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Gold Rush Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan
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00:00:02I drank way too much I woke up in the morning what'd you buy it was a 40 acre claim
00:00:07on this
00:00:09episode of mine rescue we're trying to do two plants at the same time it's gonna be crazy
00:00:16the fate of two failing operations on one Alaskan mega claim we all work together look out for each
00:00:24other will rise and fall together depends on the first ever high stakes double rescue come on big
00:00:32boy let's go my mind fire fire it's blowing straight to our camp this really may not happen
00:00:42for any of these guys next year there's still more yeah
00:00:57we're probably 30 40 miles away from the Arctic Circle gold was discovered in this area in 1893
00:01:03over a million ounces of gold come out of this ground that's a lot of stinking gold yeah it is
00:01:12we're here to help across two different mine sites the leaseholders the pod fins they couldn't lose at
00:01:17all last year and then on top of that Fred Dickinson well he's struggling not being able to run as
00:01:23much
00:01:23as he wants and he has royalty he has to pay that's as ambitious as we've ever been winding their
00:01:31way
00:01:31through the central Alaskan tundra Juan and Dave head to their first ever double rescue on 2,000 acres in
00:01:39Boulder Creek with one minor one knows well so I met Fred Dickinson almost six years ago it was one
00:01:48of
00:01:48the first rescues Freddie and I ever did no way hey gentlemen hey guys good to see you I'm Brian
00:01:59hey
00:02:00good to see you man nice to meet you guys Fred good to see you buddy yes sir it has
00:02:05been a minute
00:02:06everything's grown the boys have grown the equipment's grown plants grown I see that the bills have grown oh
00:02:12well yeah you were in Arizona and now you're in Alaska yes sir wow after Freddie and Juan
00:02:19visited us we were in a really good place hey guys welcome six years ago in their first televised
00:02:27rescue Freddie and Juan found the Dickinson family's dreams of gold dying in the desert right now my hobby
00:02:35has to feed my family let's get him some more gold right on let's do it man a little awestruck
00:02:41by what
00:02:41these guys are able to do 1.13 that's huge I can't tell you how much we appreciate you guys
00:02:49coming out
00:02:50Freddie and Juan took me from a hobby minor to a professional minor the first couple of years we
00:02:56were making money our decision to move from Arizona to Alaska was about expanding our operation about me
00:03:05and the boys being able to do something that would support all of us I'm not gonna lie we're struggling
00:03:11the ground in Alaska is nothing like the ground in Arizona getting the material to the wash plant
00:03:17getting the material run has become a bit of a logistical nightmare I'm out of my depth I'm not here
00:03:24because this is fun and games for me I enjoy mining but I'm out here to build something for my
00:03:30family
00:03:33what was your goal going into this season going into this season our goal was 200 ounces originally
00:03:40now I'd be lucky if I can hit a hundred so how are you doing this year then 22 ounces
00:03:49so far halfway
00:03:50through the season the people we lease from the Podvins they get a cut which is always painful but
00:03:55they support us and since I've been here every time we break down they're over helping us pulling
00:04:01us out okay well you guys got some gold to show us we don't have any of the gold it's
00:04:06sold to the
00:04:06refinery I went home last year very in debt and at this year we are we're struggling to break even
00:04:14much less pay off last year's debt so I'm uh I'm about a hundred and eighty five thousand dollars
00:04:19upside down I'm gonna go bankrupt here and what we want to do is uh kind of get out there
00:04:28and do a
00:04:28test run with you guys you kind of know the what we do and how we do things you know
00:04:31Dave and I we're
00:04:32gonna kind of sit back and watch you guys and really see what we can do to help you guys
00:04:35out are
00:04:36you guys ready to run some dirt sure oh yeah yeah let's show us that wash plant let's get it
00:04:40fired up
00:04:40let's go going from their humble little plant Fred's grown he's progressed scaled up but he's
00:04:49got a long ways to go to make it work out here firing it up we're gonna do a four
00:05:03-hour run I love
00:05:05dirt moving it makes it all the more fun when there's gold involved Fred's son Josh loads pay
00:05:14into an eight-foot hopper that washes down into a 12-foot shaker deck material is screened through
00:05:21a square hole punch plate and fed down into the sluice runs below where the gold should collect
00:05:28out brother Brian in the d9 clears tailings to prevent them backing up a lot of that material
00:05:35is getting stuck on that screen that punch plate the bottleneck there yeah 100 but I think it's about
00:05:42a bucket a minute roughly might be a little less one of the issues they've got the way the material's
00:05:51coming down it's really going down one sluice box about this wide they're really utilizing about 30 to
00:05:5940 percent of their sluice box look at the size of that we must have somewhere else in the screen
00:06:08where this is coming through yeah that's massive there's no reason that should be in there at all
00:06:17how's the hopper doing buddy is it packed up or are you doing okay yeah it's fine all right 10
00:06:23-4 yeah
00:06:24give her just a little bit more I've ran a lot of gold mines and this one's just a little
00:06:34disorganized
00:06:35how they get their pay out you know how they're delivering their pay how they're dealing with the
00:06:40tailings is that the podman's plant we're just down creek from them a little bit yeah literally
00:06:50stones throw away from them the podman's they're my landlords right now our arrangement is I get the
00:06:57corners and crevices that his larger operation bypasses because they move in straight lines and
00:07:04the river doesn't the truth is is our destinies are tied together we'll rise and fall together
00:07:11landlord the podvins own the rights to over 2,000 acres Daryl is the guy everybody goes to for help
00:07:18he just goes yeah I'm in the middle of sluicing but that's okay I'll come help you they've been
00:07:23instrumental in kind of helping us mine this creek so I know this year they're having to run two years
00:07:30worth just to try to make enough to get by and you know start building a life for themselves but
00:07:35after the podvins failed to run last season Fred is under pressure to deliver them a healthy royalty
00:07:42to stay in business we've still got a lot to figure out with this wash plant we are struggling to
00:07:48get
00:07:48enough volume on this ground to be able to go home with money damn it this is not good Brian's
00:08:13D9
00:08:13prevents the wash plant from becoming overwhelmed by tailings it started leaking coolant everywhere so
00:08:21it might have had a cracked head gasket so it's time to take the head off and check everything out
00:08:30we're at the end of the four-hour run so why don't we shut them down and see what we
00:08:34got in the box
00:08:35all right buddy that's your last bucket let's shut her down you can see on the flow on shutdown how
00:08:47much water is on that side how much material yeah just watching it right now on shutdown you can see
00:08:52what it's doing oh yeah well gentlemen why don't you guys clean it all up and uh let's let's do
00:08:58a
00:08:58gold way okay we'll meet back up with you guys in the morning and see what we got sounds great
00:09:01you
00:09:02good with that yes sir all right I'm hoping that these guys can work some magic we need to figure
00:09:09out how to run more dirt or to run longer let's go take a look at the positive plant yep
00:09:17let's go
00:09:20located half a mile away the podvin operation is midway through a hundred hour run hey how you doing
00:09:30come on come on there good to meet you hi I'm Dave how you doing good Darryl Darryl what a
00:09:36beautiful plant thank you
00:09:38it's awesome that you guys are here and we can check this thing out and see if you can help
00:09:42them you built this
00:09:43whole thing yeah wow the two boys and I Darryl runs the operation with his partner Liva and two grown
00:09:51sons Matthew and Eric
00:09:54it is designed where we can flip the conveyor flip the sluice box change directions on the side of the
00:10:00creek there's a lot of thought in this absolutely we had a diesel repair shop in North Dakota in the
00:10:06oil
00:10:06field and we also had a gravel crushing business on the side so we crushed gravel throughout the summers and
00:10:13wrenched year-round and oil kind of took a dive and we were trying to figure out what we were
00:10:18gonna do and we
00:10:21were drinking at the bar one day I drank way too much and I went to bed woke up in
00:10:25the morning
00:10:26Liva was like what'd you what'd you spend on PayPal for 800 bucks no what do you mean she says
00:10:34well you
00:10:34bought something in Alaska for 800 bucks on PayPal what'd you buy I said well let's check it out sure
00:10:40enough it was a 40 acre claim and I was like oh dad called us the next morning I said
00:10:47hey you want to go
00:10:47prospect the gold claim in Alaska and I thought he was out of his mind and we came up here
00:10:52and spent
00:10:52the month up here and found like seven tiny little pieces of gold and been up here ever since ten
00:10:59years
00:10:59later here we are I'm very proud of that wash plant that the fact that we spent our retirement and
00:11:05then
00:11:05some on building it nobody made any money last year you know including the boys it was a killer the
00:11:13hell
00:11:13of a design it's like almost a dredge there's a land red it is the dredge on wheels I like
00:11:20it on this
00:11:21rolling land dredge known as a progressive plant pay is fed into an eight-foot hopper and washed into a
00:11:2940 foot long trommel a spray bar washes the pay down into the 16 by 10 foot wide sluice box
00:11:37but
00:11:38after taking a full season off sluicing to build it they now can't afford to shut it down so Dave
00:11:45and
00:11:46Juan must assess the wash plant without waiting for a gold way once that wash plants running it's going to
00:11:52stay around we ain't going to shut down how many yards an hour are you running out of it about
00:11:58a
00:11:58hundred hundred and twenty yards an hour what were you wanting to do out of it at 200 we have
00:12:06to run
00:12:06more material I spent way too much money building that wash plant to let it run a hundred yards an
00:12:10hour it has to be increased it was expensive girl to build no kidding putting that kind of money out
00:12:20not running all year long last year Daryl's running on empty that's a tough thing to do when you have
00:12:24an
00:12:25operation like this and not only that on the Dickinson's plant there's a couple issues that I'm really
00:12:29worried about this is going to be a tricky rescue trying to do two plants at the same time it's
00:12:35going
00:12:35to be a tough few days this is an adventure let's go see coming up I'm very frustrated I mean
00:12:45they did
00:12:45luck and they just didn't see that sluice box is absolutely horrible be careful we don't have a
00:12:51hell of a lot of time slow down honestly really don't give two about the sluice box
00:13:07you can feel it build in here in Boulder Creek Alaska Juan and Dave assessed the largest of the
00:13:15two operations in their double rescue there's definitely a lot more flow on this side yeah you
00:13:21can feel it the distribution's an issue you feel the ripple and they're pretty lean now it is a
00:13:28little lean so you can tell on that side it's going to be super lean yeah you know we when
00:13:32you can
00:13:32actually see the gravel coming down it doesn't have a chance to settle out in the map we're losing gold
00:13:38out of that box he has an issue up top as well on the hopper I mean that bucket is
00:13:45just about as big
00:13:46as the hopper it is it is he's having a periodical go in there and push it so he's got
00:13:52some hard angles
00:13:52in there that are and beating the rock and then they get stacked up that's definitely a bottleneck
00:13:59they designed it to do 200 yards an hour and right now he's just barely over 100
00:14:05what are you typically run before you clean up 100 100 hours I guess what we need to do is
00:14:12figure out
00:14:12what we can do because my concern is if we tackle the big problem of the hopper now we're going
00:14:16to
00:14:16create that problem further downstream in the sluice box right so it's going to be a multiple part fix
00:14:21the one thing that does kind of make me feel a little bit better about travis and alex here
00:14:26yeah so you know it'll be probably a balancing act really I think we're going to have to divide and
00:14:30conquer as Juan puzzles through the potential fixes Dave gets to grips with the podvins pay dirt
00:14:39I'm just checking see if there's much gold down here I'm not finding much there was two tiny little
00:14:47pieces of gold that's pretty lean ground I need a little bit more information
00:15:07you guys getting ready to move yeah to keep the plant loaded with pay in its 100 hour run
00:15:14the plant moves 30 feet further into the cut every two hours
00:15:20it's kind of a unique design it's a progressive plant it basically moves to the material instead
00:15:27of moving the material to it it's as cheap as it gets to be able to process the ground here
00:15:32we go
00:15:33even though the plant's probably one of the nicer plants I've seen that sluice box is a real issue
00:15:37distribution's an issue the hopper's an issue it's going to be tough you know because we're going to
00:15:41have to spread our resources over two mine sites my issue is we don't have a hell of a lot
00:15:47of time
00:15:48this might not work this is it good to see you Fred good to see you guys well you guys
00:16:04got some gold
00:16:04to show us from that cleanup we do on the Dickinson mine Fred has the results from yesterday's four
00:16:11hour test run it's not terrible four hours yeah the little chunkers in there we don't see those very
00:16:17clean gold you've got some chunky stuff with quartz and then there's a piece that's just flattened
00:16:23nice little pickers you got several different sources here yeah we think so I think there's at least three
00:16:29but yeah that's my best guess all right well let's pour it out let's see what we got huh
00:16:34to stay on track for their 200 ounce season target this four hour test needs to give Fred and his
00:16:41boys
00:16:421.4 ounces 0.94 nearly an ounce just shy of an ounce 30 000 bucks roughly yeah for four
00:16:53hours run yeah
00:16:55it's a third short of their goal you know it's been getting us by but getting by is not good
00:17:01enough no
00:17:02you know not paying off the debts no we're not paying off the debts that's the challenge you
00:17:06know if this number doesn't come up this may be the end of the line here yeah I mean it
00:17:10could be
00:17:11okay I mean we're we're going to fight it with everything we've got though yeah no fair enough
00:17:15you know I guess uh you know really when it comes down to it you know we don't have a
00:17:18whole lot of time
00:17:19left in the season I think we're lacking in a couple different things but really it's going to boil
00:17:23down to what Dave and I can do while the time we have here over two mine sites yeah absolutely
00:17:27and any
00:17:28any help makes a big difference we'll go back and kind of come up with a game plan see what
00:17:32we can't
00:17:33do all right good with that go figure it out all right here you go here's your gold thank you
00:17:37sir
00:17:38see you guys in a bit that gold way is what we've been getting but it's it's not enough if
00:17:46we keep
00:17:46going the pace we're at we're not even going to reach half our goal we've got to change something
00:17:52there's quite a bit going on there Dave two big operations on the brink one and Dave break down
00:17:59their task list Brad has a few issues his throughput through the plant is not great I agree we can
00:18:06get
00:18:06his pay up quicker get it piled up and then I see several things that could be fixed right now
00:18:12we're
00:18:12doing about 45 yards an hour you know and the reality is we've got to come up you know 65
00:18:17yards an
00:18:17hour is really where he needs to be yeah that screen deck that he has there he's got square holes
00:18:23in it they're a corner to corner almost inch and a half right now we're allowing material this big to
00:18:28go through that screen it's huge which is taking up a lot of room in that sluice box yeah so
00:18:32your
00:18:32suggestion is round correct yeah we'll cut a whole new plate but do all round holes and make sure
00:18:37they're one inch this eccentric is pretty easy so that thing is spinning right mm-hmm so you add more
00:18:45weight it's gonna make the throw a bigger stroke absolutely what it's gonna do is give us a little
00:18:50more violent of a shake but if we get more material through the plant basically we're gonna be running
00:18:55more material on that side of the sluice so we're gonna have to even that feed out and make it
00:19:01where
00:19:01it distributes equally across the two sluice boxes you good with that I'm good with that what do you
00:19:06think about the pod vins you know the problem with this we're having to do Fred's and the pod vins
00:19:13at
00:19:13the same time so I know they don't want to shut the plant down yeah that's gonna be interesting the
00:19:19biggest issue I saw with the pod vins plant and you saw it too was that sluice box yeah we
00:19:24got
00:19:25that distribution box coming off the bottom pan it comes in so that materials coming down and again
00:19:30hitting this side of the box yep so what I would like to see here is try to get that
00:19:35material equally
00:19:36distributed across the whole box instead of just favoring that one side yeah you have four runs four runs
00:19:42we can get their production up fixing their feeder it was a little bit cumbersome I mean it it was
00:19:49clogging up a little bit clogging up going out the sides yeah that feeder right now it comes in and
00:19:53then actually has a hard angle where that material is coming in and it's getting stopped up and it's
00:19:58not allowing it to go into the trommel maybe cut some angles in place to be able to divert that
00:20:02material so it's not so drastic so let's go chat with them see what they say okay all right it's
00:20:07good all
00:20:14right well we uh we kind of had a chance to talk about what we wanted to do with you
00:20:17guys okay um
00:20:18one of the issues Dave and I saw this is your punch plate yeah the top you know having those
00:20:23square
00:20:23holes it's a hard edge right so those rocks they get stuck so we'll cut a whole new one put
00:20:28it on
00:20:28there and it's going to be round holes and make sure they're tapered the right way okay Dave came up
00:20:32with the idea we're gonna add a little more weight to your eccentric as well yeah I think if we
00:20:36put
00:20:36some more weight you'll get a more violent shake so it should kick those rocks up and you should get
00:20:43more through okay we already have an issue with the distribution box right now it's kind of favoring
00:20:48that one side so we want to eliminate that oh wow so you will have a true distribution that'll
00:20:53actually feed 50 50 to the box okay so you know with those three things that we're talking about
00:21:00the punch plate eccentric weight and the distribution we're probably looking about
00:21:04thirty five hundred dollars in material you know it's a little bit of a big nut to crack and I
00:21:09know
00:21:09right now things are kind of tight so what Dave and I kind of came up with is we're willing
00:21:13to give you
00:21:13guys our labor for free I appreciate that that's amazing I wouldn't even hesitate at that so okay I
00:21:18appreciate that let's do it if you guys are ready to do it if you guys can help us be
00:21:22able to get
00:21:22some of this work done that way we can get all of it done in the time we have absolutely
00:21:26done okay
00:21:27let's do it deal thanks guys those are super critical fixes for us if we can't get that yardage
00:21:36up then we're not going to make enough gold to cover the season
00:21:52well hello Darryl how's it going guys in Boulder Creek Alaska morning the livelihoods of two
00:21:59operations are at stake and Juan and Dave put an unprecedented second rescue deal on the table you
00:22:06guys are tight crew very well organized we're impressed so as far as efficiency you guys are
00:22:12pretty damn efficient yeah during the test run we did see a few things you know you want to be
00:22:17able to get up to that 200 yard an hour right now you're about what 120 yeah at top the
00:22:21feed on the
00:22:22hopper is something that we need to address right now the angle that you have is really abrupt what
00:22:26we're gonna do is we're gonna actually make it a little longer so that way as the material hits
00:22:30it's able to push in instead of getting stuck I think that's awesome another thing that Dave and
00:22:34I saw is that you're losing gold that sluice box is a real issue so I was your box that
00:22:40you have now
00:22:40go up there and put dividing walls build a distribution box to be able to distribute that
00:22:44material evenly across the four boxes instead of I could tell Eric don't like it not convinced I
00:22:51don't want to split it I do not want to split that box I mean we clean up top eight
00:22:54feet two guys
00:22:56you could be done in an hour and that thing's back running honestly you know I worked under
00:23:00Freddie for the last 11 years and Freddie's made his career on fine gold you know and hundreds you
00:23:07know thousands of thousands of ounces I don't know what the number the real number is the percentage of
00:23:11what you're losing but I would guesstimate you know probably 10 to 15 percent my concern is even if
00:23:17we go in there and we up your production yeah sure we're gonna catch a little bit more gold but
00:23:22then also we're actually running the risk of losing more gold honestly really don't give
00:23:29two about the sluice box I really want the production up I spend way too much money
00:23:35building that wash plant to let it run a hundred yards an hour the fine gold who cares I was
00:23:40the
00:23:40same production keep that going and I'd forget the sluice box is your bank yeah that's where you're
00:23:49making your money and I've had to learn that as we run more material through that box running the
00:23:53way it is I get it you're gonna see an increase in gold yeah but there's gonna be a massive
00:23:57increase
00:23:57in lost gold as well it's 16 feet long you know it it's gonna catch it I really think that
00:24:03sluice box
00:24:04could stay agree to disagree but I'm good with that you know ultimately it's your guys's plant I want
00:24:12you guys you guys to be happy with what we're gonna do and if that's what you guys want you
00:24:16know we'll
00:24:16absolutely do the distribution and work on that hopper I like it that's awesome we're gonna up the
00:24:21production which you're all about I like it you know that being said between the hopper fix and
00:24:27working on the distribution it's probably gonna be about 3,500 bucks in material and as far as labor
00:24:33we're thinking about an ounce piece you guys are good with it you know that's that's what we can offer
00:24:41do it make it happen if we don't up the production then it cuts in half but but but the
00:24:45deal is but
00:24:46the deal is if we do up the production we get the extra gold there you go I don't think
00:24:51that's gonna
00:24:52happen sounds great bring it in oh gosh all right when we decided to build that wash plant thought well
00:25:02we can build this thing in two months no problem we'll build it in two months we'll still have a
00:25:07half a season we'll be all fine it'll pay for itself in a heartbeat yeah no it took it took
00:25:12five months to
00:25:13the day there's five or six of us welding and working on that thing constantly every inch of weld on
00:25:20that
00:25:20thing we welded it it's not a little $50,000 wash plant and everything on that thing is hundreds of
00:25:29thousands of dollars worth of parts you know and now we're to the point where everything's due past
00:25:35due we need to have a successful season here to make this work because we can't keep going we all
00:25:40really are feeling pressure dad definitely feels the pressure we got to find the gold this year the
00:25:46intention was to get 200 yards an hour out of it got better than a half a million bucks invested
00:25:52in
00:25:53this wash plant one whole entire summer not losing it was a lot of pressure that's our baby I mean
00:26:02we
00:26:02spent a lot of money a lot of downtime and lost money not only is it cash out of pocket
00:26:07to build it
00:26:07but we didn't mind either so you might have lost two million dollars last year and spent to half a
00:26:12million it's tough to let go and let someone else do this that or the other with it but at
00:26:18the same
00:26:19time them guys know what they're doing I trust they're gonna do good work on it set up in the
00:26:29podvin's yard one begins the first of the fixes for the Dickinson's operation it's gonna be difficult
00:26:36because Fred's plant and the podvin's plant they're two of the bigger plants that we've done on a rescue
00:26:43right now we're cutting out the punch plate this is gonna go on Fred's deck larger material slips
00:26:51through the Dickinson's shaker deck and clogs the sluice Juan and Dave will replace the square
00:26:58hold punch plate and add a new one with custom one inch round holes to keep material flowing through the
00:27:07plant they will install a jet into the back of the hopper and add weights to the eccentric shaker system
00:27:16finally to ensure the plant catches gold efficiently Juan will build a distribution chute to create an
00:27:24even flow of material into the sluice box we're gonna be about 2,000 holes in this plate so there's
00:27:32gonna be substantial cut time once it's done I'm gonna get it out clean it up get it down there
00:27:37and
00:27:37install it over at the Dickinson's wash plant Travis hasn't cut loose so it's ready to come out assisted by
00:27:50Travis Fred and Josh make room for one's new punch plate we believed somebody who said oh square holes are
00:27:59better they're not lift up on it a little bit and then drag it out of there it's stuck I
00:28:23don't want
00:28:24to break anything Josh is my oldest and he's a hell of an operator he's a wizard in that excavator
00:28:31he
00:28:32likes to say he's as good as me but I think the jury's still out it's stuck it's not completely
00:28:45off yeah
00:28:46just pop it off just try not to hit the spray bars
00:28:50all right
00:28:55oh
00:29:13thank god that punch plate's gone good riddance this was a failed experiment we're glad to move on
00:29:33next process of this is getting the heads down onto the studs in central Alaska at the Dickinson mine
00:29:43this is Daryl's crane this is his service truck I've used it countless times this season budding
00:29:51mechanic Brian tries to bring the broken d9 back online with equipment loaned from the podvin operation
00:29:58we all work together to look out for each other the miners myself Fred and his guys other people on
00:30:05the creek
00:30:05everyone wants to look out for everyone that we're like a small community so this is the top
00:30:11right okay looks good uh you got the other half though yeah I got those awesome all right bud all
00:30:18right cool once you're done with the truck bring it back up all right I will thank you get some
00:30:23yeah
00:30:25I'll help Fred and his boys out he was in Arizona in the sand in the desert and whatnot so
00:30:30we give him a
00:30:32little guidance here and there Brian is very mechanical he's torn in engines rebuilt engines
00:30:38rebuilt transmissions this is his first trip into a large diesel I was about 14 years old when my dad
00:30:48brought home a car for me and him to work on blown up engine doing this with the boys with
00:30:55my family
00:30:56that's beautiful it's fair to say they've grown up as miners it's just fun to take things apart and
00:31:03put them all back together in the same order it's like a very greasy big Lego me and my dad
00:31:09work very
00:31:10well together we don't really have to say much to understand each other right now there is a little
00:31:16bit of a worry that we financially might not be able to do this next year I worry about my
00:31:22dad and all
00:31:23the pressure that's on him because he's working his ass off and he's trying to make this all work and
00:31:28he's struggling a little bit get her running yeah I want to see it blowing smoke tonight no I gotta
00:31:42get
00:31:43these two heads on start torquing it all down and put it all back together again
00:31:58a lot of times when you're in an area like this and you want to figure out where the gold
00:32:03is and
00:32:04where it came from looking at the archives is helpful to dig deeper into the lean ground he
00:32:11discovered on the potman's claim Dave takes a field trip to the circle district museum I'm looking
00:32:17to gain some clues to how much gold is in Boulder Creek central area maps take a look at these
00:32:25oh boy
00:32:26these are old old maps Wow well here we are here's central house Miller house and here's Boulder Creek
00:32:51so this is from geologic reconnaissance math surveyed in 1903 1904 1905 1906 and here on Boulder Creek
00:33:04there's three red X's that's interesting he's got the X's way at the headwaters of Boulder Creek and we're
00:33:12mining way down at the bottom of the stream which is kind of encouraging the old maps may point to
00:33:20better gold upstream on Boulder Creek Dave calls a local contact to investigate yeah hi is this Cody
00:33:29hey Cody this is David turn it's my least favorite place I try and stay out of that place back
00:33:44at the
00:33:44podvin claim one takes a short break from the cut table to check out the gold room our cleanup process
00:33:51is not efficient that's your table there huh that's our little table so basically what are you doing
00:33:56you get your concentrates out of the sluice box are you running them through like a long time long time
00:34:01it just reduces the fines down and everything gets thrown all over the table yeah we probably average
00:34:07four days yeah four days that you're not doing something else right right nothing quick about it
00:34:12and it looks like Liva really loves it too bad but it's very time-consuming I take care of all
00:34:24the
00:34:24books and make sure all the finances are in line I'm very calculated I have spreadsheets for almost every
00:34:32aspect of this operation the books are not going to balance if we can't get that plant up to 200
00:34:39yards
00:34:40an hour last year we spent every penny of our retirement it's very scary to have this large of
00:34:48an investment gold is not guaranteed so there's always the risk factor there's an old joke if you
00:34:54want to make a million gold mining you have to start with two million sometimes it feels like that's what
00:35:01we're doing we're constantly chasing that million dollars that's definitely a bottleneck so well let
00:35:10me think about it and see what we can't do here awesome perfect thank you much thank you thank you
00:35:14sir
00:35:23hello what's going on Juan this turned out to be a little more work than what I anticipated
00:35:28okay one of the big issues that we have right is the cleanup process right now it takes them four
00:35:33days
00:35:33to do a cleanup oh yeah it's pretty bad okay well I wanted to see if you had a table
00:35:38a used table or
00:35:39something that we could get in here to be able to help them out well I'm just gonna have to
00:35:43make
00:35:44some calls and see what's going on Juan I know you're gonna have to have it quick so yeah you
00:35:48know we're not looking for a freebie but that they have some money to throw at it if I can
00:35:52get a hold
00:35:53of one Juan I'll make you a heck of a deal on it okay yeah if you can make that
00:35:57work that'll help us
00:35:57out tremendously just let me know as soon as you know and then I'll send somebody that way if we
00:36:01can
00:36:01you got it okay sounds good well I'm gonna get back to doing dirt work here all right buddy thanks
00:36:06Fred talk to you soon bye for now bye efficiency is key and right now they're taking four days
00:36:12to do a cleanup and that's not acceptable at all you know with a with a good table in here
00:36:16it should
00:36:16take that from four days to let's call it four hours hey Juan coming over to the top of you
00:36:29Dave
00:36:30next on the long list of fixes for Dave and Juan is to install the Dickinson's newly cut punch plate
00:36:41a punch plate is basically a wear item you don't want to fully weld it that way you can go
00:36:46in there
00:36:46and cut those welds out replace the top deck I like it that'll work I like it too that'll work
00:36:52good Dave
00:37:03let's try it right here Dave yeah four more build days left to complete an epic double rescue it's
00:37:11an early start for Dave and Juan in the Podvins hopper so right there Dave would give us the angle
00:37:18we need but what we're gonna do is we're gonna make this a less of an abrupt angle so the
00:37:22material
00:37:22has a better way of coming to the trommel so it's not getting stuck on this hard angle
00:37:28pay gets trapped on the edges of the hopper restricting the flow of material through the
00:37:33Podvins plant Juan and Dave will create a large funnel using three-quarter inch steel plates allowing
00:37:41more pay to flow into the trommel we don't have a lot of shots at this because three-quarter inch
00:37:47steel up here is expensive oh yeah and if we screw one of these up and don't get the cut
00:37:53right yeah we're
00:37:54kind of screwed that's to say the least all right okay got it let's do it now that I got
00:38:07the pattern
00:38:07laid out the way I want I'm gonna put the torch on there and then the torch will do the
00:38:10rest
00:38:16it allows me to keep on working getting other things done and built we haven't had a rescue
00:38:19where we've had to do so much cutting and fabricate so many things at one time we're burning on the
00:38:24CNC table now we're gonna be cutting with this arm as well we're pulling everything that we have in
00:38:28our arsenal to get it done in time and hopefully it's enough you Cody yeah I'm Dave good to meet
00:38:49you
00:38:49thanks for coming out we'll take a look all right follow me up will do back on the hunt for
00:38:55better
00:38:55ground on the Podvins 2,000 acre claim Dave brings in local dirt detective Cody Pink I called in a
00:39:04geologist the more information I have of what's underneath and the rock composition and how this
00:39:11was all formed will help me get these guys on better gold I think to get to better gold concentrations
00:39:19we
00:39:20need to get us close to the bedrock yeah and that's up in the canyon both the Dickensons and the
00:39:26Podvins
00:39:26mine the lower reaches of Boulder Creek where bedrock is far below the surface Boulder Creek is
00:39:34underexplored the potential is high this is the unicorn that everybody's looking for did the
00:39:43old-timers find it all certainly not this is an adventure go upstream and do some prospecting try
00:39:51to figure out if there's viable gold let's go see all we got to worry about is the Bears
00:40:07we need to go upstream to find better gold on a mission to rescue two operations in central Alaska
00:40:14I think we should do a couple of pans here we're not quite to the bedrock yet but I believe
00:40:21true
00:40:21bedrock is below us here Dave Turin and geologist Cody Pink head up Boulder Creek on the hunt for
00:40:29better gold I'll take one side of the stream you take the other okay
00:40:39now that we've gone upstream I'm hoping to see more color you find anything in the first pan nope
00:40:52nothing to get too excited about we're not at the bedrock interface so the fact that we're not seeing
00:41:01nuggets of gold in every pan isn't necessarily discouraging I'm gonna have to go further upstream okay you
00:41:10want to just hop on back yeah bedrock forms an impenetrable layer which should capture heavy gold particles but not
00:41:22all ground is gold bearing we've definitely got bedrock coming down to the creek and it looks like
00:41:33there's a little bench right up in there for the slow moving water is okay let's go investigate that I
00:41:40love this stuff brings me back to the old timers comes down to a pan and a man in a
00:41:46creek I just love it I
00:41:48absolutely love it I think I had one piece one right at the head there a little bit way up
00:42:02really do you see
00:42:04anything in yours no it's the last piece I got a cut as Dave scrambles for better ground Juan cuts
00:42:29to the chase on the
00:42:30podvins hopper fix we were able to get all those plates cut there and in a matter of maybe 45
00:42:36minutes
00:42:36you know that would have taken somebody by hand you know half a day to cut that we've got to
00:42:41prep them
00:42:41a little bit and then they're ready going to the plant so it does save a lot of time these
00:42:46are three
00:42:46quarter inch plates this one right here probably weighs 125 130 pounds they're not light but it's the
00:42:53type of material you need for these bigger plants that's definitely 130 pounds podvin steel cut next
00:43:05one moves to the Dickinson's job so we're cutting out the pieces for the distribution box on Fred's
00:43:12flat the shoot will rest under the shaker deck to give an even feed of material into the sluices
00:43:22all that material and we're going to concentrate it and then we're going to distribute it where we
00:43:26want it this can be the bottom pan of it we're going to put sides and those two downspouts that'll
00:43:34be the center of both sluices ready to do a little work yes sir all right so what we're going
00:43:40to do is
00:43:40we're going to start welding this out this is going to be your distribution box so what we'll do is
00:43:44we'll
00:43:44get going on it I'll help you kind of get started on welding it I don't have anything this fancy
00:43:52you're pushing uphill you run about this angle push uphill right slowly you make sure that you
00:43:58get both sides let it get wet and you travel up there you go move a little quicker
00:44:07it actually is really cool for me to come in here and see you guys you know from where you
00:44:11guys started
00:44:11with that little plant in Arizona to where you're at now you know you guys got a full-size plant
00:44:15you
00:44:15got more equipment you're actually running some decent yardage and it's got to be fun to be able to be
00:44:19out here with your dad and your brother to work and then be able to kind of spend the summer
00:44:23together hard work my first gold claim was when I was 12 years old it was Dickinson one
00:44:30are we gonna find some gold this season has been really hard out here it's been really difficult for
00:44:38us but trying to push forward I really want to stay out here doing this I want it I want
00:44:44to come out
00:44:45here every summer and hopefully have a family and bring them up here too that's my goal find a girl
00:44:52who can move some dirt that's pretty good man oh this is very useful I need to know this stuff
00:45:11you
00:45:12know you saw how quick that was right yeah just little things like that are gonna help you along
00:45:16your career it sounds like you want to keep on doing this for a while right it's awesome to see
00:45:25Josh in there working with Juan teaching him some different tips and tricks on welding it looks like
00:45:31he's having fun and learning things that's always great sweet man I'm looking forward to seeing this on
00:45:43the plan well I'm not giving up yet let's try one more time let's do one more where the bedrock
00:45:50dips in
00:45:52maybe we can find a trap two miles upstream on Boulder Creek Cody and Dave are yet to find any
00:46:03indications of
00:46:04higher value ground we're beating a dead horse we hit it hard would we pull how many pans did we
00:46:17all
00:46:17pull 16 18 pans today yeah to find two little specks of gold I'm not real encouraged and yeah
00:46:25probably what the old-timers did could be why this was overlooked I think they did the same thing we
00:46:30did
00:46:30yeah they panned it and we're like yeah Dave's research shows gold deposits but his test on a
00:46:38two-mile stretch of Boulder Creek uncovers no signs of concentrated gold the guys that are mining here
00:46:46there's gold in the sluice box but it's very lean yeah I mean they're not gonna have expectations that if
00:46:54they go up further they're gonna find better gold even that information is good information yeah
00:47:04when I set out on this prospecting journey you know my goal was to find better gold Cody thought
00:47:11there was better gold upstream uh what we found is there really isn't so now plan B is to up
00:47:18the
00:47:18production to get them mining as efficiently as we can they're on lean ground but I think they can make
00:47:30money here coming up we gotta shut it off or it's gonna keep burning we're getting ready to flare back
00:47:37look up over here this is I you're running 110 yards an hour won't do it I'm losing my mind
00:47:48whoa that
00:47:50doesn't look terrible for four hours wow I've got a huge fuel bill to pay that's almost 28 grand we
00:48:09owe
00:48:09them fuel right now they won't deliver until I get caught up I paid the 90-day past due but
00:48:15we're still
00:48:1660 days past due in the Dickinson's camp Central Alaska with seven weeks till the end of season Fred and
00:48:24his boys take stock Josh I know you've got your credit card payment due is there anything else just a
00:48:31regular amount of 250 okay pay my car insurance off I get them on payment keeps going up yeah we
00:48:40can't pay
00:48:41it off right now but I can get you the minimum payment that's most of the next two cleanups is
00:48:45going to fuel so we're gonna just have to kind of be snug until we can get those in there
00:48:50those boys are
00:48:53making big sacrifices to be out here and to to build this as a family we're miles from the Arctic
00:48:59Circle
00:49:00and hours away from the nearest town you know they're 20 and 22 years old most people are out with
00:49:06their
00:49:06friends doing fun things I know it's hard for me to be away from my wife but I'm in my
00:49:1150s I hadn't
00:49:13really considered how difficult this really could be for them hey Fred hey Dave how you doing doing good
00:49:29man how are you hey I wanted to kind of look at your pit after his pay prospecting mission fails
00:49:35to find
00:49:36higher grade pay Dave sets his sights on the production side of Fred's operation this is all
00:49:42overburden that we flip back to here okay there's some logistical things that I think I can help them
00:49:49with I took a quick look at his pit it looks pretty unorganized you know they shut down oh gosh
00:49:56we're out of
00:49:56pay so they go down and dig pay and then they're like all right we got pay let's run so
00:50:01I want to get them more
00:50:03efficient let me ask you something how do you get your pay out of there to your wash plant so
00:50:09right
00:50:10now we write we write an excavator so we it's almost three times from pay to there you'd swing it
00:50:18to
00:50:18there swing it maybe four times it's for yeah probably four flips the idea originally was to push it with
00:50:25the dozer I haven't been able to build a road and run it why not right on here this is
00:50:31really
00:50:31soft I can make a road here just push this out of the way and get you a pretty decent
00:50:36road in here
00:50:37down into the cut you mean yeah to the cut oh wow I love it yeah that would be good
00:50:43if you flip pay four
00:50:45times it's a waste of fuel and it's a waste of you know sunshine if I have a dozer I
00:50:52think I could get
00:50:53a road to the wash plant that you can continually get pay from and then he's good to go so
00:50:59give me
00:51:00a day and I think I get it done Dave's plan use a bulldozer to build a road from the
00:51:06wash plant to Fred's
00:51:08cut this will allow Fred and the boys to push pay seamlessly the 300 yards from cut to plant in
00:51:17one
00:51:17move eliminating the need for the excavator but Fred's D9 is still out of commission Dave's plan's
00:51:26exciting it's good I like it you know he's got a whole lot more experience than I do the dozer
00:51:30breaks constantly is really the problem I think we're on day three or four I don't even remember right
00:51:37now how's it going kid we've got a leak right on this third gasket is that one we just replaced
00:51:44yeah wait is it leaking from here or is it leaking from here that one oh shoot oh well pull
00:51:51it back
00:51:51apart there's nothing else we can do it's important that we have this thing Dave's got a new plan to
00:51:57push pay to the plant with it but without this dozer that plan can't happen
00:52:08what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the crane truck over there get these lifted up where we need
00:52:11them and get them in place those are still down Dave helps one transport the finished plates for
00:52:18the Podvins hopper it's all hands on deck we got to get these plates down there to the Podvins we
00:52:23got to
00:52:38get this in the hopper is built originally too sharp so the hopper basically will hang a rock up and
00:52:45then it gets a big mound in there and plugs it so by doing this doesn't allow rocks to hang
00:52:50up in there
00:52:51it's gonna be awesome joining the fight is the Podvins welder Casey Stagno coming over you guys good coming down
00:53:06we raised it about this high and then it gives him this much more room for material to sit in
00:53:13here
00:53:13this is gonna help keep rocks off the spray bar mom thought of that protecting the spray bars that's
00:53:20awesome because it's something we didn't even think of they're no better than I could imagine they should
00:53:26fix the hopper pretty much a hundred percent looks great man thank you you got a lot of welding to
00:53:33do
00:53:33buddy a lot of welding to do yeah
00:53:53starting all the cuts on the Podvins distribution shoot it's going to be a v-splitter we're actually
00:53:58going to do four runs there's only two days to go before the final test runs in the race to
00:54:05fix two
00:54:05plants Juan and the crew are hot on the build of the Podvins large 10-foot distribution box right now
00:54:13the way the plant's running there's a big chance that they're losing a lot of the fine gold having
00:54:18more even feed across the whole box is going to help that material enters the 10-foot wide sluice at
00:54:27one
00:54:28point flowing down the edge of the box with no place to settle gold is being lost out the end
00:54:35to cope
00:54:37with the extra material through the plant and to recover more gold one is building a distribution box
00:54:44with four down spouts spreading the flow of material across the entire width of the sluice taking on two
00:54:53big builds in the same time that we normally do one build it's hard enough but we're coming out swinging
00:54:59ultimately I know their plant's going to be better for what we're doing to it between the hopper and the
00:55:04distribution it's going to be a whole other machine
00:55:15fire fire fire fire fire uh-oh it is fire at the camp at our camp do they need help
00:55:24come on Zena I got the water truck in the Arctic tundra summer high winds plus dry brush creates
00:55:33a highly flammable mixture apparently there's fire they had to race off right now you know these high
00:55:39winds with a fire it's not good we don't know how big this fire is let me it's my machine
00:55:52we got to snuff this all out yes sir dirt on top got it
00:56:08the patch right there this patch is right there Alex
00:56:16we're getting ready to flare back up over here
00:56:25come on we got to shut it off or it's going to keep burning in the Alaska double rescue wildfire
00:56:33breaks
00:56:34out threatening the miners camps when the winds like this I mean if it were to get roaring there'd be
00:56:39no
00:56:39softness so they're going to come with the cat and spread all this dirt on top there to shut the
00:56:44air
00:56:44off so the wind is just firing the members right back up
00:56:47Josh he's going to take the dozer and push all this dirt right over top so it should smother it
00:56:54okay
00:56:59nice work dude good job
00:57:02this could have been catastrophic it's blowing straight to our camp
00:57:06we could have had a really bad situation but we'll throw dirt over it and we should suffocate
00:57:11it good work gentlemen go team absolutely teamwork makes the dream work you got to come together
00:57:16under pressure you got to do it you know we're a team all of us so it has to be
00:57:21that way or you
00:57:22don't make it out here you did a great job Matt you went in there with the excavator you're
00:57:26actually ripping it up getting it all put off good work
00:57:29nice work boys good job well that was pretty scary with the community help everybody jumping in
00:57:37helping out we got it out good job bud thank you all right we can get a jump for you
00:57:42too getting that
00:57:43water pump yeah we got that foot out huh all right a little bit everybody I think oh definitely
00:57:57what's going on a little surprise from Freddie just showed up really brand new table Freddie came
00:58:04through sweet here's the baby wow nice could make life a little bit easier for you definitely no more
00:58:12brushing no more brushing and your gold is at this end you can look at it it's bright and shiny
00:58:17it's
00:58:17nice perfect I'm excited to see it working okay I'm clear good Dave I like it I think it's gonna
00:58:27be a
00:58:28game-changer that's for sure since this thing's very heavy I cut some inch and a half two inch pipe
00:58:35we put it on the ground we're gonna use that as rollers and we get it to roll it
00:58:41you happy with it here absolutely yeah I think it's a good place awesome
00:58:52pull the throttle after days of blood sweat and oil come on baby you can do it
00:59:04Brian's hard work has paid off
00:59:14that D9 is kind of a really important piece of equipment it was definitely crucial to get that
00:59:18up and running Brian knocked it out of the park you know for a 20 year old man to take
00:59:22that on and
00:59:22take it apart himself and put it back together it's impressive feeling pretty good dozers warming up
00:59:30so far no leaks nicely done kid thanks nicely done very very pleased couldn't be prouder of Brian pulling
00:59:44this thing apart and putting it back together he did a good job we get Dave behind the controls and
00:59:52we'll be able to see what old girl can do D9 back in action Dave begins his plan to maximize
00:59:59the Dickinson's
01:00:00production so if I get in that road where he could push with the dozer it's way more efficient than
01:00:06flipping his pay once he builds this road and starts ramping it up it's gonna be pretty easy
01:00:11for us to just push from where the pay is over to the wash plant it's gonna be a whole
01:00:16lot faster than
01:00:17doing it with this excavator so we're happy about it frozen ground sliding
01:00:53I mean this is ice it's permafrost and I can't get up on here I just slide off
01:01:09it's his dozer I don't want to break it it's just solid ice and sometimes
01:01:17it's like concrete permafrost permanently frozen ground blocks the path of Dave's new road well good
01:01:29news and bad news okay good news Brian engine's running good oh good so bad news is that ground's
01:01:41frozen and I did a couple slides on it oh okay yeah I just don't want to get on that
01:01:49ice and throw a
01:01:50track okay that's what scares me Fred doesn't have a lot of options and it's kind of desperate times
01:02:11there's hundreds hundreds of weld while Dave devises a plan to overcome the ice on the pudvin mine Casey
01:02:20is 11 hours into welding hopper plates with no end in sight this needs to be able to handle the
01:02:27rocks that
01:02:28are falling in plus the excavator touching it this three-quarter inch plate so you're trying to get the
01:02:33weld all the way through if you just put a little bit of weld on the outside it'll snap you
01:02:38know
01:02:38through there I had to go over 10 15 times there's a lot of welding still gonna be maybe three
01:02:44more passes
01:02:45here I'm just trying to figure out a plan here my dozer keeps slipping on that ice but it's gonna
01:02:59be
01:02:59difficult in the Dickinson's cut Dave puzzles through his permafrost roadblock if you could
01:03:07clean that up pitch it up and back I could probably get it see if we can build a road
01:03:12around the ice
01:03:12maybe yeah you want me to try that yeah all right I think we got a plan the problem is
01:03:18in the middle
01:03:19of my road is a big chunk of ice with Fred's help on the excavator I think I can maneuver
01:03:25around it
01:03:35Dave's plan is to use an excavator to reclaim the low area beside the frozen ground using tailings and
01:03:44overburden then build the road around the ice
01:03:54it's very frozen solid mother nature's trying to say she's mine I'm gonna politely disagree
01:04:14coming up as Dave and Fred battle the ice one presses ahead with the installation of Fred's new
01:04:22distribution box so we got the splitter chute all built what we're gonna do we already cut that
01:04:28existing chute off we're gonna make this up to that base right there and get it welded in lower that
01:04:34down
01:04:34a little bit Alex that box isn't square you look great on the edge there I push down on mine
01:04:43I might
01:04:43be able to get it I wonder if we can suck this in probably not so I've got a full
01:04:48quarter inch to
01:04:49a three-inch gap on the top it's in it's just we got a big-ass gap now terrible losing
01:05:03my mind
01:05:17go get me some mild steel trap from up top a couple of scraps so we can cut some of
01:05:22these angles out
01:05:22please on the final day of fixes in Boulder Creek one hits a snag on the Dickinson's wash plant just
01:05:32hours out from the second test runs we're gonna have to make some adjustment over here you know
01:05:40it fit really good but I didn't realize that that chute as it went further in it wasn't square so
01:05:46now
01:05:46we're gonna have to make a little bit of a filler piece which is not the end of the world
01:05:49but we'll
01:05:50get it just takes a little longer this is not exactly how we wanted it but it's what we got
01:05:59to do to
01:05:59make it work Travis can you give me more 60-10 you know something we have to do in the
01:06:06field we just
01:06:07have to adapt make a little filler plate but it's just part of it while one finishes the distribution
01:06:13chute installed despite a few obstacles this plans coming together Fred and Dave make inroads in the cut
01:06:25it started to come together with him flipping overburden if we get that dozer in here I think I can
01:06:32get it
01:06:32done low ground now packed with overburden Dave attempts to push past the ice
01:07:10ice bypass Dave completes his new pay highway
01:07:19so I'm about ready to turn around and start pushing pay
01:07:27start pushing pay start giving up to the lost plant so uh make sure start to look up
01:07:40yeah so it's looking good right now
01:07:50it's a lot more organized you got an excavator feeding those are feeding the excavator they're in business
01:08:08all major fixes now complete at the Dickinson's we're just finishing up the splitter Juan turns
01:08:15his attention to the Podvin's larger chute we're actually going to split it four ways the material
01:08:22coming off the bottom of the trommel is going to hit this it'll split twice and then once it comes
01:08:27down
01:08:27each side it'll split again so that way it actually evenly splits to four different parts they'll be
01:08:35able to run more material and they'll be able to sluice it more efficiently done I think it's great
01:08:41I'm excited to see it finished up I think it's gonna be awesome coming up final welds made Juan races
01:08:50to
01:08:50get the splitter installed trying to do two plants at the same time with the same amount of time it's
01:08:56really difficult it's been a long build but it's getting there up above welder Casey works on the final
01:09:03beads on the hopper about two days and about 22 hours worth of welding this is the last weld
01:09:23it's done good job thanks buddy it should be good you know in that hopper it really should be able
01:09:29to
01:09:29get that material flowing the way they want I agree instead of getting stuck you know it should flow on
01:09:34its own they get up to 200 yards an hour now I think the sluice box is gonna accept it
01:09:39oh yeah
01:09:39yeah it looks good I'm happy with it
01:09:50perfect let's flip it on and just see if it everything's working back at the podvin workshop
01:09:55Dave gives a crash course for the new gold table pumps working got a nice bump to it
01:10:02I guess Eric there's your new table do you guys have any cons or something that we could run across
01:10:12this table we've got our tailings off of what we used to do off our old table let's give it
01:10:17a try
01:10:23crazy sure beats painting the table with a paintbrush I know right that's impressive that's very impressive so you're just
01:10:32really
01:10:32walking around in circles and adjusting instead of brushing for three four days maybe an hour oh
01:10:40I am impressed with that a lot more time for Eric and Levi and everyone else to spend more time
01:10:47doing other things around the mine it was really fun to see Darryl Levi and Eric see what that gold
01:10:55table can do and it's kind of a game-changer because it takes so much less time to do your
01:11:02cleanups and Darryl gets it because now his time can be better spent doing something else it's down to
01:11:11the wire on both operations and at the Dickinson's wash plant Juan races to build the plumbing system
01:11:20for the new hopper jet all they had for water was this little spray bar so by adding that jet
01:11:28we're
01:11:28gonna introduce more water but also be able to control the feed the team add a new six inch pipe
01:11:35diverting water from the existing system up to the hopper jet that's the final wall for the two
01:11:42and move as quick as we can right now we still got miles to go but uh hopefully we uh
01:11:48we can start a
01:11:49test run soon there's never enough hours in a day there really isn't Josh you're gonna get burnt a
01:11:56little bit you're gonna be okay though you'll survive yeah right I'm laying out the deflector
01:12:07for the back of the hopper there's gonna deflect the water from going straight out to down and
01:12:12actually hit the pan so that way push the material in as Juan wraps up the water fix come on
01:12:18big boy
01:12:18let's go Dave and Josh install the finishing touches to the shaker system these are the
01:12:25counterweights we're gonna put these on to give more violent shake so that it actually throws the rock
01:12:32up oh you do not want these to come off trust me all right everybody's working hard now we got
01:12:42Alex
01:12:42Travis and Juan's up above we've got Brian me Fred's gonna set a pump Juan's just about got the water
01:12:50jet in the back in the feeder that way we can run the test run I think we're very close
01:12:55what this does
01:12:56when the water hits the back of this it'll push it forward it's gonna actually wash down this plate
01:13:02we're gonna call that good it's done it's in it's all welded in all plumbed in we're ready to go
01:13:10both plants are now finished with daylight fading Juan and Dave must complete two test runs to be
01:13:17sure their fixes are working it's been a long haul you know trying to take on two plants of this
01:13:24size
01:13:24with the same time it's tough we're running out of daylight oh I know his season's getting close to
01:13:29the end yeah well hopefully these fixes are gonna be a big enough improvement for him so he can make
01:13:33up
01:13:33the time fire it up kid all right we're starting a timer right now take a look at the box
01:14:03oh it's flowing way better I like that vibration I think sped it up plus your water jet not only
01:14:12that now with that punch plate not being square it's not getting hung up plus we're smaller openings
01:14:18they're gonna add more yards per hour yeah they're gonna be rocking and rolling more than they think
01:14:26it looks good looks real good I like that flow pretty evenly matched Juan they really are that
01:14:34distribution actually looks pretty darn good with the Dickinson second test underway Juan and Dave head
01:14:42to fire up the Pudvin's operation that doesn't look good Dave what's that about I don't know look
01:14:51change the drives down
01:14:55what's going on guys what's happening here
01:14:57we moved the motor
01:15:14so you pulled it down pull it down from underneath it to put it up on the side worried about
01:15:20their
01:15:20drive system the Pudvin's have pulled the plug on their second test run we had a legit concern that
01:15:27with their fixes up there I really think they're gonna push 200 yards an hour material in that drum
01:15:32on the flip side of that it might work too good for our drive system so someone's got to do
01:15:38the next
01:15:38step get a little more chain wrapped around it yeah a little more traction on the drive sprocket yeah
01:15:44once it's getting more material fed into it and up in that production that's gonna be our next spot
01:15:52you know it's a little tough you know we did a lot of work on this plant we wanted to
01:15:55see
01:15:55it run unfortunately I'm not going to be able to stay here to watch it run the truth is I
01:15:59have
01:15:59to be another mine in a couple days so I got to get going there's always a little bit of
01:16:05a worry
01:16:06even with my calculations and everything else and the yardage they're going to be running in the
01:16:09water flows but until you actually see it run sometimes you don't know you know so I am a
01:16:15little nervous about that but regardless I know what we did here is going to help them tremendously
01:16:26slow down slow down two hours into the test run at the Dickinson mine
01:16:32you're running over a hundred and ten yards an hour right now won't do it Josh runs double the
01:16:40yardage from the first test he's overfeeding it we're running over a hundred yards an hour right
01:16:50now nothing on that desk right now he's doing a bucket every 28 seconds taking it though here we're
01:16:59good settling out down here it's good pick it up pick up the pace man I would run it all
01:17:08right
01:17:08Josh see what she'll take it's crazy they're running out of pay Dave jumps back in the dozer to
01:17:22keep the plant fed from his pay highway those are Dave on my dozer pretty awesome four yardage four
01:17:33goals so we're gonna have to kind of feel it out and see it's kind of like going from a
01:17:38v6 to a
01:17:39Ferrari we can do ten hours of work in five hours that's insanity that doubles our profit this is really
01:17:50fantastic hey Fred hey that's four hours let's shut it down all right let's do it all right last bucket
01:18:00kiddo last bucket
01:18:16there you go yeah there's a little gold in there look at that one they're deep in the mats they're
01:18:21right
01:18:21there there's some big check this one out you're on some gold oh yeah contrary to popular belief there
01:18:27is some gold in Boulder Creek looking pretty good you guys it's kind of late now why don't we clean
01:18:32it up in the morning and see what we got let's do a gold way yeah let's do it damn
01:18:38he ran what we
01:18:41normally run in about eight hours in four hours so I couldn't be happier it means a lot it's gonna
01:18:46be good
01:18:59hey everyone good run hey we got the whole crew here everyone's here perfect six days of hardcore
01:19:07effort across two claims the families come together to see the results on the Dickinson's operation oh
01:19:15it's the moment of truth you got the gold I do and it looks pretty substantial dude whoa that doesn't
01:19:21look
01:19:21terrible for four hours no well you know it really looks like you know we're catching a lot of that
01:19:26fine gold but honestly we ran a lot more material during that that test run it was huge yeah closer
01:19:32to 100 yards an hour on average well let's weigh it up huh you know during the first test run
01:19:37we were
01:19:37at 0.94 let's see what this is there's 0.93 1.96 a little over what you did last
01:19:48time there's still more
01:19:49yeah a little more oh tap tap tap 2.64 huge increase almost two and a half times yeah nearly
01:20:00two and a
01:20:0680 percent increase on their first run that is really good that's dang good that's over half an
01:20:13ounce an hour which is what we're looking for right there absolutely you know if this isn't a
01:20:17motivator I don't know what's gonna be you know this should be a motivator to say hey you know what
01:20:20this is what we really can produce let's rock and roll that's a game changer for us we really
01:20:24appreciate it oh gosh yeah well you know it's a shame that we weren't able to watch you guys's
01:20:28plant run but when you guys get running please let us know how that goes absolutely I really think
01:20:33it's going to make a huge improvement send us a video let us know how it's going we will do
01:20:37that
01:20:37please we'll do it we don't see any reason that ain't gonna no it's screaming material through
01:20:42that thank you so much for yeah everything you've done both you guys likewise thank you
01:20:46appreciate it thanks for the opportunity yeah appreciate you guys yeah here's your gold fred
01:20:52thank you sir right on nice work thank you everyone you know honestly it was a pleasure
01:20:56working with you guys we better get on the road you guys all hey great working with you likewise
01:21:01thank you hey thank you man this is huge I knew they would increase our production but I had no
01:21:08idea it was going to be that profound when Juan and Dave got here it wasn't looking very good for
01:21:14us
01:21:14but uh seeing this the way that it is and if we can finish this season the way I think
01:21:19we can the boys
01:21:20have a future here on this mine we can keep going and when I get tired of mining I want
01:21:24to be able to
01:21:25turn the keys over to them and say hey you guys just keep doing what you're doing now we can
01:21:29do that
01:21:30honestly I feel like we've got this I'm very excited about the fixes they've made I think
01:21:36it's going to be absolutely awesome when they brought up the idea of changing the sluice box
01:21:41I wasn't too keen on it hey I'm allowed to be wrong once a year
01:21:47I'm excited for these guys it really does warm the heart because we all work together
01:21:51and that's what it's all about it's community and miners helping each other out
01:22:05hi Juan and Dave this is Darrell we'll see this went good
01:22:08we sluiced through I don't even know how many acres but we did it in a hurry that wash plant's
01:22:13doing over
01:22:14200 yards an hour exactly how we wanted it to and thank you guys for all your help with it
01:22:20everything on the hopper is phenomenal it's working great Matthew can stuff a full bucket
01:22:24and it just eats it our first thing up was 95 ounces that was the best that we've ever had
01:22:33we just got just over 500 ounces that's huge we're very excited for years to come what that thing's
01:22:40going to do awesome to have this dream come true
01:22:49hey Juan and Dave Fred Dickinson here just wanted to let you know that we're doing great
01:22:55we're getting to the end of the season as you can see there's snow up on the mountain we're doing
01:23:00pretty well out here a little late in the season but we're going to keep mining
01:23:07there's our road up to the wash plant there's our cut you can see quite a bit of it's missing
01:23:12now
01:23:21sorry about the noise in the background Brian's ready to run
01:23:23all right thanks again guys we'll see you later
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