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00:00:05when it comes to liberating goals from hard rock do you have to be crazy enough to go and get
00:00:10it
00:00:10yes rock rock underground everything wants to kill you out out out we gotta go we gotta go
00:00:17it is the hardest form of gold mining to get into the mill site has a couple of flaws the
00:00:25whole process it's very demanding we're not getting there as much gold as we should be we
00:00:31can go a couple days without seeing anything I have put a lot of money into this hard life savings
00:00:38I've personally invested probably a quarter million into the project I gotta take care of
00:00:43my mom and my family we were all gonna fail together or succeed together it's this or possible financial
00:00:50room and that's why I am here a hundred percent asking for help so that this could be turned in
00:00:56to a viable livable outcome for me and for the men on my team I put all my savings into
00:01:01this um I don't
00:01:03know man sorry let's make some gold guys Freddie Dodge there's no guarantees in gold buddy
00:01:17and Juan Ibarra all right well let's do it huh have mastered the art of getting gold out of the
00:01:23ground look at that in the most rugged places on earth I'm feeling a little sick ready now they
00:01:31rescue struggling miners that's not good who've risked it all to be rich but are about to lose
00:01:40everything eyeball to revive these failing minds Freddie and Juan engineer the impossible I've
00:01:48never heard of an under sluice before deliver some hard truths this material you're digging now is
00:01:54totally worthless and track down the gold that's what dreams are made of right there but if they
00:02:00don't at least double the miners gold recovery they won't take a dime in return but ten times the
00:02:07amount of gold that's off it's eight in the morning and it's only 85 degrees nice brisk 85 perfect
00:02:28welding weather we're on camera you better smile first job in California buddy hopefully it's not our last
00:02:38well shoot it's pretty desolate out here Fred yeah it's late spring and Freddie and Juan are in a
00:02:46remote corner of California's Mojave Desert at the Gretzner mine already facing triple-digit temperatures
00:02:54they've landed at their first ever hard rock rescue of a problem-plagued operation struggling to stay
00:03:02above ground this isn't a mine for sure but it's the right address there's been a lot of gold come
00:03:08out of California tremendous amount yeah gold was first discovered 18 miles from here in 1881 when miners
00:03:18came in search of a gold bearing quartz vein up to 10 feet thick over a hundred years this region
00:03:27has
00:03:27produced 185 000 ounces of gold worth 350 million dollars in today's money
00:03:40howdy how's it going all right guys good meeting you Chad glad you could make it nice to meet you
00:03:54you guys where's your mine at then our mine is a few miles that way and you can see the
00:04:01hills those
00:04:01mountains over there yep right there in the last five years 44 year old miner Chad and his crew of
00:04:10investors
00:04:11staked seven hard rock claims with access to over 260 acres of land 13 underground shafts and 16 tunnels
00:04:23he built a rock crushing mill from salvaged equipment located seven miles from his mines
00:04:34the first time i felt gold was uh when i went gold panning in the san gabriel river i found
00:04:39the first gold
00:04:39ever i was super excited i've been in retail i've been in sales i've been in service i've been in
00:04:47construction but i like the hard work of gold mining the chance to live off the land to build something
00:04:53for my family and one day have this turn into a successful business right now gold mining isn't my
00:05:01full-time job i am a research engineer there's sometimes a large gap between contracts and i find
00:05:06myself without work and so you definitely get nervous wondering where your next paycheck is going to come
00:05:11from in the 10-month mining season chad lives away from his family by the mill with his dad greg
00:05:19and his
00:05:20stepmom sally the gold mining operation is really at the heart of the relationship i have with my dad
00:05:27i know it would really be hard on both of us if it didn't succeed we've had our ups and
00:05:34downs there is a
00:05:35big gap in our relationship over 20 years so being able to mend that has been an important part of
00:05:43our
00:05:43life i'm a different guy than i was back in our estranged years i pursued you know the rock and
00:05:49roll
00:05:49thing and a little partying too much but we figured out a way to mend things up and now we
00:05:54are just we're
00:05:55solid setting up a hard rock operation ain't cheap you know especially when you got a mill set up and
00:06:00everything else what kind of money you guys have invested into this uh we have between 150 to 250
00:06:04thousand dollars depending on how you look at it yeah okay have you recovered any of your money back
00:06:11yet no no very little we're not getting near as much gold as we should be so what does your
00:06:19mining
00:06:19season look like is it year-round we would like it to be but the heat the summer months it's
00:06:25so hot out
00:06:25here we can't run our equipment over 104 degrees for some of the electric motors and we have to shut
00:06:30down so what's your goal we need to be able to hit 20 ounces before summer i put all my
00:06:36savings into
00:06:36this we need to start seeing a return on this in the mojave desert peak summer sun causes heavy
00:06:44equipment to overheat shutting down operations until the fall where are you guys at right now on that
00:06:50we're at two ounces of gold with just seven weeks before they must shut down the gretzner mine needs
00:06:59more than 2.5 ounces a week to stay afloat so what do you guys have to lose if this
00:07:04doesn't work out for
00:07:05you we have our life savings invested in this along with our partners now is there multiple partners or
00:07:13just you guys uh multiple partners on this uh we got five do they have money invested as well oh
00:07:20yes
00:07:20they do all of you do everyone's all you all got skin in the game oh yes i've put a
00:07:24lot of money and
00:07:25time into making this successful so is the rest of the crew here yeah let's do it sounds good a
00:07:32little
00:07:32bit honey all right this is the first rescue that freddie and i have done that's a hard rock mine
00:07:37that's got a mill set up but you know we actually came out from that industry
00:07:42that's actually where i started mining and i know freddie's had some experience there as well
00:07:45so uh it's kind of good to be back to our roots now hard rock mining it's definitely harder in
00:07:51a lot
00:07:51of ways than plaster mining is you gotta free it from the rock you gotta blast it pick it crush
00:07:59it
00:07:59and then do all these other things that you don't have to do plaster mining it's a tough game
00:08:07hey nice to meet you i'm ron ron wad nice to meet you wad hey we really appreciate you coming
00:08:13out
00:08:13over two years chad assembled a crew of part-time weekend warriors ron harry and sean were also
00:08:23investors well we'll have a look at what you got why don't you show us around okay come on in
00:08:28let's go
00:08:29we got a couch that's the office is that right yeah so what does your gold look like so our
00:08:36gold
00:08:36is super fine this is uh this is what the finished product looks like for us here you go
00:08:43gold rich rock is found in quartz veins that rise through the earth over millions of years
00:08:51hard rock miners chase these veins by digging hundreds of feet underground to extract the ore rock
00:08:58good ground is equal to eight to ten grams per ton of ore the gretzners have extracted six tons
00:09:07ready to be processed through their mill well you guys want to fire up your mill what do you think
00:09:13two hour test run that's right see what it does let's do it let's do it let's crush some rock
00:09:22stage one gold bearing ore is fed into a large hopper and crushed into pieces
00:09:31then it's transported to a surge hopper where the oversized rock is removed in the final stage of the
00:09:39process the small rocks are ground to a powder in a milling machine water is added and the mix is
00:09:48piped to a table where gold is separated from the worthless material
00:09:55when operating correctly the process should be fully automated with very little human intervention
00:10:02i hate those chain falls yeah those are painfully slow four and a half minutes to pick the first
00:10:09bag up and dump it in the hopper right now it's not really efficient it takes four guys to load
00:10:14the
00:10:15plant just have to feed it by hand with a shovel up there there's a lot of waste of time
00:10:23right there
00:10:23brady a lot of waste of time next step chad pushes the rock through the hopper into a machine called
00:10:32the jaw crusher which pulverizes the large rock into pieces i'm a little embarrassed because there's so
00:10:40many things wrong with our equipment and they're seeing it and there's no way to hide it
00:10:47that on it does nothing right now the hopper it's not feeding the material he's feeding the material
00:10:55into the jaw with a shovel so it's make work they'd almost be better off feeding it directly into the
00:11:01jaw
00:11:01out of the ore set they really they really would be we've got a bunch of issues going on here
00:11:15that screen right there we need to do something better about that
00:11:19the vibrating screen that sorts the rock lacks enough power so chad's crew must also do it by hand
00:11:29i know he's down there with a hammer hire a trained monkey to do that but no essentially
00:11:34it's become a manual screen even though he has a vibrator on it
00:11:39with the rock sorted ron and sean now reduced the flow of material up the conveyor well and then we've
00:11:47got him here putting everything to center why are you putting that to center like that you need more
00:11:54than this and it overloads the table okay understood they got time killers all down the line
00:12:03i've seen a little gold in there yeah it's mixed with the black sand
00:12:08the shaker table uses water and gravity to separate gold from lighter material a lot of rocks
00:12:15on the table yeah all right we're better if larger rocks reach the table they risk displacing fine gold
00:12:23i'd hang a light from the roof like an eight foot led over the middle of them that's what i
00:12:29have on all
00:12:29my tables how far up oh yeah right here so it's not shining in your eyes but it's enough to
00:12:36spread the
00:12:36table that's a good idea all right shut it down after two hours time is called on the test all
00:12:46right
00:12:46let's shut it down hoppers empty hoppers empty thank you sir on the test run today wanted myself
00:12:53seen a lot of manual labor you get all this equipment yet it takes manual labor to make it work
00:12:59that did not impress me at all it wasn't good we've got some ideas to save them a lot of
00:13:04labor
00:13:05a lot of time at least if they're not doing the job they don't need to be doing they can
00:13:09be doing
00:13:09other things to catch more gold it's a tough game hard rock mining is we might have taken on more
00:13:15work
00:13:15than we can handle here
00:13:31wouldn't mind panning a little bit up to what the gold looks like huh take a look at it yeah
00:13:34you
00:13:34want to do it or me you go ahead and do it i haven't watched your videos enough deep in
00:13:40the scorching mojave
00:13:41desert the gretzner crew clean up the gold from their two-hour test i hope we have gold for freddie
00:13:47on one freddie takes a pan for an early indication this is nothing lots of rocks in it yeah that's
00:13:56not
00:13:56good why don't you guys get it cleaned up because that's just one pan
00:14:01it wasn't good is all i can say i've done better pans out of the bank on a creek so
00:14:08you know hopefully
00:14:09there's more in that concentrate and we'll find out more in the morning but that pan did not
00:14:15thrill me at all it's real fine oh yeah a thin line of gold right at the top there's a
00:14:22lot at stake
00:14:24i mean there's been so much money invested already i put a good amount of money in myself and uh
00:14:29if
00:14:30things get a little shaky it's not going to be that easy to weather it looks like a little flake
00:14:35right
00:14:36there when it comes to gold it's location location location hard rock testing can be a hell of a lot
00:14:42harder you're underground you're chasing seams the vein disappears but at the same time the ore can be
00:14:50really rich you can do really well well that wasn't very good that first run poof they've taken on a
00:15:00lot you know for them to get together purchase the building put the mill up get all the equipment that
00:15:06they needed for the mill that's a quite a big undertaking really their whole process it's uh very labor
00:15:10intensive it's time to eliminate some jobs so they can get on to better things absolutely
00:15:27here you go chad grab this next morning back at the mill site you know i could probably use that
00:15:35connection off of your air compression that can hook up to my sand blaster chad and harry have
00:15:40cleaned up the gold from one ton of ore the crew ran through their two-hour test chad's definitely one
00:15:47of my good friends we've been at this for a while and we've learned about each other and we've grown
00:15:52over time and we've shared a lot of thoughts and troubles so yeah we're close right hand man harry has
00:15:59been on chad's crew for six years and invested forty thousand dollars into the mining operation
00:16:07when you're on the vein and on the gold it's awesome getting gold out of the ground and turn
00:16:13it into a bar i mean that's that's pretty rad everything i've ever learned in my whole life
00:16:20has just been working with my hands and i like digging holes and it's just a natural fit for
00:16:24me turning wrenches fixing equipment and blowing up rock harry first met chad on a prospecting mission
00:16:32in 2017. his experience in engineering makes him a valuable member of the team when i first got
00:16:41together with these guys i had gotten out of the marine corps for a while and you know i was
00:16:44having
00:16:44a rough time these guys have brought me back to where i need to be and it's helped me at
00:16:49home and
00:16:50the relationship with my family well weigh it up oh one yeah you guys got it all dried up yes
00:17:00sir
00:17:00yeah well let's let's take a look at it where's your dad at you know he's he's he's pretty tired
00:17:05he's
00:17:05not feeling good okay he put his all into being out here with you guys uh it kind of kicked
00:17:10his butt
00:17:11right right well hopefully he feels better thanks i feel pressure not only have i
00:17:18seen our team invest everything they have in this my dad and i we've invested a lot in this
00:17:25if this doesn't work out and it would be really hard on him so i don't want i don't want
00:17:29to see
00:17:29that i want to see us succeed and we'll find a way well let's weigh it up yeah we do
00:17:36the honors chad
00:17:37all right here we go chad and his team need to make 700 a day to break even
00:17:48don't spill it
00:17:570.03. 0.03 yeah nine tenths of a gram almost a gram almost a gram from one ton of
00:18:06ore
00:18:09worth less than 60 dollars it's not even enough to cover fuel for the mill
00:18:16five guys right five guys uh a day to pull one ton from the mine yeah haul it here yeah
00:18:23and then
00:18:23a day to run it and yeah that's a tremendous amount of work for that small of a payday
00:18:33yeah
00:18:38what is required for you guys to be able to pay your bills and pay your guys something we'd come
00:18:42up with what two to two and a half ounces a week
00:18:48you know with this particular it's not going to be possible
00:18:53maybe we get your help on finding some better ground well that's a tough one in the time we're here
00:18:58without running it there's no way i can tell you anything we'd love to look at your mind yeah but
00:19:04we need to spend most of our time making your equipment more efficient so you can test your
00:19:08own minds at a quicker rate and then once you find that vein that that good vein you'll be able
00:19:13to rock
00:19:13and roll and just blow it right through the mill we both worked underground before and i've seen just
00:19:17crazy veins come out you know where it's visible gold 2600 ounces a ton so it all comes down to
00:19:23the ore
00:19:23i think i'm glad you guys are here because we need the help we're ready for the challenge
00:19:27definitely we're ready for it the good news is that freddie and i we did notice a lot of things
00:19:33in the mill that we can improve on ultimately it's going to come down to a combination of
00:19:37getting the production up but also getting on better better ore they need to get out of those
00:19:42other veins they've got those other mines and see what's there and once they find that better gold
00:19:47they will have a plant here that not only is it the test plant to find the better gold
00:19:52but it's the one that puts gold in their pocket puts money in the bank
00:19:56freddie and juan have four more days to put the gritzners on track for their 2.5 ounce a week
00:20:02target
00:20:05what do you think juan well freddie i think there's quite a few things we can improve on inside
00:20:09that mill yeah i'd like to get rid of that chain foam they're slow miserably terribly slow i'm thinking
00:20:18on this they got that little vibrator on there on that hopper nothing yeah do one of your eccentrics
00:20:24down below here yep we'll be able to get more throw out of that hopper so it feeds properly instead
00:20:29of having to get up there and shovel it by hand yeah an eccentric motor uses offset weights to create
00:20:35a
00:20:35throwing movement freddie and juan's plan first they'll upgrade the hopper with an electric winch
00:20:47a whole new shaking process for moving pay into the jaw crusher behind
00:20:56next at the second hopper they'll add a screen at the top to divert oversized rock
00:21:08finally after the rock has been milled to dust and the gold liberated
00:21:15a vibrating screen a new sluice box will help catch the bigger gold before the fines get caught
00:21:22on the table how's it going guys hey well we watched you guys run and uh you know multiple
00:21:33things we think we can help you with what we really want to do is make this circuit the crushing
00:21:38circuit a
00:21:38one-man job without being you know a five-man team you know started from the beginning we're
00:21:44going to put an electric winch so it's not four minutes a bag just to get it up on this
00:21:50we want
00:21:50to redo your hopper assembly there we're going to put airbags on it and then put a real eccentric in
00:21:55it
00:21:55oh okay so your surge hopper where you've got your screen there is the exact wrong spot even if we
00:22:03have to cut into your hopper just a little bit we want to put a screen up there pipe it
00:22:08down
00:22:08have your wheelbarrow right there and get it back in this test so another idea that we had is coming
00:22:14off your mill here but a small tiny sluice box but it'll have a screen on top of it keep
00:22:20it from going
00:22:20on the keep it from going on the table wow wow so it'll catch 40 to 60 percent of your
00:22:24gold on that
00:22:25sluice box that'd be awesome much needed now we need to talk about the money situation all right we're
00:22:31going to need about two thousand dollars in material and then on top of that we would like you guys
00:22:35to
00:22:35cover our expenses let's throw some dice here if we don't get you 10 times the amount of gold that
00:22:41was in that first cleanup our labor is free we could make this work right can we pull together and
00:22:50we'll
00:22:50make it work yeah we'll find a way you guys are good with it we're good with it and you
00:22:54guys are ready to
00:22:55help so we're ready to work a limited amount of time all right guys all right deal deal the fixes
00:23:02that freddie and juana proposed they're ambitious in such a short period of time it's going to be
00:23:07some long hours and we're going to have to give them a hand and help them however we can
00:23:18get out of here out out out out we gotta go we gotta go we gotta go
00:23:39hey dad at the gretzner's desert mine chad's dad greg back on the job hey how you feeling yeah hanging
00:23:48in there diagnosed with degenerative nerve damage in 2010 greg's found salvation in mining but the
00:23:56desert heat takes its toll as long as i have you know some time off here and there i can
00:24:02regroup and
00:24:03heal up i'm always rooting for him and encouraging him to try to to lay low cut back because he's
00:24:11been
00:24:11in pain although they now work together on their hard rock mind chad and greg haven't always had the
00:24:19best father-son relationship he had left us and divorced my mom when i was 14. dad loved rock and
00:24:31roll when you're around the rock and roll atmosphere and a lot of alcohol a lot of drugs a lot
00:24:36of women
00:24:37and usually that doesn't work out well for a family environment with kids the years that i was kind
00:24:44of being you know dumb if you will looking back it's like yeah i could have been a little wiser
00:24:50i thought
00:24:51it was a lost thing but uh last few years my son and i have had a great relationship that
00:24:58just makes me
00:24:59really happy i love it reconnected since 2016 father greg has invested all his life savings but still
00:25:12struggles to find his place on the mine man that gold way just didn't come in the way any of
00:25:18us were
00:25:19anticipating oh really yeah the 0.03 ounces to the ton or 0.9 grams that was dismal we we've
00:25:30overcame
00:25:30obstacles before so i know you got it in you i know i do we can't go any lower so
00:25:36we can only go up yeah
00:25:38i know and you push yourself hard so we we all appreciate that well thank you all right i'm giving
00:25:43giving it my all all right dad thank you get over here all right appreciate that yep all right
00:25:53we got to divide and conquer a little bit here inbound for the day freddie and juan plan their
00:25:58attack i want to start working on that hopper kind of have in my mind what i want to do
00:26:03there well and
00:26:04i think i'll run out and look at their minds because the ore that we ran yesterday yeah it's no
00:26:09good no
00:26:10why no no it's not it's not worth running we could double their throughput but still double the gold
00:26:15of what we just saw still terrible making them gold go broke faster is what that would do
00:26:22we're going to see how we can't put some people out of work here at least if they're not doing
00:26:28the job
00:26:29they don't need to be doing they can be doing other things to catch more gold
00:26:33we can we can always mock it up and see yeah because right now the the one i have yeah
00:26:38it's probably
00:26:38shoot it's going to be another six inches shorter six inches longer than yeah see what it looks like
00:26:44to get the ball rolling juan and freddie begin with an easy win a new electric hoist i'm just setting
00:26:52up this new uh hoist electric hoist it's a hell of a lot easier than pulling on that chain
00:27:06so with the chain fall you know it was it was four minutes up and down minimum minimum and then
00:27:11on top
00:27:12of that by the end of the day you got sore arms you know and our hope is that you
00:27:16guys are going to run
00:27:16so much material you're not going to want that chain fall you're going to want something fast up and
00:27:20down yep cable hoist looks like it's going to help us out a lot and keep chad off the top
00:27:25of that
00:27:26machine and we can focus more on just getting bags in there and not starving the jaw crusher
00:27:3121 seconds 22 seconds plus another five seconds to take it in so let's call it 30 seconds
00:27:37so we've cut this by three-fourths so you got 75 percent less time with the winch
00:27:45hey one hey greg how you doing buddy good feeling better yeah yeah i'm doing a lot better you want
00:27:50to
00:27:50give me a hand real quick yeah most definitely next juan and greg redesigned the hopper go ahead
00:27:58and pull that off and then what i'll have you do is once i get these parts cut out you
00:28:01can help me
00:28:01we'll start getting this all welded together there you get it all jigged up i like it thank you sir
00:28:07in order to feed the material that hopper has to move enough that it actually can push that material
00:28:12forward and it doesn't have enough power to do that mounted with springs the hopper lacks the
00:28:17ability to shake out the material one's fix install four sets of adjustable air bags to control the
00:28:26force of the hopper's movement a first for mine rescue give it a little lift
00:28:38yeah okay
00:28:43so what i'm doing is i'm cutting out the brackets right now these brackets are going to be for the
00:28:46airbags to support it and give it that cushion it needs so when it vibrates it actually vibrates
00:28:52it's got the holes for the mounting brackets and then also the hole for the air
00:28:55while freddie prepares the hopper for the new fittings juan is assembling the frame to house the airbags
00:29:03i'm getting the rest of these mounts together we're going to put some supports on them and that way when
00:29:06it's vibrating it'll absorb that impact so it doesn't bend it over very cool well let's get it
00:29:12rigged up on your side you want to get those uh hooks in there yep
00:29:17all right greg was wanting to soak up everything i was telling him hopefully by us being here and
00:29:23helping him out you know he was able to learn a little bit working alongside of freddie and juan
00:29:28is so amazing and awesome to me their honest concern and their willingness to do these changes i was
00:29:37happy i could jump in and help out wherever i could you want to keep an eye on those as
00:29:42i lower it
00:29:46awesome back on these are just really simple they're they're actually kind of an automotive airbag
00:29:52but you know sometimes you got to use what you can get and that's what we could get and they
00:29:55work
00:29:55good so we're going to use them well awesome very very cool thank you work yeah no problem
00:30:08what do you guys think about running out to your mind real quick across the claim
00:30:12we'd love to show it to you yeah freddie's keen to get eyes on chad's mine pretty weak around that
00:30:19first one so let's do it we have hard rock gold mines that we own all the mineral rights on
00:30:25they're
00:30:26also proven mines that the old timers worked so being able to go into existing workings and then
00:30:32sample there and develop it the downside and negative to that is it's expensive and dangerous
00:30:37to get into these old workings so freddie could absolutely help us out
00:30:42so i think you'll like the work we've done on it there's a lot of things that water and myself
00:30:48can
00:30:49do to help their plant but the gold i wasn't really impressed with they're losing money right now
00:30:54they have six other mines if you got the right ore with the right amount of gold in it you
00:31:00can do
00:31:01really well freddie and chad head into the mountains seven miles west where hundreds of
00:31:07tunnels on their claim crisscross these historic gold fields how long have you guys had this place
00:31:14your family uh four years four years i don't know why i just have this this drive freddie this
00:31:21determination i'm going to find a way to make it work our team does look to me as the mine
00:31:28boss so it's
00:31:29big responsibility to lead these guys and i don't want to let them down i want to make sure that
00:31:34i'm
00:31:34doing my part to lead us in the right direction we're here so this your hole in the ground huh
00:31:41sure
00:31:42is i've worked underground enough to know how tough it is it's far more expensive and dangerous than
00:31:50plaster mining it's a hard game to play sure the ore is richer and the rewards are great but the
00:31:57risks are
00:31:57many well i guess get geared up and head down huh yeah yeah that's gonna tie it off just watch
00:32:08a
00:32:08little hole but you got a deck here you could step on getting darker that's for sure no wrong rock
00:32:13rock
00:32:14the quartz vein they are working is 85 feet below the ground
00:32:24hey guys don't don't take any of the film crew any farther than that the hanging wall is separating
00:32:30two inches there are stoles holding it up but that's a danger zone i'm not going back there
00:32:39um this is one of the spots we're working and sampling i can see the vein structure there it's
00:32:44not easy to get out of here either over 95 percent of the world's gold left unmined is believed to
00:32:52be
00:32:52underground with over three trillion dollars in gold reserves yet to be mined almost all large mining
00:33:01companies draw their gold from a hard rock source you got a microscope
00:33:12there's some gold there's a piece right there that's so small a lot of times that doesn't cut it
00:33:19right so we typically have three to four guys working here i mean if everybody's available we'll
00:33:26have all five and you're doing it by hand yeah i see your buckets here is that how you're mucking
00:33:31this over
00:33:32every bucket probably 50 pounds coming out of here 40 50 pounds yeah so to get a ton it takes
00:33:38a lot of
00:33:38manpower our our record in one day was eight tons you ever have any of this this hanging wall bust
00:33:46off
00:33:46on you i see you got it cribbed in a few places here a few little pieces like that yeah
00:33:52well it's dark and
00:33:55it's tight it's not the easiest place to get into there's just not enough gold in the ore so
00:34:01go to a different spot whoa what's that piece fell off the roof guys i wouldn't go any farther
00:34:12just get out of here what the going on out out out out we gotta go we gotta go we
00:34:16gotta go
00:34:28i'm not going back there yeah
00:34:31in the mojave desert a rock fall has halted freddie's investigation into the gretzner's hard rock
00:34:37mine it's not a job for the timid in that mine it's dark and it's tight down there and those
00:34:45guys
00:34:45i can tell they have to work their butts off to get that ore out of that mine hand chisel
00:34:51each piece of
00:34:52rock out to get it out of there to find out if it has enough gold in it right now
00:34:56these guys are deep in
00:34:57the hole cost wise if all their minds are similar to this one then uh they they won't be in
00:35:03business
00:35:03very long
00:35:09yeah the stuff you're running right now you're gonna go broke on yeah you know average wages with the
00:35:15amount of labor you had in it while it was taking you guys were averaging about 50 cents an hour
00:35:20a piece
00:35:20oh yeah that's horrible trying to sample improve out the mines and but then also at the same time
00:35:27trying to make a goal we got six other mines to go look at but there's a lot of things
00:35:36that have to
00:35:37be done to make this plant run more efficiently we haven't got a lot of time so if we can
00:35:44streamline
00:35:44that it's going to help the efficiency in the field but if we get you know your mill running
00:35:50more efficiently you can test these different main structures you've got or different parts of them
00:35:58yes at a more efficient rate
00:36:10whatever we can do we'll do it back at the gretzner mill one pushes on with the second hopper fix
00:36:18we're kind of behind the eight ball now
00:36:21having fitted the new airbags he needs to upgrade the vibrator
00:36:27i'm already starting to work on all the brackets for the eccentric vibrator we got to get going on
00:36:30it because if we don't get started now we'll never finish this project
00:36:34so this is something different that we haven't really done this is a this is going to be a
00:36:38vibrator but we're actually doing is doing an eccentric before they had a little tiny vibrator
00:36:42on the back here that wasn't doing anything all it was doing was compacting the material
00:36:47an eccentric vibrator uses off-center weights mounted on a bar to create a throwing back and forth
00:36:54movement juan's theory this movement will help the hopper stay unclogged saving time and manpower
00:37:03we're going to use these weights that we cut out on the table and we'll have opposing weights so one
00:37:08this way one the other way all that weight will be off center on the shaft and what it'll do
00:37:12it'll
00:37:12actually throw the material forward so that's what these are by spinning heavy weights on a bar below
00:37:19the hopper the eccentric vibrator will pulsate a steady supply of rocks into the jaw crusher
00:37:26it took five guys to feed it so what we're trying to do is trying to eliminate all that extra
00:37:30labor
00:37:30to make it one smooth transition where you feed it it feeds itself into the jaw and you catch it
00:37:35on the
00:37:44other side
00:37:45that's brilliant
00:37:48everything that we've got going here they look at it with new eyes and they see stuff that we haven't
00:37:54seen and they uh pull really cool tricks out of the hat and make it work i'm impressed i'm really
00:38:00happy
00:38:00about it chad will have to file for unemployment should be good yeah it looks okay let's hopefully
00:38:07it works as good as it looks almost looks like he knew what you're doing kind of i saw it
00:38:12in a book
00:38:12once on a cartoon yeah one of the most experienced miners in the crew ron is chad's largest investor
00:38:22yeah i've personally invested probably a quarter million into the project
00:38:28building contractor by night gold miner by day ron is determined to make a success of the hard rock
00:38:36mine with his band of brothers i've invested all i could my mom left me a little money
00:38:42when she passed i wanted to
00:38:49i wanted to sorry i wasn't expecting this um i just wanted a her legacy to live on and
00:39:00and then i hope that my boy and my grandsons if nothing else they'll learn the camaraderie and
00:39:06the hard work that comes with that i know that we can succeed i can't quit can't quit i'm not
00:39:13a quitter
00:39:21i'm trying to find greg i need a little bit of help on that screen i'm gonna build with the
00:39:25hopper
00:39:25complete juan turns his attention to the next planned fix with chad's father greg but he's
00:39:32nowhere to be seen hey sally oh hey juan how's it going good how you doing oh i'm doing okay
00:39:38i'm trying
00:39:39to get this mess cleaned up clean it up a little bit nice yeah hey is greg around uh he'll
00:39:44be out in the
00:39:44afternoon okay okay yeah i was just gonna have him help me with that screen we're gonna build
00:39:48he normally works for a couple of days and then he has to probably lay down and take a little
00:39:53nap and
00:39:54then he'll be out this afternoon hopefully he feels a little better but when he has a chance to come
00:39:58out and give me a hand yeah awesome thank you thank you i appreciate it married in 2005 mining mom
00:40:06sally has been by greg's side through thick and thin he was a musician when i met him and i
00:40:13think
00:40:13that drawed me to him so here we are 22 years later married living on a fixed income sally and
00:40:21greg have
00:40:22gambled everything on this gold hunting venture we have a lot at stake here we have a lot of money
00:40:27invested into this mill site so it could be devastating yeah if it doesn't work out
00:40:39bueno hey fred back at the compound it's hot it's a warm one huh yeah no how to look over
00:40:47there at the
00:40:47mine site well i went underground to that one they're playing around with down there and uh you know they
00:40:53don't have the resources to really go underground right at this moment yeah you know they're hand
00:40:59picking down there then they're pulling it out in buckets holy cow you know i got a lot going on
00:41:04here
00:41:04with the with the build so i'll be tied up doing this for the next day or so but if
00:41:08you can go out
00:41:08there and give them a hand you know that's really what they need you know underground mining is a
00:41:12whole different animal you know you and i both have been underground before and it's a whole different
00:41:15type of mining yep it really is you gotta have rich ground to go underground on a small scale yeah
00:41:20yeah and especially doing it the way they're doing it with picks and shovels that's tough
00:41:25that's a hard way to do it 85 feet to the surface and then loading it in trucks and hauling
00:41:31it in
00:41:31crushing it but they're mucking it all out by hand underneath there so it's a lot of work yeah
00:41:39commercial operations can mine lower grade ores and still make a profit due to the huge volumes of
00:41:46material that they are able to process but chad's mind runs only a ton a day refocusing his manpower
00:41:55could get him closer to the gold that big bronze bushing in there's probably wore out huh
00:42:00wall and i are spinning a lot of plates right now there's some space in there at the stage these
00:42:05guys
00:42:05are in right now getting rid of the labor in here help the efficiency in this building it's going to
00:42:12help the efficiency in the field because two or three of them can go and they can start getting
00:42:18more ore if there's not enough gold in the spot that you're testing get out of there before it takes
00:42:25your money away juan can you come over we need your help in the california desert curious what they
00:42:44have to say about that freddie and juan face their first hard rock rescue we think that might be the
00:42:50banging noise uh probably so at a mine run by chad gretzner and a crew of investors so yeah let's
00:42:58yank this out chad all right freddie's most urgent task is to investigate the other mines on chad's
00:43:06property and find more gold but first he will lay the groundwork of the next fix i'm pretty proud of
00:43:14this design but it's not doing well this is backwards right here yeah so what i want to do right
00:43:19here
00:43:19i'm going to build a screen up here so we'll get the material while it's going into the surge hopper
00:43:26catch it and then you can run it back through while you're running your crushing circuit
00:43:30to help sort the crushed rock into different sizes freddie will remove greg's inefficient screen
00:43:37at the bottom of the hopper and build a new classifier at the top to remove larger rock
00:43:46this is an exciting fix because now we can run more material and it takes two guys off of this
00:43:56whole process back here ready yep i'm gonna take pick up the front all right go
00:44:04perfect perfect's good enough if you can't do any better that's what i'm talking about
00:44:12right there's your screen huh as fixes stack up freddie looks to save time and money by
00:44:19salvaging material well it's a little wore out but it should work huh yeah use what you got
00:44:26all right so let's get this out of here okay ready lift with your back two three stand her up
00:44:34if you
00:44:34don't keep working it doesn't get done okay
00:44:40okay i'm gonna start on that other screen deck up top under the hopper yep so i'm gonna build it
00:44:46we'll use one of the vibrators on it yeah if you want me to buzz out the frame for you
00:44:50real quick
00:44:51okay well you're on your project too though so yeah but i'm gonna be cutting right now i'm designing so
00:44:55i can cut a bunch out real quick for you yeah so picture a four foot long flat bottom 10
00:45:02gauge bottom
00:45:02for a minute probably yep that'll work no problem we'll start building the screen in here
00:45:08over and over the top of their surge hopper hopefully we can get that material screen before
00:45:13it goes in not after you know freddie and i we always divide and conquer right now i'm
00:45:20going to try to cut out that little screen for him so he can put his vibrator and his mesh
00:45:24material
00:45:24on it chad and the guys did a great job installing everything here in the mill i think
00:45:28they just don't have some experience with some of the other equipment that we have
00:45:32design programmed one's cut table uses a torch burning a 25 000 degree jet of plasma to slice
00:45:41through three quarter inch steel as we start doing our builds and start seeing what we can do in the
00:45:47mills sometimes that doesn't really come to pass so what we have to do is kind of alter our plan
00:45:51and make it fit for their situation we're gonna have to make it work you know because we're going
00:45:55to build a separate screen it's a lot more work it's a lot more build time but you know what
00:45:59this
00:45:59machine's a time saver so uh we gotta keep on plugging along
00:46:10that cut out on the table that saved us you know a day worth of work
00:46:22freddie what can i help with well we're gonna need to move this around a little bit
00:46:26okay pivot right well we're chill when he's not working in real estate hard rock mining greenhorn
00:46:35sean spends his weekends at the mill chasing gold freddie's expertise and wands knowledge and
00:46:42fabrication can really get us over the hump and get those ounces per week we need sean's gold fever
00:46:49started over 20 years ago during a trip to california the first time i found gold i was in a
00:46:56river in
00:46:56northern california i pulled back the flap on the dredge i saw a line of gold laying across the mat
00:47:01and i
00:47:02was absolutely hooked i reached in i picked that gold up like a marlin hitting a lure i mean bang
00:47:08i was on
00:47:08and fish on there was my life's never been the same since finding gold might have rocked sean's
00:47:16world but bricks and mortar pays bills real estate has been wonderful to me but there are forces that
00:47:24are making that real estate business extremely difficult and it's not financially as viable
00:47:28anymore my wife and i sit down at the beginning of the month and it's time to write some checks
00:47:33and pay
00:47:33some bills scares the heck out of me it's sleepless nights i was up last night thinking about this stuff
00:47:40i want to be able to not survive but thrive and the opportunity that we have with freddie and juan
00:47:46i
00:47:47think we've got a shot at that i don't have a backup plan it's it's this or find a possible
00:47:54financial
00:47:54ruin that's sick enough to weld to isn't it oh yeah or do you want to screw to it i
00:48:00can weld to
00:48:03one has cut all the pieces for the screen deck now he must weld them in place before freddie can
00:48:10install the wire mesh at the top of the second hopper the new screen will divert oversized rock
00:48:18down a chute so it can be rerun through the crusher immediately so i'm getting started on that surge
00:48:25bend screen so all the material going into the surge bend anything that's over half inch is going to go
00:48:30back to the to the crusher
00:48:32i guess that's it this will make it a lot more efficient it'll be nice well we essentially put
00:48:43about four guys out of work freddie four different jobs yeah four different jobs but there's lots of
00:48:47other more beneficial jobs for them to do yeah all right when we get back to work okay thanks one
00:48:52well you guys ready to hang this yes sir with freddie's scout of the other mine sites pressing
00:48:59ron and sean helping test his design
00:49:03let's do a test run on it you want to hand me some of that gravel there well you're ready
00:49:10yeah
00:49:11ready sean hold on i'm plugging it in there you go
00:49:22take her down a couple more degrees
00:49:25right now it's uh not shaking quite strong enough we're gonna have to pitch it down just a little
00:49:31bit for these square rocks okay come up come on fire it up
00:49:52that's worse yep that locks in those a frustrating setback as the sharp rock catches in the mesh screen
00:50:02yeah because all the angles it's all crushed yeah
00:50:09i'm frustrated on every pick sometimes especially when you're behind the eight ball
00:50:16things take longer than you think they should or you planned them
00:50:19and you just keep your spirits up and you keep working i wouldn't mind cutting another inch off
00:50:25your hopper okay
00:50:31when you're crushing rock it's all angular so it doesn't flow like a river rock i think freddie
00:50:37is getting a little frustrated but he's he's sticking to it he says he doesn't he's not going to let
00:50:42it beat him
00:50:46just square ass rocks and just no time left
00:50:53yeah i don't think this is going to work
00:51:10here we go fire in the hole
00:51:16now shut it off
00:51:20shut it off
00:51:36you can see rocks still stuck in the screen and they're jammed in there so it's going to get worse
00:51:41the more it runs i'm going to have to bring it down about three more degrees yeah right now it's
00:51:46probably
00:51:47eight degrees is it is any material coming off of it or very little yeah there's a lot of things
00:51:53that have
00:51:54to be done to make this plant run more efficiently if we leave a couple pieces of the puzzle out
00:51:59here
00:52:00we're not going to get the efficiency rate that we'd like to see out of it out of what we're
00:52:04going to do
00:52:14with the salvaged wire screen unusable freddie goes back to the drawing board
00:52:21i kind of drew up a generic punch plate here what do you think can you cut me one out
00:52:25i'm not liking
00:52:26that wire cloth on there yeah that's green cloth that's easy you can do that thank you sir i'll spend
00:52:31the rest of the afternoon looking at some of their other mines okay
00:52:36all right freddie sounds good one of the guys will have to carry on without me and get these fixes
00:52:40done
00:52:47we've got a lot of work to do to the plant but we also got to try to find some
00:52:51better ore so it's
00:52:52time to get out and look at some of their other mines so the mine that we're headed to is
00:52:57made up
00:52:57of a few different mines and it's like an underground city it's impressive after a narrow escape from the
00:53:07previous mine chad's hoping he can convince freddie his second mine has potential now these veins
00:53:14strike over 5 000 feet in length the veins as wide as the truck what year did they stop mining
00:53:23here 42.
00:53:26completed in 1916 chad's other mine extends 300 feet below the surface
00:53:34with a labyrinth of tunnels that chase gold veins up to 12 feet wide in its 26 years of operation
00:53:42it produced 67 000 ounces worth 127 million dollars in today's money
00:53:52so this your other spot huh yeah we're at the uh the main haulage shaft
00:54:01this goes down 300 feet how far does this mine go the strike of the vein is over 5000 feet
00:54:11that's a deep
00:54:11hole yeah at 300 feet i'm not building that long a ladder you got any maps or anything in the
00:54:19mine yeah i do
00:54:23back in the 80s uh some geologists explored the mine mapped it and then took some samples this is
00:54:30one of the parallel veins right next to the largest gold mine in the district going over 1250 feet deep
00:54:38your costs of playing with this they're going to be high your other mine your costs are high when
00:54:44you're underground right right maybe a half ounce a ton to make a profit ain't gonna work
00:54:53it's not even worth looking at your other mine sites if this is the best one you have
00:55:00but what do we think here that's going to be all dump material
00:55:08dump material to there just sitting here on the surface when the old timers decided gold ore was too
00:55:17low value they dumped the rock in piles on the surface so i'm going to say 100 feet let's average
00:55:24it by
00:55:2620 feet you don't have to haul it from underground
00:55:35freddy's hunch rock left at the entrance of the mine known as an ore dump could be far richer than
00:55:43what chad and his crew are currently mining
00:55:48i'm just flipping a coin but i'd test the old timers waste that they couldn't get the gold out of
00:55:55and i'm serious i got a friend that's what he does for a living amazing news that's pretty rad
00:56:00yeah this is where i'd start because there's a whack of it sitting here there is they didn't have
00:56:06a jaw crusher sometimes they didn't you know some of those really old mines they had to cherry pick
00:56:11the highest grade stuff they hydrated it by hand yeah yep nope that's not good enough that's only quarter
00:56:15ounce per ton right we have a few mines with with mine dumps on it i guess if this is
00:56:22a quarter
00:56:22ounce per ton and just sitting here 40 000 tons we're standing on 40 000 times 0.25 equals 10
00:56:34000
00:56:34ounces yes sir
00:56:39it's a 17 million dollars worth of gold you're possibly standing on right here
00:56:44i like those numbers yeah i like those numbers well if you got more of this who knows you may
00:56:50never have to go underground again if the numbers are right this dump site could not only be profitable
00:56:56ahead of summer but gives them capital to explore the other mines on their claim
00:57:02i'm super happy what freddy just told us what we have here at the mine and what we can get
00:57:07on the
00:57:07surface we're excited to get after it you know the sky's the limit i like the sound of this
00:57:14this actually could be a lifeline for our team and for our season but the only way to find out
00:57:19to do
00:57:20a bulk test i don't want the guys to get too excited we can't bank on anything right now until
00:57:26we have the
00:57:26numbers and the goal to prove it so it even becomes more important for one of myself to get their
00:57:32mill
00:57:32operating better than it was in the past so they can get more material through per day
00:57:37and get the gold in their pockets off to see the wizard
00:57:54i'm excited to run a sample from that dump back at the mill before chad and his investor crew roll
00:58:01the dice on the old timer's ore dump awesome sauce they need to confirm freddy's hunch and crush a five
00:58:08gallon sample to see if it contains gold all right so this thing's um gonna get it down to eighth
00:58:14inch
00:58:15this is as true of a sample as we could get i love the science behind hard rock mining the
00:58:21geology
00:58:22the engineering that's what has captured my attention and that's why i do what i do
00:58:32it seems like gold fever is a disease absolutely to help control it i try to base my hope on
00:58:42science
00:58:43and some of the testing that we do because gold fever can sometimes steer you down the wrong route
00:58:48so you got to make good decisions you got to know for a fact it's there you got to test
00:58:52like crazy
00:58:53sample sample sample that's a good crush there harry if you don't and you're just going on that hunch
00:58:59there's a really good chance that uh you might be throwing your money down the drain
00:59:04greg ready for it yeah he's ready cool yeah let's go get it over there
00:59:24so we're just finishing up the punch plate for freddy we had the the wire mesh
00:59:28but the wire mesh really didn't work for what we wanted with just two days remaining at the
00:59:33gretzner's hard rock mine one puts the finishing touches on freddy's new screen for the surge hopper
00:59:40so there it is so i'm gonna go give it to freddy so he can get it installed keep on
00:59:44working
00:59:47it's ready to go in buddy nice thank you sir it looks good before oversized rock collected under the
00:59:56hopper and had to be removed by hand now freddy's new screen will divert oversized rock down a chute
01:00:05ready to be rerun through the crusher
01:00:18what do you think juan i like it freddy get some rocks and throw on there see what it does
01:00:23huh
01:00:24it's getting the rocks screened out so where all the material going into the surge hopper is the size
01:00:28it needs to be and it allows them to re-crush that material on the same circuit
01:00:33with the same ore so they aren't watering down another batch of material
01:00:42well the screen's working but we only had the one vibrator so use what you got
01:00:47and there's no getting one in time she may not be the prettiest girl at the dance but she's at
01:00:53the dance
01:00:55i like it it ought to work huh
01:01:01okay we ready for milling yeah boy look at the color of that with the ore dump sample crushed
01:01:07greg steps up to mill the material into a fine powder to release the gold so dad i got your
01:01:13mask
01:01:14right here i'll set it in your screen so it doesn't blow away all right yeah this has been uh
01:01:20quite the seven years this works out we're uh we're gonna have a great opportunity to take your job
01:01:25off and you'll fulfill your dream yeah that's that's been you know my dream too no we did a lot
01:01:32of work
01:01:32man thanks dad we got a lot more coming up yeah so thank you for sticking with it and you
01:01:38know keeping
01:01:39us uh keeping us rolling yeah well we haven't let any of these challenges that we faced you know come
01:01:45between us all right well let's get some gold darn it all right he's a big part of my life
01:01:50and i want
01:01:51to see his goals reached he's put so much work into it and to have him make this thing work
01:01:59and maybe
01:02:00quit his job one day it'd be such a blessing i would love that after milling the ore awesome
01:02:13greg runs it through a small sluice we get about 87 recovery on the first run all right clean up
01:02:21after
01:02:26this one hey punky do hey honey how you feeling i'm feeling good i brought you a water how's your
01:02:33hands feeling yeah they're okay yeah yeah they'll get by you know mining with chad has given greg a
01:02:40new sense of purpose and he's just a new man being closer to his son this hard rock mining is
01:02:48not
01:02:48easy you know i've seen them build it from the ground up and it's amazing what they've built
01:02:54it's nice to see you and chad working together yo god are you kidding me i love it it's just
01:02:58amazing turn into a hell of a team absolutely let's go take this final panel over this is really cool
01:03:09son
01:03:14the results of this test is very important this is a crucial test i'm hoping that we'll be able to
01:03:21find out how many grams of gold we can recover from what i'm seeing in this pan right now i
01:03:27am super
01:03:27excited because i am seeing some gold yeah baby man we need this
01:03:38oh i can't wait to show the guys this hey guys grab freddy he needs to see this
01:03:45what's that
01:03:49this might be better than we're anticipating i can see from here
01:03:53yep this is from the dump this is from the dump sir
01:03:58well if that's 10 time we multiply it by 200 for a ton right yes sir
01:04:04that's 300 a ton material okay chad could earn up to 3 000 a day running this grade of pay
01:04:14through
01:04:14his plant well guys that looks pretty good in the pan for that dump material it's better than what you
01:04:20ran the first time it looks like let's run it on the final test and let's learn together on what
01:04:25lives in it how much gold's in it okay all right thanks freddy yeah see you in a bit guys
01:04:34he ran the math and he looked at it and said that's 300 a ton what what on the dump
01:04:40we could
01:04:41literally go and pull this from the surface wow that's awesome oh my god
01:04:50we need this this could not only save our season now but next year
01:04:57it sounds like we're sitting on a gold mine
01:05:03literally
01:05:03literally i just did not expect this to happen sometimes you don't see it and take somebody
01:05:09else's eyes to show it to you wow where's ready i need to hug him
01:05:17good panning great news it's listen nice oh thank you seeing that much gold for such a small amount
01:05:25of material tells us that it's possible that we can be successful doing this and making a living at it
01:05:31it's never easy stuff will always break down but we know that when we persevere and we sample sample
01:05:37sample we can do this
01:05:50hey guys we're gonna have to do some grading on this road before we get the mini x here in
01:05:56the blazing sun
01:05:57of the mojave desert the gretzner crew collect ore from the old timers dump for a two-hour run
01:06:06they're working out here in the california desert chasing the american dream hopefully this bulk test
01:06:13is going to bear some fruit the thought of 10 000 ounces being here this would change the lives
01:06:19for our team we're hopeful that we'll be able to run the volume that we need
01:06:24to get the gold out of this ground right here this will be our last bucket load oh yeah we're
01:06:29full
01:06:29both bags are full
01:06:33they're done secure our load there is so much left in the hills is it easy to get yes let's
01:06:41go let's go
01:06:54so i was thinking about coming out the top there at the gretzner's hard rock mill what do you think
01:07:01with just 12 hours before the final test juan races to finish the sluice that will be positioned
01:07:08after the mill crushes the rock to a powder we're gonna do a small sluice box but on top of
01:07:15that small
01:07:15sluice box we're gonna build a little bit of a screen to be able to cut that bigger material out
01:07:19to prevent small rocks disturbing the flow of gold on the table juan has fabricated a vibrating
01:07:26screen to remove them and made a mini sluice to catch gold before the table
01:07:35juan hey how you doing greg ah i'm doing a lot better feeling better yeah happy to hear that buddy
01:07:40you know we love the whole dynamic here you know you and your son and if we can help you
01:07:44guys we want
01:07:45help you guys you know reach your goal what i can see you already have immensely so again thank you
01:07:50so no problem out of my heart hey thank you all right i'll see you here in a bit i
01:07:54like your setup
01:07:55too hey thank you take care bud working alongside of freddie and juan at first i was i mean nervous
01:08:04you know it was like oh my gosh it's freddie and juan but then when i saw their work ethics
01:08:10and they're
01:08:10just regular guys that just makes you really happy
01:08:22what do you think of that little guy freddie i like it i narrowed it up a little bit so
01:08:26it would
01:08:26fit inside that trough that's perfect yeah i just finished up the screen all it's going to do is cut
01:08:31out anything that's eighth of an inch and bigger going to cut it out into a bucket the smaller material
01:08:35and the water should still travel down the sluice box and be able to get recovered here and the little
01:08:39riffles we're going to put in and then make its way to the table
01:08:47i need to drop these a little more on the front yep
01:08:53yeah it's hitting the bottom of that chute taking away some of the vibration
01:08:58you know this is not ideal you know typically freddie and i like to get done a little quicker so
01:09:02that way
01:09:02we have a little more time to work out iron out any bugs if there's any but uh unfortunately we
01:09:07didn't
01:09:07have that with this build
01:09:23well i'm excited to see it run looking forward to it yeah me too it's been a hard week though
01:09:30it's been a busy week been hard hot a lot of work get the material in here and run a
01:09:37test
01:09:39well guys what do you think you ready to do a test run yes sir well i hope this material's
01:09:45got as much
01:09:46gold in it as that test that you guys crushed in that little crusher let's do it we got fuel
01:09:52good on one
01:09:54here we got the jaw pressure oh i i am tickled see all these uh new fixes work
01:10:01clear phil i'll set a timer yeah two hours
01:10:08find it up carrie
01:10:13right going up two first bag hard rock sourced from the old timer's ore dunk is loaded into the hopper
01:10:25that's perfect i like it previously with the chain pull it was a four minute four man job
01:10:33and ore would come packed in the hopper the way that eccentric's designed there's two weights on each
01:10:39side so as we bring those back opposite of each other you can slow that feed down you can speed
01:10:45it up
01:10:46now the winch takes less than 20 seconds to unload the bag and the eccentric motor aided by adjustable
01:10:55airbags helps throw the rock directly into the jaw crusher
01:11:02freddy it's working good
01:11:05i don't have to break anymore no more raking
01:11:11in the first test oversized rock clogged up the milling process in the second hopper and on the
01:11:18gold table losing valuable time and gold look how fine this is with the with the oversized knockoff
01:11:25well that screen down there didn't work at all no you had to sit there with a hammer so
01:11:31now we're getting it out of there when it needs to be out of there yeah
01:11:35now freddy and one have fitted screens throughout the system which will filter out any small rocks
01:11:43that block the finer gold from settling on the table oh yeah look at that line of gold i think
01:11:48it's spreading a little better yeah and it's not competing for the same space that the gold is
01:11:56actually i'd rather deal with it here than down here absolutely
01:12:02system's primed outside while the test continues here comes the water harry is trying to rescue
01:12:10another valuable commodity water can you check the table see if we got good flow all right i'll set
01:12:17water copy it's not pumping at all right now so what's going on for some reason this sand skew stopped
01:12:28performing a sand screw is able to recycle water for the gold table by separating it from the gravel
01:12:36the spiral of metal known as a weir slowly turns upwards carrying the sodden material as it lifts the
01:12:45water runs down from the weir blade to collect in the calming pool below the gravel sticks to the blades
01:12:52and travels up to the top becoming drier tailings
01:12:59oh it's plugged solid look how soupy this is it's probably 30 percent water now here every drop of water
01:13:13counts for you guys i'll bet you this is true we can save a bunch of its water here right
01:13:22now it's not
01:13:22working it's too steep for one it's set about eight degrees steeper than the steepest point you should
01:13:28have a sand screw at something i think my way through figure out a way to make it work it's
01:13:3526 degrees first
01:13:36thing i've seen and i'm like that thing's way too steep so i think we pick this end up and
01:13:42then we just
01:13:42shovel out from under it and then keep coming down with it until we get probably 15. yes sir
01:13:50well let's lower it down clear keep going we're down right now we're at about 19 and a half degrees
01:13:59which
01:14:00is a lot better than 26 because you've seen it would not carry your material up at that pitch
01:14:07well let's put some uh material in it some water see what it does
01:14:13freddy's simple fix could save the crew time and over 50 percent of their water
01:14:30we got a problem down here it's still blinding down in the bottom i don't know i really don't know
01:14:40well figure something out and i don't have time for you guys right now
01:14:44just leave me alone with the cameras for a bit
01:14:56it's vulture gold mine juan while traveling the lower 48th helping struggling miners
01:15:03freddy and juan take a break at the famous hard rock vulture mine there's 5 000 people here juan at
01:15:10one
01:15:10time man think about the families that lived out here the men that worked out here men that died
01:15:15here yeah it was a tough way to make a living back then still is i've worked underground enough to
01:15:20know
01:15:20how tough it is better not be claustrophobic no nope when the lights go out it's dark oh you've never
01:15:26felt darkness like that there is no darkness like it in colorado you go in at like 12 000 feet
01:15:32be 40
01:15:33below zero and get down to the bottom it's 110. every bit of you is just wet that's why they
01:15:39call
01:15:40it the dry up top yeah exactly these old timers were tough ready damn tough it's a rough life back
01:15:46there but i guarantee if we'd have had the opportunity to we'd probably been there you
01:15:50know i think it's kind of in our blood is that a lure yeah exactly
01:16:05eyeballs
01:16:12is it scary of me cutting your machine up like this there's a lot of things that scare me but
01:16:16cutting a piece of metal is not one of them at the gritzner mine in california an hour into the
01:16:22test freddie spotted a problem it takes a lot of resources for these guys to get water out here they
01:16:28have to haul it so every bit we can save is going to save them money down the line and
01:16:33time where they
01:16:33could be doing other things such as finding better gold deposits i'm going to take a little less out
01:16:39than i initially was just in case your material doesn't like it we can always take more out
01:16:45in order for the sand screw to work freddie cuts a drainage channel down one weir to let more water
01:16:53drain out well let's dump some sand and water in it and see what it does roger that sand's coming
01:17:00well hopefully this works here because we're running out of time fast
01:17:06i'm really curious to see that plug working that's something i would have never thought of
01:17:12this is why these guys are out here
01:17:22how's it working freddie is it working good nice
01:17:26look at the water how it's keeping heap and heap and heap and then look up here
01:17:30yeah it cuts it out by a lot it's got 90 of the water out of it from down here
01:17:34freddie's idea to drop the angle of the sand screw and cut a drainage channel in the weir has paid
01:17:41off
01:17:43huge difference huh just from that little gap right there
01:17:47it's crazy how something so simple works so well freddie yeah
01:17:52well if this thing keeps working like it is now you just lost the job out here
01:17:56i don't mind that part yep and much appreciated welcome
01:18:00yeah working with freddie's been cool anytime i meet someone new and work with someone i haven't
01:18:05before i get an opportunity to see some of the tricks of the trade and i've been watching them carefully
01:18:10so that's been nice
01:18:16how's it going that thing is no visible
01:18:18no but that's usual i'd shut it off there guys because by the time this gets up the belt will
01:18:24probably be exactly two hours right all right let's shut her down
01:18:30in the two-hour test run the gretzner crew has run double the amount of pay through its mill
01:18:38there's gold in it right here the whole band of gold up here is a bunch of gold
01:18:46water's off these guys have been great to work with you know they're they're not lazy you know
01:18:54they aren't sitting on their thumbs they want to get involved and that's good without that
01:18:59involvement from this group we wouldn't have got the amount of things done that we got done
01:19:18so how's it going guys hey hey you got the gold all dried yeah we do let's do it during
01:19:26the first
01:19:26two-hour test run yes it wasn't good you know for that amount of labor that you guys put into
01:19:31it
01:19:31i know it's a labor of love but when you're going broke it's not worth it well weigh it up
01:19:37juan well
01:19:37let's let chad do it yeah there you go chad it's your mind you do the honors
01:19:42to make the mine viable chad must produce at least a quarter of an ounce of gold there we go
01:19:48okay
01:19:48point zero one we're past what we yeah there we are yeah yeah yep there's still a lot of gold
01:19:54in the
01:19:54jar wow 0.07 9 10 11. wow wow 0.20 0.23 0.25 0.26 0.26 just
01:20:06over a quarter of an ounce
01:20:07yeah that's awesome that's great nice worth almost 500
01:20:12dollars freddie and juan have increased the gretzner's gold by 767 percent so it's dang near
01:20:2110 times the amount of gold in that pan with a lot less work freddie's gamble to run the old
01:20:27timers or
01:20:28dunk has paid off remind us again what was your goal for uh for the rest of the season we
01:20:33gotta hit
01:20:3420 ounces before summer heats us up okay and we don't have a whole lot of time left to do
01:20:39that
01:20:39yeah maybe six weeks that's achievable easily you're gonna exceed your goal if you can get a 10
01:20:46hour day running here right at 1.1 tons per hour that's 11 tons a day right if you kept
01:20:53it running
01:20:53every day that's 100 000 bucks a month in just 30 days the crew has the potential to beat their
01:21:0020
01:21:00ounce season gold twice over that's no joke that's some serious money that's amazing there's 40 000
01:21:09tons there roughly he'll be running on that stuff for a while what do you guys think about that that
01:21:14is awesome that's massive wow i couldn't be happier you know because what we've done here may change
01:21:21these guys future and seeing the smiles on their faces when we weighed the gold you know nothing beats
01:21:26that oh my gosh that's so pretty right gold mining has definitely brought my son and i so much closer
01:21:35i i wouldn't trade it for the world it didn't just solidify the son and me but our whole team
01:21:41our whole team so yeah one hell of a week we're excited for you guys you know honestly we see
01:21:48that
01:21:49it makes everything we did and all the hard work you guys have put in you know worth it because
01:21:52now
01:21:52it's it's a possibility this is a real possibility freddie and i are actually leaving today knowing
01:21:58that the adjustments we made in their mill they at least have the tools to be able to make themselves
01:22:02successful stay in touch guys good working with you buddy thank you take care take care bye
01:22:09i'm really excited about this the potential now with what i saw today prior to that goldway we were
01:22:18running this out of our pockets because we weren't making enough gold to basically even pay the
01:22:22electric bill now that's off the table with what freddie and juan have designed for us and the
01:22:28efficiencies that we have and this gold dump that freddie discovered is going to put us in the profit
01:22:34column the future definitely looks bright in this regard considering the gold recovery we just got and
01:22:39what we're potentially standing on but i'm going to go through it and make it happen first and then
01:22:44and then i'll do the happy dance our future is is wide open our future is so bright we got
01:22:49to wear shades
01:22:50like it's going to be wonderful well this week has been a roller coaster the gold recovery that we
01:22:56have and now what that means for our team what matters most to us is relationships and i think we'll
01:23:03we have a stronger relationship now than even ever our future looks bright guys let's go make it happen
01:23:08what do you say we go get some go get some gold let's go get some gold all right
01:23:15so
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