killed it! Bullet lead and casings from .22 up to .45 cal. were in abundance. I hit a section of exposed bedrock I had seen on an earlier outing and out of one crack alone I found a half dozen 9MM casings.

I'm still happy even if all we found was trash. We got out of the house, got some exercise and started learning this new detector. I have to admit that I do like it quite a bit. It's light, easy to ground balance and it was picking up some very small lead shards. If it does as well on the same size gold we should really kill it when we hit a nice patch. I've got a few more areas in mind that I prospected the hard way when I first got up here. Now that I've got a good machine again I'll be hitting them and hitting them hard.

Stay tuned... We'll be back after a word from our sponsors....

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

Hey Irish, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought LR2000 wasn't being updated anymore? Is that a fallacy?

 

[goldenIrishman]

It's still being updated. I think it's the old systems (I forget the names) that were combined to make the LR2000 that are no longer being updated. Clay gets updates from the LR2000 twice a month for the LandMatters site. Of course being a federal agency they're still way behind on getting things posted to the system.