- 12 minutes ago
Gold Rush Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan Season 6 Episode 4
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TVTranscript
00:00:02it's a long climb to the top and we're still just trying to crawl out of the hole that we
00:00:06dug
00:00:08on this episode of mine rescue look at that thing shake side to side
00:00:13we're gonna tear that screen apart young guns gamble it all on a high stakes hunt for gold
00:00:22was that the battle's done here for now no no no but when the crew threatens to walk
00:00:29i can't keep coming out here hemorrhaging time and money lost hope in this thing
00:00:35i hear you freddie and one go above and beyond there's your treasure map whoa
00:00:42coming down to save their future right now i'm the boss our job isn't done until he's 100% running
00:00:51oh look at that fingers crossed that it works
00:00:58that's awesome
00:01:12sure a pretty valley one yeah that's for sure fred
00:01:17there made a lot of millionaires but at the same time there was a hell of a lot of people
00:01:21the one girl trying to get gold
00:01:25southwest montana 60 miles from helena greenhorn mine boss tyler newhall is in his second year of
00:01:34operation
00:01:39how you guys doing
00:01:39good how are you guys good great this is good to see you here
00:01:44i'm one dustin dustin nice to meet you so here's your plant huh there she is
00:01:49wow you got some big equipment out here yeah you got some iron on the ground yeah for sure
00:01:53we're buried in iron that could be good or bad how long have you guys worked together
00:01:58well we've been working together about 10 years now we had a couple of good years in construction
00:02:03and uh it slowed way down and so we dove into mining thinking i could do this and well it's
00:02:09our second season going at it and boy is it more of a challenge than i ever dreamt of
00:02:16tyler and his young team dustin yeah taylor alex yeah bills to pay and partner shelby run a huge arsenal
00:02:27of machines across their 117 acre claim
00:02:31i feel like we've assembled a five-star team of miners that has gobs of potential out here
00:02:37but i'm struggling to pay my guys and i've got a lot of iron burning fuel and the expenses it's
00:02:43a big chunk
00:02:44you know coming up with 20 grand a month is not something most people pull off you better have good
00:02:50gold in the ground to be able to do so but having a child on the way is the biggest
00:02:55pressure
00:02:56and ultimately it comes down to providing for my family you know my guys so that they can keep the
00:03:01house over their heads as well i don't have a choice and so pressure's on me tyler first met dustin
00:03:10after a life-changing event forged their friendship i lost my brother in the military and tyler kind of
00:03:19stepped up to be a an emotional big brother to me i more or less followed tyler's ambition to come
00:03:28out
00:03:28and try something new ever since then his mentality and his attitude really gave me a boost to be able
00:03:36to
00:03:36follow tyler in this industry for the past two years dustin has been tyler's right-hand man
00:03:44but so far this season he hasn't been paid i feel like i'd be letting tyler down if i wasn't
00:03:52still standing by his side and actively helping him pursue his dream
00:03:59so you got a background on moving dirt and we're good at moving mass quantities of material
00:04:04we're efficient at it huge difference between construction and gold though
00:04:08so what's your motivation dustin well i believe in tyler and everything that we've been trying to
00:04:14achieve out here and when we first put teeth in the ground and found gold it was immediate rush
00:04:19we've we got that gold rush we've got gold fever that's broke a lot of people
00:04:26yeah but you know i'm keeping high hopes on this this gold mine it's a high risk high reward game
00:04:31and
00:04:31i'm here to party i'm gonna i'm gonna give it all i got do you own the equipment or i'm
00:04:37in a lot of
00:04:37debt on the equipment yeah there's 10 000 a month you know that's 6 500 a month another 10 000
00:04:44a month
00:04:44the rock truck's another 18 000 a month so do you own the plant outright or
00:04:48i'm still paying for that as well okay okay i'm in excess of a million dollars into this entire operation
00:04:57okay so it's serious now it's serious i'm struggling to pay the bills child on the way and
00:05:04we got a big hole to crawl out of here so what's your break even point what do you got
00:05:09to make daily
00:05:10to be able to make this work well two ounces a day would cover our expenses break even we got
00:05:17to do a
00:05:18little better than two ounces a day then you know you can't do all this work for just to break
00:05:21even
00:05:22if you got a lot of risk here you got to have a reward as well so do you have
00:05:26any gold we can look
00:05:26at i do get a few pieces in the jar left here it's not much pretty small stuff there ain't
00:05:33a whole
00:05:33lot in there yeah i've been having to sell it it goes from sluice box to someone else's bank account
00:05:38yeah yeah so how did you guys end up finding gold out here i once heard an old timer say
00:05:43go look for
00:05:44gold where the old timers were finding it and pick up where they left off we just saw a virgin
00:05:48ground and we see over the hill here a bunch of tailings we found gold by tipping a couple trees
00:05:54over and putting teeth in the ground so we must be in the right spot but we're at the point
00:05:58where
00:05:58you know machines are sitting expenses are accruing because we can't keep the thing going
00:06:03yep i guess uh do a test huh see what things look like burning daylight let's get it going
00:06:08yeah let's fire it up honestly i'm worried for tyler because you know it's overwhelming he's got a
00:06:14whole group of friends that followed him out here and he's got a baby on the way but you can
00:06:19tell he's
00:06:20not afraid of hard work you know so that's what it's going to take i'm really hoping that freddie
00:06:24and i can make his dreams viable because from the sounds of it he really needs it
00:06:38first bucket launch want to start your time fred let's run a four-hour test let's do it
00:06:44oh man it's great freddie lawn are finally here we're facing the uncertainty of not being able to put
00:06:50food on the table and i don't want to let my guys down hoping freddie and juan can help me
00:06:55make this
00:06:56thing happen tyler loads pay into the 10-foot hopper which feeds into a shaker deck driven by spinning
00:07:05eccentric weights powered by a hydraulic motor spray bars wash pay down through a punch plate
00:07:12and lower screen where the gold is recovered in a z-shaped sluice
00:07:19essentially we should be on our second load by now and this is too slow operators alex and taylor
00:07:27leased their excavator and rock truck to tyler but like dustin they too haven't been paid this season
00:07:36i've been out here for two months just don't know if i got it in me for much more of
00:07:41this you know
00:07:43i think tyler's a great guy as much as i want to help him and make his dream come true
00:07:48i can't do it
00:07:50for free i got two kids and a family feed and i gotta keep the gotta keep the money rolling
00:07:57in
00:07:58i mean we're tens of thousands of dollars in machinery alone and then plus your fuel per day
00:08:04there is gonna be a time where you're gonna have to pull out um and go somewhere else
00:08:11you're good to go princess i'll be back in a minute
00:08:15this isn't a weekend warrior operation here i mean look at the equipment that's sitting here
00:08:21that's no hobby mine sure hobby mine you're out having fun but tyler's guys haven't been paid
00:08:27and when that happens morale goes down so this situation they have everything on the line here
00:08:39looking good so i think you can go just that scoge quicker i know there's a happy medium
00:08:44great
00:08:49that's a full screen for sure
00:08:53holy i'm curious what that sluice box feels like
00:09:08what's going on there's an inch of material on top of the ripples ripples are plugged up huh
00:09:13yeah they're running pretty heavy there's a lot of material going through that box
00:09:19yeah the excavator bucket used to feed the plant creates surges of pain that block the riffles
00:09:27i know he wants to try to jam as much material as he can through that plant but that's hurting
00:09:30his
00:09:31recovery then you're just throwing gold away yeah the gold can't find a home
00:09:37look at that thing shake side to side yeah you don't need to have tremendous amount of weight like
00:09:42that and see how the one side shaking more than the other yeah it's gonna tear that screen apart
00:09:46before too long yep we've been fighting the leveling too the level's been a real hard hard objective to get
00:09:54past
00:10:00the plant just shut down long yeah it did
00:10:04quit shaking already hydraulic motor motor ticket yep just 20 minutes into the first test run tyler's
00:10:13hydraulic motor that powers the eccentric has failed tyler that was 20 minutes didn't make it very long did it
00:10:23no no
00:10:24it didn't
00:10:27bypassing internally i bet summer that's new too it's new
00:10:33just my luck
00:10:38honestly that's just it's really small motor for that big of a weight were those weights on here when
00:10:42you got it no we made them they're a little aggressive tyler's large weights which move the
00:10:49shaker deck are too heavy for the motor that drives them well this is a pretty occurring thing that's
00:10:55happening to us on the daily we can't run more than it seems like three or four hours without this
00:11:01thing
00:11:01breaking if it's not the motor it's the deck it's not the deck it's something else that we find along
00:11:07the
00:11:07lines
00:11:10one of myself were worried the plant wasn't even going to run four hours because it's just violent
00:11:15right yeah we were worried for a reason because uh it did 20 minutes tyler and this crew they're on
00:11:21their last leg we've never been in a spot like this before we're in real trouble
00:11:30coming up let's get this thing fired up right in the hole this is a joke come this way go
00:11:38easy guys
00:11:41easy it's time to start seeing some gold in the box let's wait up huh
00:11:59so what i'm doing here i'm grabbing some of the coarse material coming off the end of the screen
00:12:04as you can see here we're losing quite a bit of finding material at the new hole mine in southwest
00:12:12montana juan pans the tailings after a disastrous first test run there's obviously a chance we're
00:12:20going to be losing gold as well so i want to see how much material is in here fine material
00:12:23and kind of get an idea how much we're losing through the screen because we're running too much
00:12:36there's gold in it
00:12:40so if in one pan right now visibly six colors
00:12:46so there's one color that's sizable but there's a bunch of in there that's 100 measure smaller
00:12:51that's definitely an issue that we're going to have to address
00:13:00we've seen the issues we've seen but we weren't able to watch it as long as we'd have liked to
00:13:04right right i think what we ought to do just so we kind of get a good starting baseline is
00:13:10we ought
00:13:10to pull the box and see what's in it kind of gives us a good starting point yeah that sounds
00:13:14great
00:13:14sounds like a plan end up see you in the morning all right guys thanks okay thank you guys
00:13:20i'll wait for tyler i suppose yeah i just don't see the point of hammering more money you know
00:13:27yeah especially if we're not getting paid right we've helped tyler quite a bit with equipment and
00:13:34fuel and labor and we're not seeing a huge return on it so we gotta take a break you know
00:13:39pump the
00:13:40brakes a little bit and see what we can do moving forward
00:13:44for alex and taylor the shaker deck setback is just more evidence that their next payday
00:13:51could still be out of reach
00:13:54i want to go mine i want to go mine my grandfather go mine and way back all those years
00:14:00ago in alaska
00:14:01and i i came here with expectation we're gonna be running non-stop
00:14:07is there anything in there annie and i got bills to pay i got mouths to feed and we haven't
00:14:14had the
00:14:14gold return that we thought we would it's tough we want to do what's best for the plant but it
00:14:20comes
00:14:20down to it how much is how much heading out yeah i figured while they're working on the wash plant
00:14:29save some money yeah it sucks to see it go but i get it it's pretty devastating i really wanted
00:14:36these guys to make a killer living potentially but no one wants to go long periods of time without a
00:14:41paycheck i get that it's not for everyone but i'm hopeful that alex and taylor will be back out here
00:14:46we're gonna make a name for ourselves in this
00:15:02well moment of truth on one let's go away some gold huh yeah freddie and one arrived to weigh the
00:15:08gold from the first 20 minute test run hi shelby nice to meet you how we doing this morning late
00:15:14night up panning gold all night i betcha oh yeah let's weigh it up huh pour it in see we
00:15:22got
00:15:26tenth of an ounce
00:15:30quarter of an ounce
00:15:36well 0.47 one yeah 0.47 that's not terrible if we'd have got a four-hour run that'd be
00:15:43six ounces roughly yeah yeah tyler's on track to make a profit but he'd need to run for a full
00:15:49day
00:15:51we know the gold's there wish we could run a little longer yeah us too you know it's kind
00:15:56of a shame it doesn't matter how great your ground is if you can't run if you're broke down more
00:15:59than
00:15:59half the time no we're lucky if we can get four to six hours a week realistically here in order
00:16:06to be
00:16:06able to make it viable we need to run consistently that's going to be the tricky part you know there's
00:16:10so
00:16:10much going on on that plant right now that you know genuinely it's going to need a ton of work
00:16:15a tremendous amount yeah there's your gold we're going to go put our heads together for a minute
00:16:20thanks pretty thanks one you're welcome you guys in a bit
00:16:25feels like it's take a step forward take three steps back no one's getting paid when the plant's
00:16:30not washing i'm hoping freddy'd want to be able to turn this thing around
00:16:42do you want me to look through the bills yeah we better get to it pretty ugly stack of bills
00:16:50ain't it
00:16:56i'm kind of scared to open them there's a thirty thousand dollar tax bill there's another seven
00:17:04thousand dollar tax bill there's a ten thousand dollar credit card got lots of bills paid yeah
00:17:10you know it's adding up the excavator the loader the royalties the you know we need to get busy out
00:17:18there yeah we do because these bills aren't going to pay the bills we're not financially stable and need
00:17:25to get this thing up and running shelby has worked on the mine alongside tyler for the past year we
00:17:35got a
00:17:35baby on the way just gonna be here before we know it and can't really have any more down time
00:17:42and
00:17:43yeah definitely in a hole
00:17:48i think that we get this thing back up and going here in no time hope so my mama didn't
00:17:54raise no quitter
00:17:55enjoy you
00:18:12that test run was pitiful the hard thing is we had 20 minutes to watch it run so we really
00:18:16didn't
00:18:16get a feel for everything that was going on now granted you know we got decent gold out of it
00:18:21but
00:18:21the plant is completely in shambles and the truth is he's got a million dollars invested into this he's
00:18:27in in the hole on every piece of equipment even the plant this is probably one of the harder rescues
00:18:32we've come into biggest issue obviously is reliability you know there was recovery problems
00:18:36too yeah with fine fine gold it's something that needs to be addressed exactly his shaking mechanism
00:18:43he's got entirely too much weight offset weight we've both seen that oh it was shaking sideways
00:18:48well let's go talk to him all right let's do it
00:18:55hey guys you know obviously right now we have a plant that's completely busted right and operational
00:19:01yeah you know one of the big things we want to do is make it reliable complete new eccentric system
00:19:07on it yeah we may be able to get that plant where it's running better or have less breakdowns that
00:19:11would go a long way so you have two ways of making a screen shake one with weight or two
00:19:16with less weight
00:19:17more rpms and that's our plan not only is it going to increase the reliability but it should increase
00:19:22your gold by about 15 to 20 percent wow plants shouldn't be breaking down that often one of the things
00:19:28that's causing that is over feeding i think honestly what you're doing there is you're actually
00:19:33hindering your recovery and you're cleaning shooting myself in the foot yeah you're losing money out of
00:19:38the pay that's valuable to you you know if it means throttling back a little bit you know sometimes less
00:19:43is more even if we slow you down we're hoping to get you an ounce an hour yeah so if
00:19:48you run an eight
00:19:48hour day hopefully eight ounces yeah i'd love to see an eight hour day next freddie and i talked about
00:19:53it
00:19:53and we would like to try to get you guys a conveyor to even out the feed rate yeah i
00:19:58like that idea
00:19:58another thing we'd like to do is revamp your recovery system and your sluices add another sluice
00:20:04box on the end so reliability and then also gold recovery i think even more important than that
00:20:11is staying ahead of the cut yeah we need to look at the ground because it's going to change on
00:20:15you and
00:20:16if gold was everywhere it wouldn't be worth anything right right now we have a plant that's down so
00:20:21across the board there's going to be a lot of material here well we were kind of thinking
00:20:26it's going to be roughly eight thousand dollars in material
00:20:32then on top of that we'd like an ounce of gold a piece
00:20:37that's quite a bit of money but i like it whatever it takes sounds like a deal but if we
00:20:45don't get
00:20:45started it ain't gonna happen so we'll start ordering part thanks guys thank you you're welcome
00:20:50thanks guys appreciate it hearing freddie and juan's proposal there could be light at the end of
00:20:56the tunnel i i think eight ounces in a full day that's great news i love it it's been very
00:21:03overwhelming
00:21:03it's been stressful to get the right kind of help when needed means a lot there's a lot to do
00:21:11here and
00:21:11on top of that his guys aren't real happy right now so i'm really hoping with what we do here
00:21:16he'll be
00:21:16able to try to make it right here we go at the new hall mine in southwest montana work is
00:21:37underway to revive
00:21:38tyler's operation really hoping these guys can help us turn this season into a win to tackle reliability
00:21:46pretty and one will overhaul the unbalanced shaker system which causes massive strain on the plant
00:21:54they will upgrade the drive system by installing a new shaft and bearings and replace tyler's homemade
00:22:02setup with smaller precision balanced weights to minimize breakdowns to aid gold recovery freddie and
00:22:10juan will slow the feed rate to allow the pay to wash for longer and add a new 10-foot
00:22:16long box with
00:22:17signature riffles on the end of the existing sluice run finally to increase the feed consistency to the plant
00:22:25in an ambitious mine rescue first they'll aim to add a conveyor the only problem they'll need to find one
00:22:34locally
00:22:38we got to get the screen deck out of the way lift it off as tyler removes the eccentric shaker
00:22:45deck off the wash plan
00:22:49hey trav what are you doing one calls for reinforcements i need you to jump in the truck
00:22:55go grab alex and uh i need you guys to come out to montana i have some parts down there
00:23:00with matt
00:23:01can you run down there and grab them sounds good all right thank you on the road all right appreciate
00:23:06it bye freddie and i didn't expect to come out here and have to rebuild the plant you know we
00:23:11tried our
00:23:11best to get everything here in town we couldn't find the parts that we needed i was able to get
00:23:14them in
00:23:14reno so i'm going to have travis and alex jump in the truck and bring them out to us
00:23:22yeah baby one's first task cut the steel for the new recovery sluice basically what we're doing
00:23:29instead of having to shoot transferring material that doesn't have a chance to get recovered any gold
00:23:35what we're going to do is put a sluice box in there so that way if there is material that
00:23:39does have gold
00:23:40they can get caught here he's in debt over a million dollars here in the operation and with
00:23:46everything that tyler's got going on here between his ground his wash plant his recovery system you
00:23:51know we got our work cut out for us because he needs help in every aspect of the mining process
00:24:02well what we ought to do is do a little bit of testing on your elevations in your highwall
00:24:07kind of have a look at that material and see what lives there the current cut produces good gold now
00:24:15but freddie takes dustin on a prospect to identify the long-term profit potential let's grab some stuff i
00:24:22have in here and for this freddie's brought colored marker flags we'll pan up the wall kind of see what
00:24:29our different layers do have you tried that before no i'm kind of just out here digging willy-nilly
00:24:36i don't know what i'm looking for where to look for you don't want to be running material that doesn't
00:24:41have gold in it or doesn't have enough well dustin said he just gets in and digs which to me
00:24:48that's
00:24:48that's not a good thing because it costs just as much money to run a rock that isn't accompanied
00:24:53by gold as rocks that are accompanied by gold you know the price is the same the wash plant doesn't
00:24:58care the track hoe doesn't care but the pocketbook cares so there's a lot more investigating to do here
00:25:03we'll get in there take a few pans and uh go from there we're uh kind of searching a treasure
00:25:10map
00:25:11here right now we want to test those gravels above bedrock there's bedrock you got bedrock yep let's fill
00:25:18that pan
00:25:23test in here from bedrock to a foot above okay take that lower very bottom of it now
00:25:32let's see what it looks like
00:25:46lots of heavies there's 21 colors in the pan amazing i know nothing about holding a pan in
00:25:55my hand and being able to pan gold and see gold come out i know nothing of that nature we're
00:26:00dirt
00:26:01workers we move dirt we've exhausted our expertise freddie and juan have the knowledge the capability
00:26:09the tools and the right mindset to steer us in the right direction because i can't keep coming out
00:26:16here and hemorrhaging time and money without some sort of return let's put a green flag there dustin
00:26:24there's enough color there that it shows us you know there's going to be decent gold on that layer
00:26:29freddie needs to identify any pay streak formations in the cut he uses colored flags to plot out good fair
00:26:38and poor pan results now you say we got all this bigger rock here yeah so let's take some of
00:26:45this
00:26:46material kind of getting material from different spots in the face not all out of one hole gives us
00:26:54a more representative picture of the face you want to pan this one sure i'll give it a shot give
00:27:01her hell
00:27:02treat it like you don't like it don't be afraid to get a little violent with it
00:27:08okay pan some of it off yeah i'd like to see you finish it freddie okay swipe your pan from
00:27:15you
00:27:15you always let the water do the work you make this look easy freddie and i'm doing it slow because
00:27:20i'm
00:27:20teaching you four colors which isn't the greatest so we're gonna put a caution amber in there what
00:27:29this means is we need to test more of it but had 30 colors in it there'd be a green
00:27:34flag here and on an
00:27:35amber right yeah that makes sense but it doesn't mean that there isn't 30 colors over in that part of
00:27:43it down where we'd have to swim to get to right sure i gotta get going so keep testing see
00:27:49what
00:27:49you see appreciate it thanks freddie you're welcome
00:27:56what i'd like to see is a lot of green flags in there
00:28:01one of the worries i have is this valley's been hit pretty hard
00:28:05there really is good gold here but these guys really got to get ahead on their ground
00:28:09my goal is to find somebody that knows this valley because these guys are in a tough financial
00:28:17situation i need to find where the best pay is on this ground here for tyler so we know what's
00:28:22there
00:28:22for the future
00:28:30tyler can you grab that in i want it over hanging about an inch this stuff perfect this is going
00:28:36to be
00:28:36the beginning of the new sluice box so we'll put this up here on edge and then we'll use
00:28:39these magnets to kind of get it in the area we need it to be at the cut trailer juan
00:28:46and tyler
00:28:47assemble the new 10-foot recovery sluice i saw that the rest of your crew's gone it's tough we're not
00:28:53not washing not a whole lot for everyone to do you know everyone's got to work where they can when
00:28:58they
00:28:58can it's difficult yeah you know i can tell you're kind of a guy uh that kind of keeps silent
00:29:03about a lot
00:29:03of things but you're a little stressed out a little bit yeah the hairs are getting great
00:29:09yeah i got a lot weighing down on me yeah you know it's if we could just keep keep mining
00:29:14keep washing
00:29:15sluice loose loose but having a plant down all the time just doesn't cut it and we've been really
00:29:20struggling i can see you're overwhelmed you know before my business really took off there was a lot of
00:29:27years that were really super lean behind on my mortgage payment behind on truck payments you know
00:29:33it was tough oh yeah it is you know when you got so many people riding on it and then
00:29:37you're the guy
00:29:38that they look to right there's no one i can just send an invoice to gold mine and it's 100
00:29:43percent
00:29:43depending on a working wash plant yeah everyone wants their money at the end of the day having all
00:29:48your buddies work with you is great you know at the end of the day it's it's what they see
00:29:52right
00:29:52yeah you know oh yeah they follow the leader oh yeah you've got to put your head down and just
00:29:56put
00:29:57your nose to the grindstone and go you know it doesn't help to feel sorry for yourself you know
00:30:00you just gotta because it's not going to help your situation if you're the leader you're working your
00:30:04tail off they're going to follow you got a lead by example yeah 100 well let's get back to it
00:30:10huh
00:30:13i honestly think tyler right now is overwhelmed with what's going on financially
00:30:17his responsibilities owing people hopefully with what we do it'll help them get them right on the
00:30:23on track to be able to get that caught up and run this mine efficiently
00:30:32coming up oh my gosh let's fire it up guys it's go time
00:30:40well let's make some gold man let's do it all right ready shut up now i'm out of here
00:30:49that dream is starting to fade i'm at my breaking point
00:31:03we're going to meet up with the claim owner his name's duane he's owned these claims a long time
00:31:08there ought to be a wealth of information on this valley in southwest montana freddy's on the hunt for
00:31:16future ground hello i'm duane nice to meet you sir doing all right welcome to the kit carson placer
00:31:25my man how long have you had this place 18 years 18 you ought to know quite a bit about
00:31:30it then huh
00:31:30oh just what we found out over the years trial and error and rumors well you can tell it was
00:31:36a drag
00:31:36line that did all this they had a 25-foot cable and they'd throw it out and they'd drag it
00:31:42and throw
00:31:43it out and drag it until they get the bedrock then they'd do a clean out running through their little
00:31:47wash pile and i understand it was not self-propelled so they'd have to drag it 25 feet with the
00:31:53steam
00:31:53shoveler keep hopscotching your way up the valley in the 1930s high gold prices see thousands of
00:32:01prospectors flock to the area in the hopes of striking it rich huge machines known as drag lines
00:32:09tear through the valley their buckets suspended from a boom by a series of cables pulled along the
00:32:16bottom of the pond riverbed or pit they scoop up sediment hopefully rich in gold
00:32:26and that time the fine gold was kind of hard to get to so they mostly took out the bigger
00:32:33stuff
00:32:34luckily right now that's good news we can tell they've done a lot of work in here that's for sure
00:32:38run for about two miles okay so on that virgin ground that's in your bank right right it could
00:32:45pay off some in the end i think well we'll do our best while we're here thank you for your
00:32:50time sir
00:32:51you have a great day thank you
00:32:56it was good to talk to duane sounds like there's a lot more ground that hasn't been mined in this
00:33:02valley
00:33:03that they own that's good for tyler in the future we could find something that the drag lines missed and
00:33:11that should be more profitable so he can get that money in his pocket now because he's got a tremendous
00:33:17amount of debt let's burn it this is a gold miner's dream in a box it really does save a
00:33:29ton of time
00:33:30back on site juan cuts the distribution chute which will carry material into the new sluice
00:33:38so you getting excited about your little one on his way i am yeah yeah little boy or little girl
00:33:43little girl yeah a little ally we can't wait forward to get here after the plasma jet cuts the half
00:33:49inch
00:33:49thick steel pieces juan and tyler race to assemble the chute we'll start tacking things together as long as
00:33:57it holds right that's all that matters so you watch you can run it just like you run 7018 you
00:34:04got to
00:34:04move a little quicker all right you want to go for it you're more than welcome to
00:34:10you know he's been patching up this plant for the last few years so you can tell that he knows
00:34:13what
00:34:13he's doing with a welder this piece that we're building is going to help him catch more gold so
00:34:18it's good that he's seen how it's put together so that way when it comes time to repair he knows
00:34:21how to do it
00:34:26how's it looking it's not as pretty as yours but all right i think it'll work not bad you're doing
00:34:31good we'll glue her together
00:34:39how's it going dustin going pretty good how you doing freddie doing all right
00:34:43in the cut freddie checks if his flags point to pay looks like you've done quite a few pounds by
00:34:50the
00:34:50flags in the wall huh yeah i've been down here for a couple hours looking at your wall there and
00:34:56i see
00:34:56all your green flags are where they should be above this bedrock the exciting thing here is we got high
00:35:02bedrock here right yeah and we've got high bedrock over there so my thoughts there might be a channel
00:35:09running right through here i think pop some of that loose and see what lives under it and some
00:35:13of those cracks where the two sections of bedrock meet a natural gold trap may have formed we know
00:35:21the water flow is going this way right down this valley yep so you know this riffle that's a backside
00:35:28so if a piece of gold was on here you know there's a chance it fell off right here and
00:35:33never found a way
00:35:35out sure so yeah just start loading the pan up there out of these cracks take these pieces like
00:35:42this right so pop them out let's look underneath them and see if we see these rounded gravels
00:35:49underneath there oh yeah stream gravel yep so it got stuck in there so if it's stuck in there
00:35:56you know there's a chance there's some gold in there we almost have a pan full here let's have a
00:36:02look
00:36:02at it see what lives in it this would be a good test yeah i see about six pieces and
00:36:14i don't not even pan
00:36:15down yet 52 maybe more there's a lot of color in that pan there is
00:36:29so if we just found let's say 50 colors on a high spot bedrock what's it like under this water
00:36:36over
00:36:36here in the bedrock it's usually a deep channel is your best goal and it's a big if right there
00:36:42are
00:36:42some technologies out there that might be able to give us a clue if this is a channel for one
00:36:48and what
00:36:49direction it goes for two if freddy's hunch is correct a gold rich channel could secure the future
00:36:56for tyler and his crew
00:37:00dan it's freddy dodge hey freddy how you doing you bring some of your tools out here
00:37:05give us a hand yeah we can do that sharpen your pencil and let me know dan i appreciate it
00:37:11okay
00:37:20absolutely bye so you know watching tyler's plant plant was constantly searching and that's an issue
00:37:26so one of the things that i really wanted to do was to get a consistent feed i made a
00:37:32few phone calls
00:37:32i'm going to look at a piece of equipment 30 miles south of the new hall mine one may have
00:37:39found a fix
00:37:39for tyler's surging plant i actually got a hold of a gentleman called bill hollow he said he's got
00:37:45a scrap yard full of new and used equipment that he had an old feeder here that he thinks it
00:37:49would
00:37:49work for our purpose you know it hasn't ran in a few years so it's a gamble bill how you
00:37:58doing sir
00:37:59hello there juan how are you good good to see you so this is the conveyor with the feeder on
00:38:04there in
00:38:05hopper yes there's the old girl do you know if it runs bill you know honestly i do not know
00:38:12that for
00:38:13sure there's definitely a lot more work here than i anticipated how quick you get it out there for me
00:38:18get up there this afternoon for you you said 10 year warranty on this right well you misunderstood the
00:38:2310. it's 10 feet or 10 minutes whichever comes first
00:38:33it's a bit of a gamble but uh i'm good with it sounds good thank you bill
00:38:40to prevent the plant from surging one's conveyor should allow a steady feed and stop tyler from losing gold
00:38:50that feeder and that conveyor are in worse condition than i thought they would be but
00:38:53honestly i don't have a choice from the beginning we planned one of the more ambitious rescues that
00:38:58we were going to do because we thought we were going to have the help unfortunately that didn't work
00:39:02out you know tyler's guys went home well hopefully this new addition to the plant will persuade them back
00:39:18well the survey guys are on their way in at the new hall mine in southwest montana freddy's called
00:39:25in geophysicist daniel kramer to help locate a gold channel how's it going guys hey pretty good good to
00:39:32see you again good to see you yeah absolutely what do we got going on well we've got a low
00:39:37spot in bedrock
00:39:38you can see they're cut here yep but i don't know if it's a channel or if it's just a
00:39:42low spot yeah it's
00:39:43a nice trap yeah exactly so my thoughts are we run a line right here on the downstream side of
00:39:51their cut that makes sense yeah and then three or four upstream and if there is a channel you know
00:39:56we might be able to track it and find it connect the dots and we'll probably see it if it's
00:39:59there yeah
00:40:01pretty's plan slowly work up the cut in sections using an electro resistivity machine
00:40:08that measures how easily an electric current passes through the ground daniel's technology
00:40:14should identify any contours in the bedrock that might indicate an ancient river channel
00:40:21well grab your gear yeah all right yeah let's do it well if there is a trending channel in here
00:40:28the odds are it should be better gold in that so and better gold means paying off your bills faster
00:40:35to back up the electrical data daniel will also use a seismograph that monitors sound waves 100 feet
00:40:44you're basically taking sound inducing it into the ground and seeing how it bounces off of different
00:40:48rocks different layers and that's how we then interpret from that okay go ahead yeah okay 105
00:41:01they need to find the most rich area for gold then we need to identify this bedrock area where two
00:41:07pieces of bedrock come together and make a channel a river channel slowly carves its way down a valley
00:41:14over millions of years as the ground erodes and the channel shifts course it leaves behind gravel benches
00:41:22which could contain gold at bedrock all right you should be at 45
00:41:31nope didn't take we think it's our sensor no you got to swing like grandpa curtis
00:41:38that was good we're good what happens next is i'm going to get all this data i'm going to go
00:41:44back
00:41:44i'll create a really nice map that i can give to freddy and it's going to show bedrock it's going
00:41:49to show
00:41:49the paleo channel if it exists and from that he's going to hopefully be able to dig down and really
00:41:54find the gold daniel will feed back the results to freddy within 24 hours
00:42:00ah that a boy all right we're all good to go we can close it up
00:42:15still a lot to do yeah and uh i'm just really concerned fred because when it comes down to it
00:42:20you know you know better than i do it's always really tough to try to make a decision what we
00:42:24have to do on a plant when we only watch it run 20 minutes so there could be other problems
00:42:28as well
00:42:28yeah after four days on tyler's mind freddy and juan still have a mountain of work i know it's going
00:42:35to be tight on time fred travis and alex aren't here yet and uh we really got to get started
00:42:40on
00:42:40that eccentric rebuild it's just a matter of do we have enough time and on top of that we got
00:42:46that
00:42:46conveyor coming in today i'm worried too you know we got other miners we got to help yeah you know
00:42:51i i
00:42:51hate it because you know i always want to we want to push the envelope but we can get him
00:42:56to do most of
00:42:56the work on that conveyor get it going it frees us up to keep on working on what we need
00:43:01to do
00:43:01i agree with that we got to get stuff done and get it done quick
00:43:10would you look at this thing dustin oh my god oh damn
00:43:21she's a beaut i feel like this might be the puzzle pieces we've been missing
00:43:26this is a game changer right here one mile from the new hall claim tyler and dustin collect their
00:43:33vintage seven ton conveyor what do you think you want the loader or the hole first they must remove
00:43:41it from the truck let's do the loader first unless you think you can lift it i bet i could
00:43:50get her ready when you are i don't want it to tip
00:44:00that's get her go ahead
00:44:06this is a big big unit
00:44:12all right i guess here we go guys
00:44:21oh yeah nice and straight dustin
00:44:26oh hold on buddy hold on a sec watch out on that side turn that way a little bit
00:44:32here we go here we go this is the moment of truth here
00:44:46it's off and it is in one piece
00:45:03we're gonna have to cut this out and it's not going to be an easy one because they welded the
00:45:07back out of it for one and i don't have time for it but it's got to be done
00:45:13back on site freddy's hit an unexpected problem to replace the drive shaft on the eccentric
00:45:20he has to remove the punch plate and its welding we're gonna throw some fire around here
00:45:26get out the air arc and see what we can do
00:45:31while freddy cuts through the steel welds
00:45:37calling you again trav one checks on travis and alex who were due with the new shaft and bearings
00:45:43for the eccentric hey trav where are you guys we're waiting for the parts took long as i expected
00:45:49but we're on the road now we're stretched really thin right now we need the parts we need them
00:45:54yesterday okay yeah just get out here as quick as you can please be careful all good see you soon
00:45:58all right thanks that's not good you know the guys have been held up and really it's not
00:46:04anybody's fault but uh we don't have the parts yet so we're going to keep on plugging away trying to
00:46:08get the fixes done ultimately we we got to get those parts soon because we have other miners to go
00:46:12help other mines we've got to fix and we're getting down to the wire on this one
00:46:20ready how you doing wow this is the last cut we just got to get it out now
00:46:29freddy got everything cut out on the punch plate i'm going to go in there weld some tabs on there
00:46:32so i can get that punch plate lifted up and out of the way
00:46:54it came out okay you know it was a little a little tight in there but we got her done
00:46:58now i just
00:47:00really need alex and travis to get here with those parts
00:47:11news of a conveyor promising fewer plant breakdowns brings alex and taylor back for one
00:47:18more crack of the whip that's we need to get to washing that's the only way we're going to come
00:47:25back out here just because i i do like tyler and i do like freddy and want put everybody in
00:47:31a better
00:47:31mood and start start fresh with the fresh new plant i i respect alex and taylor you know it's not
00:47:39easy
00:47:39coming out here and trying to extract the gold out of the ground before they can test run the conveyor
00:47:47tyler's crew must carefully position it next to the plant we'll push it up with the excavator
00:47:53all hands on deck uh try to get this thing into position
00:48:09there you go that's working
00:48:37the tires are just sinking
00:48:43try inching a little bit
00:48:54no
00:49:03just driving in can i get it back up i kind of doubt it barely see the top six inches
00:49:10of the
00:49:10tire sticking out of the dirt this is a joke it's what this is
00:49:27is
00:49:27let's get it out of here so we can just prepare this a little bit better hold back in montana
00:49:34at the new hall claim tyler's crew grapple with the seven-ton conveyor which must be moved to the
00:49:40plant but is stuck in the dirt what's your plan have them pull it back another five or six feet
00:49:46okay
00:49:51hey tyler what if you were to come up here and then chain off the end up here and then
00:49:57you can walk
00:49:57it back and swing it in and then when you get it down here you'll already be hooked up to
00:50:03it you can set
00:50:03it right exactly where you need it we'll give her a whirl freddy's plan to take the weight off the
00:50:10wheels
00:50:11chain one excavator to the back of the conveyor and another to the front then walk it into position
00:50:18it's always one step forward and two step back but this is part of gold mining
00:50:24it's go time it's time to turn and burn with you hooked up here can you spin it so you're
00:50:30kind of straight oh yeah
00:50:35oh you're good
00:50:39not a work you ready yep okay right now i'm the boss yep hey tyler you just keep an eye
00:50:46on me and those chains okay let's come this way
00:50:55kick that way a little bit with those tracks
00:50:59go ahead and keep tracking back go easy guys easy
00:51:06that'll work okay keep coming
00:51:11tyler work your way gently that way in three feet or so
00:51:17get off of it going back back there you go keep going
00:51:28come up come up that all you got yeah i gotta get it a little closer to get it up
00:51:36there okay whatever you need to do
00:51:42crack in a little
00:51:46go there you go yeah
00:51:51let's go we just got to get it set up here and get it going and see what it does
00:51:56but i'm damn near
00:51:5760 years old and i think this is just the same age see what happens here
00:52:19what the oh god let me take a look
00:52:27i don't know how to start this thing i don't have a instruction manual on this thing juan
00:52:33so right here so this is the emergency stop this is where it pulls it it needs to be reset
00:52:40you have a pair of pliers there we go actually right there there she is she's reset okay so she's
00:52:49on stop
00:52:49right now let's run want to go ahead and hit it there you go
00:53:09sounds good sounds really good
00:53:14are we clear on the end of the conveyor watch out it's engaged
00:53:27this is a bit of an antique but i like it you know the old timers had things figured out
00:53:32paint don't matter iron looks good though good to see that light at the end of the tunnel
00:53:37and have hope these old detroits usually don't skip a beat looks good it's running good
00:53:59you guys made it made it right on good to see you buddy buddy
00:54:06just one day to go before the final test run and alex and travis arrive with new parts for the
00:54:14eccentric shaker you guys got the stuff huh yeah we got everything you asked for
00:54:18oh man that shaft looks way big hope it's not too big
00:54:25dang it that's not what we wanted
00:54:30i'm just playing this right one
00:54:33that's perfect all right let's get it unloaded guys we'll get going start putting this thing back
00:54:37together to stop the plant from breaking down juan will upgrade the drive system on the shaker
00:54:43first by installing new bearings and a bigger shaft so now we've got travis and alex here we're
00:54:50going to push like heck hopefully we can get it done and do a test run
00:55:06ready one two three
00:55:11go that way up you're gonna have to go up yeah up a little more okay watch yourself on that
00:55:19side
00:55:39that's all right we'll call that good we got the bearings in we got the shaft in but uh that's
00:55:45only
00:55:46half the battle now we got to start putting all the weights on it got to get the drive system
00:55:49on it
00:55:49and uh as you can see everyone's here helping because uh reality is tomorrow we have to run
00:55:59hey tyler what's going on freddy well got the results back
00:56:04uh freddy shares the seismic test report with tyler that may point to higher yields in the future
00:56:12so there is a channel there it is whoa and you can see that channel there
00:56:19dustin that paleo channel point out again so here's your cut
00:56:24you can see how this deep channel goes down and around and then it's going down so who knows there
00:56:31could be another one over here usually there's more than one usually they're your best gold so
00:56:36well guys we'll get you the information over from this survey but uh there's your treasure map for
00:56:42the near future i like it freddy that's showing us where we need to dig this is amazing it's
00:56:49unbelievable here that's exciting that's exciting for tyler because after wanting myself leave here
00:56:55he'll have a path to follow if the gold's good enough he's got many years in here mining
00:57:10so this is going to be the eccentric weight right now final test run looming at his cut trailer
00:57:17juan works on the new weights for the shaker deck what we're doing is we're getting this hole as tight
00:57:22as we can for the hub then we'll get it welded in then we're going to go in here and
00:57:25drill this
00:57:26and tap this so we can add more weight if we need to in the first test tyler's heavy weights
00:57:32broke the
00:57:33motor to reduce vibrations and increase reliability juan will replace them with lighter 30 pound weights
00:57:44pretty fancy weights there juan should we go get my old weights for comparison yeah there's nothing
00:57:52wrong with them uh-huh they're just a little too heavy you built it a little too mean oh yeah
00:57:56looks
00:57:57next level well i don't know about that but honestly the weights were just way too heavy for
00:58:01it we're going to decrease the weights we're going to make them adjustable as well so we can add more
00:58:05weight to it if we need to on a screen of that size and everything else you know 30 pounds
00:58:09is about
00:58:09what you need but you got a lot of extra steel there so might need more than that
00:58:18what i'm going to do now is install the eccentric weights get them aligned where they need to be
00:58:22and tighten up the collar
00:58:32there it is they're tight and if you can see here you know i can easily move this by hand
00:58:38it's not fighting itself it's not bound up pretty good i'm happy with that tomorrow we'll get the
00:58:44screen down to the plant get it installed then we can start finishing up the motor drive so we can
00:58:49run it
00:59:03it's coming around just hours to go before the second test the crew pushed to install the final fixes
00:59:11there you go there you go tyler and dustin lift the upgraded shaker deck into place there you go you're
00:59:19in yeah yeah same spot right up top new and improved
00:59:29uh-huh tyler let's pick that up and get it down there next up freddie and tyler wrestle the 680
00:59:39pound sluice run into position coming up tyler it's all yours buddy
00:59:49that sticks pretty sensitive
00:59:55coming down very nice
01:00:03that ought to get her for now
01:00:07give me a hand real quick yes sir with the main pieces installed yeah this is something i haven't
01:00:15done done before freddie adds a last minute fix to the shaker deck we noticed that rocks
01:00:23had a material still stuck to them so we're just going to hang these in here
01:00:28so as these rocks come down through here the screen will be vibrating these rocks will be vibrating
01:00:33and they'll go through these chains and it'll take some of that material off the top
01:00:39it's the top of those rocks and you know puts more gold in these guys pockets it'll pay for itself
01:00:45in no
01:00:46time
01:00:51finish line in sight juan and travis put the final pieces of the jigsaw in place
01:00:58so what we got going on is the new drive system we got a 12 and a half inch pulley
01:01:04on this side are
01:01:04shiv an eight inch shiv with this turning at 950 rpm that's going to get this turning a little over
01:01:101400 rpm that's what we want we want less weight more rpm so we get the vibration that we need
01:01:15on the
01:01:15screen without having that force directly on the shaft of the motor most of that impact is going to be
01:01:20on the belt and that's going to help this motor last a lot longer with the small shiv attached to
01:01:26the shaker deck watch your eyes juan welds the big shiv and the new hydraulic motor to the wash plant's
01:01:35frame i'm really stressed right now we have a plant that's still not ready to run and we're supposed to
01:01:42be running a test run in about an hour so uh it's not good right now pulley in place juan
01:01:49must still
01:01:50fabricate and install a spring-loaded tensioner when we put load on the screen it's going to sag
01:01:59down a little bit and it'll actually cause this belt to loosen up to avoid that we put a tensioner
01:02:04on the bottom of it so that way when it does start shaking on it it doesn't lose tension and
01:02:09it doesn't
01:02:10start slipping on you there it is tensioners all in so these springs are pulling up on this
01:02:19putting tension on the bottom of the belt so that way when it loosens up those springs will take
01:02:23up that slop and keep the belt running without slipping
01:02:29so the plant's ready to go motors and belts are in weights are in we're ready to run
01:02:36let's fire it up guys moment of truth all right we'll watch you guys fire in the hole
01:02:43this is a make or break right now
01:02:47well let's make some gold man let's do it let's give her help
01:02:52yeah excited to see how this belt works let's get this thing fired up see how she does
01:03:04well about to start this test run see what happens it's late in the day so uh we may not
01:03:11be able to
01:03:11get four hours it's our last day here we'll at least try to get a two-hour run and see
01:03:16how it does
01:03:17first bucket oh one yeah
01:03:22dustin pushes pay dirt into an automatic feeder a belt conveys the evenly spread material up to the
01:03:30wash plant's hopper a combination of pressurized water and the newly improved shaker wash the gold rich
01:03:37dirt from the rocks fine material is then sent through a series of sluices where newly installed
01:03:44riffles catch the gold tyler needs to keep his dreams alive
01:03:52it's time to turn and burn and start seeing some gold in the box here we're flat broke and i
01:03:57can't
01:03:57keep contributing my blood sweat and tears without seeing some sort of return that's what it's all about
01:04:08it's slowing down it's shaking hard though you see the whole plant shaking
01:04:13too much speed too much speed you think then you'll slow down the feed to it yeah
01:04:22you want to go up there and i'll watch the end yeah
01:04:26the wash plant is overwhelmed with material so juan adjusts the speed of the new conveyor
01:04:36i think it's barely at an idle
01:04:40there's still a lot of dirt in there
01:04:46there's no water in the sprayers
01:04:50the sprayers are clogged
01:04:51there's no water in the sprayers
01:04:54all right
01:04:58they blew the sections apart
01:05:00ready ready ready
01:05:03ready
01:05:04turn it down turn it down
01:05:06no no no shut it off
01:05:11no
01:05:13good nasty
01:05:26i had to turn it off
01:05:27one it split down that pretty hard we were losing it all
01:05:33i give up dude holy
01:05:36it just opened up split up and exploded
01:05:39this is bad
01:05:41the buildup of material and the burst hose caused by backed up pressure from the clogged spray bars
01:05:49means the second test is over in just 15 minutes
01:05:55great
01:06:02what a joke
01:06:05really what the i think the biggest issue that we have right now is that we don't have water coming
01:06:08out of the spray nozzles it's just
01:06:11hang on tyler yeah i'm out of here
01:06:20i've lost hope in this thing i really have
01:06:29that's what we're trying to do is
01:06:31well again
01:06:34he's struggling man
01:06:36he's hurt
01:06:39without the promise of gold
01:06:41dustin has a tough call to make
01:06:44i'm in a position where it's like he's got so many bills at home and i can't
01:06:48i can't spend more time i was thinking no i know how it goes man this you don't don't feel
01:06:54bad at all
01:06:56you feel like you want everyone down you're not though you know there's a bunch of things that
01:07:01culminated and you know unfortunately in mining that's how it goes regardless man thank you for
01:07:05your help great working with you hey likewise man all right later dustin i just need some time
01:07:12to go back home and uh reevaluate what i need to do financially to keep myself going
01:07:19i'm gonna do everything i can to come back out here and help tyler where i can
01:07:29i hate feeling like we got beat i know we've worked our ass off here
01:07:34yeah that's no joke yeah the battle's done here for now
01:07:52this wasn't from lack of trying at all no we've worked our butts off this week
01:07:59in southwest montana the second test at the new hall mine has ended in catastrophic failure you
01:08:07know freddy i have a few ideas already for what we got going on here i don't want to leave
01:08:10tyler
01:08:11and his crew you know in in shambles up in the air yeah we might ought to split up divide
01:08:15and conquer
01:08:16this thing yeah i'll stay here and between travis and i we ought to be able to knock it out
01:08:19and then
01:08:20i'll head to the next mine let's go talk to him let's do it hey tyler you know at the
01:08:26end of the
01:08:27day i know i know both freddy and i know how how important this is to you and you know
01:08:31freddy and
01:08:31i got another mind we got ahead to do but uh i'm going to stay here and help you out
01:08:37what we'll do is we want to build a punch plate from the top all the way down get rid
01:08:41of those
01:08:42screens really it's choking us up new hose those spray bars on top we're gonna have to work on those
01:08:47as well and then uh i'm gonna go ahead and throw a new pump on there and we'll get you
01:08:52buttoned up
01:08:52i appreciate it yeah no worries yeah thank you freddy you're welcome appreciate you guys
01:08:59in a last ditch effort to save tyler's mining future juan will remove the stepped screens where
01:09:07material is being caught and build a new steeper punch plate to easily filter out larger rocks then
01:09:15he'll take the clogged spray bars apart to remove debris and allow consistent water flow and add
01:09:22ball valves so tyler can clean out future buildup finally one will replace the worn out water pipes
01:09:30that feed the plant with brand new ones to ensure the wash plant operates on full power he's only got
01:09:3724 hours to get the job done we got a ton of problems going on and it's not an excuse
01:09:44but the
01:09:45truth is we watched this plant run for 20 minutes during the first test run and you're trying to
01:09:49make the an educated guess on what we need to do unfortunately there was a lot of things that we
01:09:54didn't know about but uh i really want to make sure that we leave tyler in a position where
01:09:58he has a fighting chance
01:10:16right now we're cutting everything off the top of the deck all this screen and all these bars got to
01:10:21come out so we can put the punch plate in working on borrowed time one's first job is to take
01:10:27apart
01:10:27the stepped screen on tyler's shaker deck what's going on is that material is getting stuck you can
01:10:33see this rock if i push it just a little bit it slides down but it gets down here if
01:10:39i do the same
01:10:39thing i try to slide it doesn't go anywhere by taking all this off and putting a punch plate on
01:10:44we'll be able to eliminate all that
01:10:53you know there's definitely a time crunch right now honestly i got to be on the road tomorrow
01:10:56there there's no question about it fortunately i do have travis here with me alex is here and so is
01:11:02tyler our job isn't done until he's 100 running and he's catching gold we're going to try our best to
01:11:08get that test run done and see what we get as travis and alex pull out the remaining screens
01:11:17there's your problem completely full of doo-doo one checks in with tyler who dismantles the clogged
01:11:25spray bars ready to start welding i gotta clean this up so okay all that coming out there
01:11:35fruits and rocks unfortunately when you're mining you're always going to get stuff in your spray
01:11:41bars we're going to make them so we can actually clean them up in the future so we're going to
01:11:44put
01:11:44them all back together get them welded up we're going to put valves on the end of them so that
01:11:48way we can clean them out as well all it is is a real simple ball valve you turn it
01:11:52off it shuts off
01:11:53the water you open it up if there's any debris or material inside the spray bar it'll open up and
01:11:59it's a full port it'll let let all that stuff come out once it's cleared out you shut it off
01:12:03and it's ready
01:12:04to go Tyler reassembles the spray bars nice to retain some of our water while alex and travis replace
01:12:17the hose yeah it looks like you got tight enough hopefully it holds well and one cuts the new punch
01:12:24plate we're going to put a punch plate across the whole top that way the material moves smoothly down
01:12:31the screen the way we should yeah definitely feeling the pressure you know i know everyone's tired but
01:12:41we're going to keep on pushing until we get that test run in and then i can be tired
01:12:48all good job huh almost
01:12:54daylight running out the crew race to fit the new punch plates
01:13:00of all the people we could have out here one's definitely amongst the top in the world
01:13:07it's awesome to have them up on the plant you don't know that things are happening the right way
01:13:13what a guy one more weld and then we got to put the spray bar on watch your eyes
01:13:23we could lift that thing up let's get it up there and uh we're ready to fly as one finishes
01:13:29the new
01:13:32plates tyler prepares to install the repaired spray bars
01:13:37all right hang that good watch your eyes
01:13:47try to give the squares we kind of can
01:13:52it looks great spray bars in place alex attaches the bowl valves and all new pipes complete the fixes
01:14:01it's gonna be a real monkey
01:14:05this is it they're all right ready to go here
01:14:14well guys we're all done let's try it out let's give it a shot huh this is probably one of
01:14:20the most
01:14:20ambitious rescues we've done over the years tyler definitely needs a win here so hopefully we're
01:14:25going to see him be successful
01:14:39there's a lot of work we got it done in really short time but i'm spent you're spent alex is
01:14:45spent
01:14:45travis is spent that's what i mean everyone's done well let's fire it up man let's give her a whirl
01:14:50and
01:14:51see what happens 8 p.m and a full day behind schedule
01:14:59the crew prepare to run an unprecedented third test
01:15:03of course i'm excited fingers crossed that it works
01:15:17it'd be great to get to wash and make some money finally get this thing going
01:15:25first bucket right there start the timer
01:15:31you know i would love to do a long run but it's already getting late so i'm going to do
01:15:35one hour test and we'll go from there oh look at that we don't have a water park anymore either
01:15:47what a difference having those you know honestly that conveyor that we bought that looks like it
01:15:53belongs in a museum is working perfectly so i couldn't be happier
01:16:08looks good though he's running good
01:16:17people say the american dream has disappeared but i don't believe it has you got freedom and with
01:16:25that freedom comes ability to do sweet jobs like board commander going by i'm excited i'm excited for
01:16:35tyler you know and the possibilities of him being able to you know crawl out of the hole that he's
01:16:40in
01:16:40and i think he's really pleased right now as well i honestly felt like you know after the last test
01:16:45run that he lost hope but i'm seeing a new tyler right now he's excited uh i think he sees
01:16:51some
01:16:52light at the end of the tunnel and that's what this is about you know we wanted to make sure
01:16:55that
01:16:55we took care of him and helped him out to the best of our ability and now he's running
01:17:08hey freddy hey wano how's it going plant's back up and running right now well that's good oh yeah
01:17:15it's working perfectly the eccentrics are working awesome we ended up cutting all new punch plate and
01:17:20putting that in the spray bars that we rebuilt again it's doing an amazing job cleaning the material
01:17:26it's flowing smoothly now well fingers crossed all right buddy talk to you soon thanks wano bye
01:17:43tyler yeah man we were really struggling you don't know how uh how much he missed
01:17:53a smooth running plan you know i'm really excited for tyler this is hopefully is an indication of his
01:18:00future maybe it's going to be a change of pace for him and uh it'll be a good thing he's
01:18:06happy now
01:18:07it's almost a shame to shut him down hey tyler come down for a second
01:18:17i know you probably want to run now that you got going got it going
01:18:21well i'd really like to try to shut it down here pretty quick we're almost about an hour
01:18:24all right buddy sounds great
01:18:35that was a great run from uh 20 minutes to just over an hour not an issue and it can
01:18:42keep on running
01:18:43so that's a great run what do you think alex i love it that's yeah you guys saved the day
01:18:48for sure
01:18:49well i don't know about that let's see what the gold way does
01:19:01well how's it look looks pretty good one take a look at that yeah
01:19:06you know it's kind of a shame that dustin's not here with us you know i know he had his
01:19:11heart and
01:19:11soul into what you guys were doing here i know everybody put in a hard last couple days thank you
01:19:15guys for all your help you know we wanted to make sure that you guys were you know had a
01:19:19fighting
01:19:19chance appreciate it yeah well well got a little tiny scale here it's not quite as fancy as fred's but
01:19:28we'll make it work let's weigh it up huh we're at 0.56 let's get the rest of it in
01:19:42there
01:19:44you can actually hear it
01:19:471.23 nice yeah call it an ounce and a quarter that's awesome yeah that's exciting
01:19:54a full day's run could net tyler more than 12 ounces and the ability to earn over 230 000 a
01:20:04week
01:20:05very nice an amount that would not only pay off his mammoth debt but also bring in a reliable profit
01:20:13for him and his crew very exciting you know at the end of the day you know that's that's what
01:20:18you need
01:20:19you know you got decent ground here all you needed was a plant that would actually run so that's going
01:20:23to be a game changer for you guys were you able to see if you caught any gold in that
01:20:26lower sluice
01:20:27yeah yeah there was definitely some that made it down that way yeah well there will be you know
01:20:31and that's why we kind of looked at it we wanted to make that second solution better than losing it
01:20:35no heck yeah one of the big reasons we wanted you guys have a lot on your plate and you
01:20:40got a baby on
01:20:40the way and you know you got uh your responsibilities growing by day right so we wanted to make sure
01:20:46we
01:20:46give you guys the best fighting chance you had i love it one so this is a great outcome yeah
01:20:52this
01:20:52is i'm more than pleased with this one but before we leave we have one last thing you know you
01:20:58were
01:20:58talking about your plant calling it always something that's fitting hopefully it's not always something
01:21:03anymore but either way you already named it so you gotta put it on her that's perfect
01:21:09it's definitely got a got a home on that plant well there it is 1.23 i'll give it back
01:21:15to you
01:21:15there we got another one we got to get to so travi and i gonna head that way but it
01:21:20was a pleasure
01:21:20working with all you guys yeah tyler thank you very much chelby alex thanks again thank you likewise
01:21:26taylor we'll see you later see you guys thank you yeah you're welcome what do you guys think
01:21:31it's amazing continue running that's a good hour's work huh yeah it is all right we get
01:21:36some good full days of that i think we'll be in good shape in no time yeah things are about
01:21:41to
01:21:41change i'm extremely happy the way that turned out you know honestly it was going to be tough but
01:21:45it paid off because that gold way was amazing and now we have a plant that runs and runs reliably
01:21:51and it's catching gold so that's huge you know and the debt that he has he actually has a real
01:21:59chance of being able to pay that off our work here is done
01:22:05i think we're gonna knock this season out of the park you know seeing freddy and juan's fixes here
01:22:09on the wash plant seeing consistent you know reliability and a working shaking screen is
01:22:15speaks volumes no i cannot believe it but yeah it's working super happy
01:22:25how you doing fred oh doing all right how's it going you know that gold weight was amazing
01:22:30he has the potential to go over nine ounces it was way worth it that's exciting for tyler you have
01:22:36everything to be proud of to make me smile that's good yeah so i'll see you soon ali will be
01:22:42here in
01:22:43seven more weeks so can't wait to welcome her into this world she's gonna be right here minding alongside of
01:23:12us
01:23:13and more
01:23:31Transcription by CastingWords
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