- 15 hours ago
Gold Rush- Mine Rescue with Freddy & Juan Season 6 Episode 10
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00:03it's what you get when you play outside on this episode of mine rescue looks like more
00:10rains it's all hands on deck to save a veteran run dry mine running a dry plant it's got to
00:17be 100 dry he's losing gold all over the place overrun by monsoon rains it keeps doing this
00:25every day we're in deep trouble but with crew tensions high listen let me handle it anything
00:34that he's brought up here is none of the flattened out stuff that was to dry we really need freddy
00:39and
00:39one's help freddy and one must devise new tactics look how hot this is we've never built anything
00:46like this to even the odds fire her up oh look at that that's a beautiful piece they're our final
00:55hope
01:07what kind of figures how long we're going to work on a dry plant
01:16dry mining it's a tough game they're saying we could get three to five inches of rain
01:24deep in arizona freddy and juan respond to a desperate call for help
01:30at a claim run by a group of military veterans with a great cause
01:39how's it going guys good good good larry yeah nice to meet you how are you all larry pleasure
01:44larry freddy here's your mine huh it's the dust bowl there you go yeah dry plant yeah not so much
01:50today though a lot of rain yeah so larry do you own part of the operation then yeah i'm full
01:55time
01:56mining with them so how long have you guys been mining here for about a year now okay how much
02:00gold have you been able to collect about 10 ounces 10 ounces 10 ounces what's your best day 13
02:05grams out of how many yards 130 that's not real good we know yeah what's your goal this year 80
02:12ounces and where you at right now uh we're not even over an ounce do you have any gold we
02:18can look
02:18at yeah i got some right here yeah it's fine gold we know we lose a lot especially on fine
02:25gold yeah
02:26and there's definitely an acceptable loss but when it comes to dry mining that loss is huge
02:30with gold prices the way they are now every spec counts every time we pan our tailings we find gold
02:37i'm a navy vet i was an operations specialist did two trips to vietnam but gold it always fascinated me
02:47after 10 years in the navy and four decades running a successful business
02:53larry walked away from retirement for one last mission my dream for veterans is that they have a safe place
03:04to integrate back into civilian life to learn new skills i've learned as i did in the military that
03:13teamwork is so important to make his dream real larry poured his retirement fund into this 20 acre claim
03:22the cost to keep the equipment uh the rentals is quite scary we really need freddie and juan's help
03:29now we've borrowed to our limits soon uh it's going to be more on the break it in than the
03:37make it in
03:38you have a group of guys that you're helping out are those the vets you're talking about
03:41yes uh we got about five veterans the end dream is veterans can come out here and learn heavy equipment
03:47operation learn mining we have to get the gold right first to be able to do that
03:51how much do you have invested in this operation a little over 120 000 personally and uh 160 000
03:59dollars worth of equipment and loans okay that's substantial rentals alone cost us 16 000 a month
04:06and our fuel bill is well above eight grand each month the vets need to pull 24 000 worth of
04:14gold
04:14each month just to break even so you got a lot of people's money on the line yeah not only
04:20money but
04:20potentially a lot of people's future you know what do you think before it rains let's do a two-hour
04:25test
04:26huh sounds good yeah you got people out here that have their life savings tied up in this and uh
04:33they're
04:33trying to help people and help themselves at the same time but if you go broke in that process you're
04:38helping nobody there we are got a nice little dry wash plant huh yeah we got a five box plant
04:44we can
04:45only run about 10 to 15 yards an hour desert mining is synonymous with dry washers which rely on a
04:54process
04:54of air and vibration to separate gold from the material a dry plant is up to 15 percent less efficient
05:02than a
05:03wash plant but allows mining in places with little to no water so you guys gonna start hauling pay uh
05:12larry basically runs the whole pit operation well let's run it before the rain hits the forecast for
05:19today's showers and then downpours always rain on the worst possible times every time we try to run the
05:25planet wants to rain let's get running let's go first bucket line
05:39the noisy little guy kaden feeds pay onto a five and a half foot vibrating screen
05:54where material drops into five blow boxes which use air and vibration to force tailings out
06:03leaving the heavier gold behind
06:08see the tough situation here see the little dust storm that's pay dirt blowing he's losing gold all
06:15over the place we don't get this working a lot better for us everything's at stake we're gonna lose
06:22the mine and we're never gonna be able to help the other veterans out i come from a long line
06:30of
06:30military my grandfather was drafted into vietnam my great grandfather was in world war ii and my father
06:37was special forces and i was in fort gordon georgia and fort hood texas after leaving the army
06:45kaden teamed up with larry and formed the veteran mining company focused on making a difference i've
06:53lost military friends due to ptsd and what i've seen work is getting a group of guys together and doing
07:01something to give them a sense of purpose once again but if we don't get our plant functioning a lot
07:07better i don't think we're going to be around another month there's quite a few issues that i'm
07:16seeing you know one of them is the feed uh secondary you know the way it's distributed to the sluices
07:29another day in the neighborhood 500 yards away in the pit the crew stockpiled pay led by larry in
07:41the 440 excavator i worked my whole adult life saved money for retirement and once i got creating
07:51something for the veterans i decided to go all in on it larry's team in the pit are army vet
08:02jim
08:02porsche on the skid steer and navy mechanic turned miner tim searson on the loader you know larry any
08:10way you look at it this is still better than a good day on the flight deck you know what
08:14i mean
08:16yeah army's used to dirt so every day is a good day in the dirt for them roger that
08:24i've got about 35 000 invested and that's a significant sum of money for my wife and i
08:32got tim moves the freshly dug pay across the pit we can bring veterans on the ground out here man
08:38i can face my creator and say yep i helped do that but you know an operation like this we've
08:44got our
08:44share of problem i wish i had a nickel for every load that i ran through this thing jim screens
08:53material
08:54through the grizzly i've always liked running equipment i did not anticipate eating quite as much dirt though
09:08next he lays out the painter in hopes of drying it before it's screened
09:14i can't pick up and move it over to the plan roger that once screened tim picks the pay up
09:21again
09:21taking the material to the plant for caden to feed
09:50it doesn't look good at all
10:04the material's just damp enough that as it's rolling in there it's gonna get stuck in those
10:08doors i keep having to get in there with a screwdriver to break it apart
10:15did you not have any other stuff that we flattened out yesterday despite best laid plans
10:23so none of that material that's been flattened out is up here right now no that was all was classified
10:28what pay has been mixed in and taken to the plant it's all soaked he told me to say all
10:35right i just
10:36just let me handle it larry no can you come with me on this one anything that he's brought up
10:44here is
10:45none of the flattened out stuff that was to drive he's got that still stacked all the time you're saying
10:50how this guy's incompetent this guy can't do this this guy because it's because it's what i see
10:58today's
11:03none of this stuff is dry
11:06we don't always see eye to eye we butt heads on a lot of things but i try to take
11:11as much pressure
11:12off as i can i wonder if the front might be a little drier
11:21it's probably still holding that moisture from that monsoon
11:25yeah it's dry here okay i'll start pulling from here you know you would think out here in the
11:30desert we wouldn't have a problem with moisture but with a pile like this that moisture gets locked
11:34inside so uh yeah it's a massive problem right now
11:46why the heck is that thing not shaking
11:55at the dry plant there's another snag
12:03vibrators get overheated
12:06the vibrator that clears tailings from the screen keeps cutting out
12:15we're at an hour and 45 right now well let's call it i guess
12:29uh we got rain coming in we got to get the plant cleaned out and we got to get this
12:32pay covered
12:33before it starts pouring down you know looking at the equipment that he has around here it's easily
12:38twenty thousand dollars a month well here don't let me spill that let's keep the gold
12:45they haven't made enough money to be able to really cover even one month of rental
12:49my opinion this operation is just days away from going broke
13:08how's it going guys good morning good morning after a stormy night at the veteran mining company's claim
13:16in arizona well it was nice earlier than a rainstorm now it looks like more rain's coming that
13:23unpredictability causes us a lot of problems the crew weighs the gold from the abandoned two-hour test
13:31well let's see your gold well that's what we got well that won't pay the bills that's for sure
13:490.02 guys that's not good
13:56you can call it sixty dollars in gold he probably burnt two hundred dollars in fuel in that two
14:01hours yesterday after expenses this way leaves a monthly loss of sixteen thousand dollars
14:11if we don't have better results we're not gonna be around much longer
14:17i wouldn't be discouraged though you guys want to do this to be able to help vets
14:21we love the idea you know i think there uh there could be a possibility here to do that but
14:25i think
14:25it's going to be a whole change of process we'll go put our heads together and yeah try to figure
14:30some stuff out here better days ahead let's do it we'll see you guys back in the day okay thank
14:36you
14:38we're not going to survive if we keep getting clean outs like this we can't even pay for our fuel
14:43yeah
14:44there's a whole lot riding on this but we're not a group that uh that takes failure lightly
14:49the reality is they're our final hope to uh keep this thing alive well they got a lot of bad
14:57things
14:58going on here the whole operation needs revamped it doesn't have near the eccentric in it to get
15:05that material going down right well that dry wash box that screen on a lot of those is actually wore
15:10out holes in them there's a good chance we're losing a lot of that fine gold exactly that material
15:15is too wet you know especially right now yeah if it's going to be a dry plant you're going to
15:18run
15:19pay has to be dry 100 dry not damp not moist dry so what i'm thinking it's going to require
15:26planning
15:27but build a heating pad in order to be able to dry that material you know we're going to have
15:31to heat
15:32it from the inside out and it's going to be on the pile and heat rises yeah i think the
15:36biggest thing
15:36is damp material well let's go talk to them let's do it we just got an inch of rain last
15:43night
15:43well if it keeps doing this every day we're in deep trouble from mid-june to september in arizona
15:50intense summer heat creates low pressure that pulls in moist tropical air over the gulf of california
15:58creating heavy monsoonal thunderstorms this year late season heat has brought even heavier rains onto
16:08bone dry ground creating disastrous conditions for dry washing how's it going guys it's going
16:20genuinely there's a lot to do a lot every step of your process needs help okay yeah the damp material
16:27has really got us worried you know because you know you're running a dry plant it's got to be 100
16:31percent dry yeah we've been fighting yes we want to build a heating grid to be able to store your
16:37material yeah it's going to be pretty intricate and basically all the material that's stacked on top of
16:42it's going to get heated from the bottom up it's going to be a learning experience we've never done
16:46it before we want to work on your plant itself on that screen that eccentric isn't really doing
16:51anything underneath there yeah your dry boxes they're actually torn so we got to work on those as well
16:55okay we actually drove by your cut just a minute ago and it's underwater right now so anyway we could
17:01pump that water out of there yeah we have a pump for it before it keeps soaking in yeah but
17:05uh as
17:06far as material roughly eight thousand dollars and then labor we both decided that we don't want
17:11to charge anything for labor yeah appreciate the military absolutely you know they keep this country
17:15where we can go out gold mining yeah so we appreciate that thank you for your service
17:20so if you guys are good with it we're good with it
17:25my opinion is we're out of options uh we're all in well deal then yeah absolutely
17:31thank you sir to give this veteran run mine a fighting chance
17:40one will build a unique heating pad to dry wet pay
17:45hot air from a diesel burner will blow into a central manifold then through a network of pipes
17:54while retaining walls hold the material as it dries to increase recovery on the plant custom
18:02adjustable eccentrics will allow more pay to feed through the screen
18:07the blow boxes will be upgraded with new mesh and aluminum back plates to prevent fine gold from being
18:16lost finally freddie will examine their cut to locate the best gold bearing pay
18:27so this is the beginning of the heating grid
18:31one kicks off the fixes with his one-of-a-kind pay dryer
18:40we've never built anything like this so we had to kind of design it on the fly
18:44we're building a manifold heat's going to radiate from tubes up and into the pile of material on top
18:52the idea that we have here it should work but ultimately we don't know until the test run when
18:57we get pay on there to dry it out we'll see how it does
19:08freddie asked us to get the pump set up to get the water out of the pit
19:13usually monsoon season is way earlier in the year so we don't have to really worry about the water
19:17issue of filling the pit as much it's just getting worse and worse this season
19:26okay let's do it all right i'm gonna start it kaden and larry pump out the flood water
19:37all our material in the cuts just going to be wet and we can't run that through the plant
19:41the sudden monsoons that come up are just a nightmare
19:58so your cut management you're most important as far as what to dig and what not to dig
20:04okay at the veteran mining company claim in arizona
20:09it'll make you or break you the cut is now dry enough for freddie to examine i want to get
20:16in
20:17there and look at what they've been pulling out it may take 10 pounds to find a color but if
20:21you find
20:21a color it should be decent pay this stuff right here you can actually see the layers in it yeah
20:29so
20:29that's lake bed silt gold doesn't travel in silt beds that stuff won't even grow potatoes let alone
20:36catch gold you're digging it all at one shot right yeah sure you might think there's gold because
20:43that top layer is going to have some gold in it yeah and then you're mixing it all together all
20:47you're
20:48doing is watering down your your pay yeah and it costs just as much to run that as it does
20:54stuff
20:54with gold in it yeah let's go have a look at that hole over there okay
21:06what's your average day then uh with the plant continuously breaking we're
21:10sitting at about two three grams a day not enough
21:17the material is definitely shingled in here so an old river channel
21:22probably you know during the ice ages when this would have been a lot wetter area
21:27the rocks tell you a story see how these rocks are laid flat when it's in flowing and moving
21:33material it's not going to stand up right millions of years ago powerful rivers cut through the bradshaw
21:40mountains washing gold from hard rock veins into the basin below as the water slows and dries up the
21:49heavy gold settles into the gravel left behind
21:58this is the best looking stuff to me okay by far
22:04you know you can tell all this was put down by a stream bed so nature's sluice box right yep
22:09you got that clay layer on the bottom that wouldn't allow gold to pass through it
22:12uh-huh clay layers act as false bedrock stopping heavy gold from sinking any deeper let's get some
22:20of those gravels here and have a look okay
22:32how many people help out here five most of the guys in the navy
22:37my dad was in the navy in world war ii he got to fight kamikazes in the pacific
22:45his ship never got hit though he's on a destroyer yeah awesome there you go
22:54you like it out here in the desert i like being in the middle of nowhere don't have to deal
22:58with people
23:01well there's three colors fine gold there's one there one there one there a lot of what we've been
23:08finding though is that fine stuff yeah there's gold in it i'd say uh get in there and get that
23:16material
23:16okay we can get a bunch of that out get it up here sounds good to me so it's one
23:23of those situations
23:24where if you don't high grade your material and take the best of the best you go broke
23:36so we got all the pieces cut out for the manifold
23:41at the cut trailer one welds together the manifolds for the heating grid
23:48there's going to be one of these sections on each side so it's going to be a total of 16
23:52feet long
23:53by four feet deep and uh we're going to have three sides of this there will be the center section
23:58where the heat's going to get forced in and then from there it'll distribute across the tubes so it's
24:03just one to go
24:11all good
24:48so i'm going to design and build a whole new setup
24:52it's a design that i did years ago on some of my own stuff freddie's first mission upgrade the
24:59eccentric system for a more violent shake this is going to be the new shaft so their old one was
25:06only half length if everything works out like it should on this eccentric it'll uh make that machine
25:13work a heck of a lot better
25:20yeah it's not good so uh we got to get the rust off here so it'll go through the bearings
25:25we'll start at
25:26that in i'm going to do a bush lathe here yep okay and then uh back to you need more
25:32tape you need more tape
25:34easy i'm sorry
25:37okay
25:41sanding off the rust will help ease the shaft through the new bearings
25:52push her on through look at that she's going now that's almost too pretty for our plant
26:00we're out of the military too then or yes sir in the navy 80 to 90. okay aircraft carrier jet
26:06engine
26:07mechanic okay worked flight deck come from georgia um went in the military at 17
26:14saw the world but i have always enjoyed prospecting
26:17always wanted to prospect out west
26:20after retiring in 2003 tim was a hobby prospect when he found the veteran mining company as far as being
26:29a vet myself coming out here has been awesome it's renewed my sense of what we fought for i can't
26:35imagine what this could mean some of our hardest hit combat vets the severe ptsd sufferers it makes
26:44your heart slow like it's a good deal if this mine works out just got to be enough
26:49gold here you know we're looking forward to getting gold in the pan yep well thank you for your help
26:54guys i can get her from here we've only got so much time here and uh you know look at
27:06the puffy
27:06clouds starting to fire back up in the sky now the dry plant cannot run material with any moisture in
27:11it so i am extremely worried juan are you still working on that heater hopefully we can get material
27:19on there and knock a moisture out of it
27:33ready one last push it's the final day of fixes at the veteran mining company's claim
27:41we needed a little more work area so we moved the manifold onto the trailer
27:46and with more monsoon rains on the horizon one tests out the heating grid
27:52the heat's going to be introduced right in the center and then from there it's going to distribute
27:56six to the left six to the right and then it'll go to the next one
28:11the burner generates 5000 btu's of heat but it's not transferring properly through the grid we're
28:18not having really good combustion in there we need more draw through that's what i wanted to check before
28:24got you carried away we're gonna have to put another tube in here we'll do it right here in
28:30the center originally the burner that i had anticipated had a little bit less cfm this one has more
28:36so we need to add more ventilation there isn't enough air flow to fully heat the grid we're gonna
28:43have to mark the center put the tube in get it in weld it but at least we know now
28:49you know running a dry plant you have to have completely dry material and right now during
28:54the raining season it's almost impossible this is going to be essential for him to keep on running
28:58i still have a lot to do here
29:05what they had before was just some welded pieces on there that you couldn't adjust anything on
29:10at the wash plant freddy installs the new eccentric weights to the shaker screen
29:17now i can make it exactly balanced where there's no vibration so the farther i move this around the
29:23more out of balance it becomes so it'll shake harder the weights can be adjusted to a shake that best
29:29suits the material being run it's going to make the plant more efficient it's going to clean the material
29:36better it'll help out a bunch eccentrics in place the screen is lifted back into position you good i'm good
29:51okay that's a fit there you go
30:00real good fix looks good freddy has one final finishing touch so i just built this damper guys
30:08a tool box liner turned dampener to slow down material there you go so when that material comes
30:16down yeah it's going to help push that material through that screen but it's going to help keep
30:21dust down and help more gold get into your boxes
30:28something that costs you know 20 bucks to make but it'll help save gold every time you run
30:36you got a crescent wrench and a hammer i got all kind of stuff i don't have a hammer
30:41screen fix complete tim and jim set to work upgrading the blow boxes with 200 mesh fabric and aluminum frames
30:51not looking good for the home team look like they were all glued in here the new mesh will help
30:57prevent fine gold from being lost don't want to get any on where it doesn't belong
31:04oh no i should have combed my eyelid shut i wouldn't doubt that last one in got that one done
31:13good job
31:13all right a number of years ago i enlisted in the army security agency i had top secret clearance so
31:22was able to work for nasa for a little while all of that sort of led me to be out
31:27here to do this
31:29a lifelong interest in prospecting led jim to the veteran mining company my investment is one of labor
31:37i start the day 3 30 in the morning and usually before daylight i try to have the machines greased
31:45sustaining this operation is a challenge different fun different day equipment breaks weather disagrees
31:53with us what i'm getting out of it is the satisfaction of doing something for the veterans long term
31:59by enabling this mind to be a success this is number two and them too
32:12we've relined them put new backing plates on i can't wait to see them full of shiny
32:26that's a wrap these are in
32:36you know if we don't have dry pay for this final run we won't be able to run so we
32:39have to use this
32:40by adding this orange tube in the center we should be able to get that extra heat back at the
32:45cut
32:45trailer juan adds an extra tube the full length of the grid to improve the airflow and fix the
32:52heating issue let me run it look how hot this is the heat's traveling uh we wanted to make sure
33:01we
33:01had enough airflow so it would burn properly and be able to heat up the grid it's actually working
33:06really good now okay perfect yeah right now genuinely we're out of time
33:12we'll get the sides on we got to get this down to the to the plant so we get it
33:16set up get it
33:17fired off so we can start drying some pay
33:27yeah it's well built ready to see it go to work
33:35heating grid complete it's put into position ready to dry pay
33:43that's a beautiful piece
33:47let's get some tailings bury it keeps it from moving but also it'll kind of insulate it
33:58we could probably cook eggs on that
34:06it's pretty was right on the mark on this in preparation for the second test larry and the vets
34:14stockpile high-grade pay for the dryer this pay looks really really good he's a gold guru
34:26we get this material up to the heat pad do our second run on this
34:34get to see how much we've improved and how much more gold we have
34:43we've got a lot of high hopes for this thing show us what our future's going to hold up here
34:52all in all it's been a pretty good day hopefully this mine's sustainable
34:57so you can't run the material wet it's got to be dry or it will not recover the gold in
35:03the plant time
35:28well this is the last piece of the puzzle
35:30this vibrates to be able to clear out the tailing chute
35:35in western arizona it's a little tiny fix but it's a big deal juan installs one last fix on the
35:42veteran mining company's operation we should be able to run a little longer and uh more importantly
35:48get more gold well there it is we should be able to fire this thing up now let's run
36:00the fixes we're hoping is going to make a huge difference we were right on the edge of make or
36:07break
36:08newly upgraded dry plant and bespoke pay dryer at the ready freddy and one kick off the second test
36:17fire her up
36:23oh she's going awesome it's been a long road but i can't wait to see how much gold we get
36:32well two hour test let's do it
36:39get some of this dry material all right let's get this first bucket in
36:56the green's working good one you guys can see that it's moving now good work fred nice
37:06the eccentric's working perfect the damper's doing its job it's keeping that stuff from bouncing up
37:16pretty warm up one oh yeah that's good that's hot all right that orange is hot too
37:23plant's running a lot better we got the material glassifying through really well
37:32the boxes are doing really good we put a new vibrator on the discharge chute so it seems to be
37:39working
37:40good good now dry pay and a dialed in eccentric material flows cleanly through the plant and into the upgraded
37:49blow boxes
37:58i'm hoping this uh second test run delivers more gold
38:05in the cut larry and the rest of the crew focus on high graded pay
38:10material we're getting up to the heater pad looks like this is going to be some good thing
38:23look how dry this material is now it's a lot drier than we had before
38:29well that's two hours one last bucket
38:45hey larry can you uh head up here to the plant
38:47right right through there everything was smoothed down in the pit
38:55how'd it go up here with the plant that dryer works fantastic and then the top screen
39:03runs a heck of a lot better hopefully we'll have a better cleaner
39:19hey guys hey how's it going let's put it on the scale
39:25some super fine gold and some a little bit bigger gold yeah
39:31looks better than the first run
39:37there we go 0.08 going from 0.02 to 0.08 that's huge 300 increase yeah running a full
39:46day
39:46would recover just under sixteen hundred dollars in gold enough to cover costs and keep the veteran
39:54mining dream alive at gold the price it is right now it's viable you can actually run the mine on
39:59that and get your buddies out here with those numbers it's sustainable you know i know this is
40:05really important to you guys so please keep us posted we're going to give it our best shot well
40:08gentlemen we better get on the road thank you coming out here and working with you guys great
40:11meeting you guys thank you pleasure thank you gentlemen thank you freddie and juan the improvements
40:19you made uh help us move forward we're not going to give up we're going to be here this time
40:25next year
40:27going from 0.02 to 0.08 it goes from not being viable to now they have a chance to
40:33run this mine
40:33with the vets the dryer's working they're being able to recover a lot more of the gold so honestly i
40:39couldn't be happier i'm more than pleased with that not only you know is it a gold mine it's a
40:45good
40:46cost right to help these vets to be able to come out here and to work and maybe make a
40:52dime you know
40:54it means more than the gold itself having freddie and juan out here uh you know they're incredible
41:04in what they do the plants running absolutely wonderful the boxes with the frames and mats and
41:10the vibrators that fix the shaker deck the efficiency was tremendous where to find the gold what to look
41:17for was immensely able to us thank you for your efforts out here the the knowledge you bestowed on
41:25us and i hope to see you again down the road
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