Tossing another idea out there for you guys to run with

[Fermion]

If there are some that are interested in dredging in Nome and have the experience and motivation, but not the money, you might try this idea.

Work up a mining plan, gather a prospective team, investigate costs of leasing or purchasing a claim and equipment.

Add 30% to your top estimate of total costs.

Start a funding campaign on Kickstarter with the final overestimated estimate as your funding goal.

The rewards? Funders will get a small vial of Nome gold (cheap to ship) after a successful season, plus they will get access to a 24 hour live feed camera on both the dredge boat and a camera with a diver's eye view. Work the cost of wireless internet into the estimate. If Nome does not have a cell tower, then perhaps some sort of packet radio to a land line.

I'll help if anyone wants to pursue this and actually has some experience.

 

[AzViper]

It seems to me that this forum is starting to be taken over by a bunch of cynical, bitter, crabby people who have nothing better to do than attack someone (especially new forum members) who just want to share their ideas and try to contribute to the community. Fermion had no ill intention that I could see. He was not asking for any contributions. Why he was attacked is childish and so jr. high. There are idea people who have the ideas but not the tallent to impliment them and there are those who have the knowhow and talent. Like the guy who can design a building but doesn't know how to construct it. STOP THE CRITISIZING! If you can't contribute then shut the F%*K UP!

B H Prospector

Well said... Glad to see the mod removed his post.

 

[3029heavy]

I'm still trying to figure out that class c bucket line dredge. Looks like he's submersing it. My class a leaks when the sky turns cloudy! But I enjoy ideas in any form! How does he expel the sluicebox output?

 

[Fermion]

It is simple really. He doesn't have to worry about leaks because he will be wearing a dive suit while driving the class c on the ocean floor. duh! Think a little bit before you post next time!

 

[3029heavy]

Ok, forgive me. It's been a long day! But what of the discharge? Just an open hole out the back would send water rushing in backwards up the sluice until pressures equalized, but then the sluice couldn't function

 

[3029heavy]

Perhaps the effluent could dump onto the floor and be pumped out with strong bilges, but they wont pump the gravel and light sand

 

[3029heavy]

And i do like the idea of getting deeper into the sea floor. The gold has been deposited over eons and shifting, and getting silted over. Multiple deep pay streaks are very logical in my mind. But I think the best way may be a long cable dragging a bucket from above, like the way they dredge out the Columbia river channels to facilitate shipping

 

[Aurabbit79er]

Water leaking won't be an issue, the actual equipment functioning will be in the ocean environment.
As buckets dump into the hopper gravity and vibrators will do the rest.
All classifying will be sent to vibrating rack and expelled out of the side of the coach.
Then the gold bearing materials will continue into a reversed dry washer sluice that simply gets pushed up and down real fast at a steep angle and a lighter materials would just fall down to the floor which is basically a big open screen and the heavies will proceed to collecting tubes. There will be six tubes on a carousel, and as each to fills it will be released with the float and be collected by the surface dredge tender boat to be processed on the land in a nice warm hooch.
Only the cabin would be dry. The space which the operator and the engineer will be in.
Any problems will be solved by them with duct tape, baling wire, silicone, and expanding foam.
I may need to enlist a rig diver to satisfy any safety regulations regarding class C dredging units.
Because I'm sure these things are going to catch on like wildfire once they get going.

 

[3029heavy]

Infact, if he can figure out all the glitches, he may want to try the Columbia river! Many gold bearing streams are tributaries. And celilo falls may have been a honey hole before they built the dams. Probably enough super fine gold down there to pay off the national debt! But so much overburden to get to bedrock, especially below Bonneville where it's all tidally influenced

 

[3029heavy]

Ok, it sounds like u put more thought into it than I realized. There are no hair brained ideas when it comes to prospecting! Only technical issues to deal with! And I'm still new to it, but have full blown AUWS (gold withdrawal symptoms). I deliver brand new Freightliners all over the US and Canada, then once delivered, fly back to the neatest terminal for my next load. I carry a very small Angus MacKirk sluicebox in my carry on bag along with a small pan and snuffer. Everywhere I go lately is frozen or in non gold bearing areas! It's driving me nuts! Also getting sick of explaining to tsa agents at the airport security screening what that funny looking thing is in my carry on bag!

 

[Aurabbit79er]

Actually, I just thought it up today, went over to my drawing program started fiddling and when you questioned how could it work I just ask myself "how could, it work".
I'm always dealing with different types of engineering problems, so I thought if I had unlimited resources, how would I start.
Have you seen my other invention, my waterpowered waterwheel.
Go to my profile and look at my albums.
I do invent, and I do build $&it.I just welded my cast-iron exhaust manifold for my motorcoach last month to took it on a test run this weekend out to the Mojave Desert, 340 mile round-trip with 10 miles of it off-road. It passed with flying colors. My class C is on the road again.
My friend bought some desert land above Barstow California. He helped me Weld the manifold so I went out to help him with his new property, and we did a little prospecting to out there and on his land.