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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
00:17100 dry he's losing gold all over the place overrun by monsoon rains it keeps doing this every day
00:26we're in deep trouble but with crew tensions high listen let me handle it anything that he's brought
00:35up here is none of the flattened out stuff that was to drive we really need freddy and one's help
00:41freddy and one must devise new tactics look how hot this is we've never built anything like this
00:46to even the odds fire her up oh look at that that's a beautiful piece they're our final hope
01:07what kind of figures how long we're going to work on a dry plant and now a monsoon's supposed to
01:14be
01:14coming in on us dry mining it's a tough game they're saying we could get three to five inches of
01:21rain
01:23deep in arizona freddy and juan respond to a desperate call for help
01:29at a claim run by a group of military veterans with a great cause
01:38how'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
01:55-time
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 grams
02:05out of how many yards 130 that's not real good we know yeah what's your goal this year 80 ounces
02:12and where you at right now uh we're not even over an ounce do you have any gold we can
02:18look at yeah i
02:19got some right here yeah it's fine gold we know we lose a lot especially on fine gold yeah and
02:26there's
02:27definitely an acceptable loss but when it comes to dry mining that loss is huge with gold prices the
02:31way they are now every spec counts every time we pan our tailings we find gold i'm a navy vet
02:39i was an
02:40operations specialist did two trips to vietnam but gold it always fascinated me after 10 years in the navy
02:49and four decades running a successful business larry walked away from retirement for one last mission
02:59my dream for veterans is that they have a safe place to integrate back into civilian life to learn new
03:08skills i've learned as i did in the military that teamwork is so important to make his dream real larry
03:18poured his retirement fund into this 20-acre claim the cost to keep the equipment uh the rentals
03:25is quite scary we really need freddie and juan's help now we've borrowed to our limits soon
03:33it's going to be more on the break it in than to make it in you have a group of
03:39guys that you're
03:39helping out are those the vets you're talking about yes we got about five veterans the end dream is
03:44veterans can come out here and learn heavy equipment operation learn mining we have to get the gold
03:49right first to be able to do that how much do you have invested in this operation a little over
03:53120
03:54000 personally and 160 000 worth of equipment and loans okay that's that's substantial rentals alone
04:04cost us 16 000 a month and our fuel bill is well above eight grand each month the vets need
04:11to pull
04:1124 000 worth of gold each month just to break even so you got a lot of people's money on
04:18the line
04:19not only money but potentially a lot of people's future you know what do you think before it rains
04:24let's do a two-hour test huh sounds good yeah you got people out here that have their life savings
04:31tied up in this and uh they're trying to help people and help themselves at the same time but if
04:36you go broke in that process you're helping nobody there we are got a nice little dry wash plant huh
04:42yeah we got a five box plant we can only run about 10 to 15 yards an hour desert mining
04:50is synonymous with
04:51dry washers which rely on a process of air and vibration to separate gold from the material a dry
04:59plant is up to 15 percent less efficient than a wash plant but allows mining in places with little to
05:07no water so you guys going to start hauling pay uh larry basically runs the whole pit operation well
05:16let's run it before the rain hits the forecast for today's showers and then downpours always rain on the
05:23worst possible times every time we try to run the planet wants to rain let's get running let's go
05:29get running let's get running let's get running let's get running let's get running let's get running
05:38first bucket line yep
05:45a 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
06:08these the tough situation here see the little dust storm that's pay dirt blowing he's losing gold all
06:14over the place we don't get this working a lot better for us everything's at stake we're going to
06:22lose the mind and we're never going to be able to help the other veterans out
06:28i come from a long line of military my grandfather was drafted into vietnam my great-grandfather was in
06:35world war ii and my father was special forces and i was in fort gordon georgia and fort hood texas
06:43after leaving the army kaden teamed up with larry and formed the veteran mining company focused on
06:51making a difference i've lost military friends due to ptsd and what i've seen work is getting a group of
06:59guys together and doing something to give them a sense of purpose once again but if we don't get our
07:05plant functioning a lot better i don't think we're going to be around another month
07:14there's quite a few issues that i'm seeing you know one of them is the feed uh secondary you know
07:20the waves distributed to the sluices and then three the sluices themselves
07:30another day in the neighborhood
07:34500 yards away in the pit the crew stockpiled pay led by larry in the 440 excavator
07:44i worked my whole adult life saved money for retirement and once i got creating something
07:52for the veterans i decided to go all in on it
07:59larry's team in the pit are army vet jim porcho on the skid steer and navy mechanic turned miner
08:07tim cercy on the loader you know larry anyway you look at it this is still better than a
08:12good day on the flight deck you know what i mean yeah army's used to dirt so
08:18So every day is a good day in the dirt for them.
08:21Roger that.
08:23I've got about $35,000 invested.
08:27And that's a significant sum of money for my wife and I.
08:32Tim moves the freshly dug pay across the pit.
08:35We can bring veterans on the ground out here.
08:37Man, I can face my creator and say, yep, I helped do that.
08:42But an operation like this, we've got our share of problems.
08:48I wish I'd had a nickel for every load
08:50that I ran through this thing.
08:52Jim screens material through the grizzly.
08:58I've always liked running equipment.
09:00I did not anticipate eating quite as much dirt, though.
09:08Next, he lays out the pay dirt in hopes
09:11of drying it before it's screened.
09:14He can pick up and move it over to the plant.
09:16Yeah.
09:17Roger that.
09:18Once screened, Tim picks the pay up again,
09:21taking the material to the plant for Caden to feed.
10:04The material's just damp enough that as it's rolling in there,
10:07it's going to get stuck in those doors.
10:08I keep having to get in there with a screwdriver to break it
10:11apart.
10:15Did you not have any other stuff that we flattened out yesterday?
10:20Despite best laid plans.
10:23So none of that material that's been flattened out
10:25is up here right now?
10:26No, that was all was classified.
10:28What pay has been mixed in and taken to the plant?
10:33It's all soaked.
10:34He told me to save that for the dry walker.
10:35I just, just let me handle it.
10:39Larry.
10:40Yo.
10:41Can you come with me on this one?
10:43Anything that he's brought up here
10:44is none of the flattened out stuff that was to dry.
10:46He's got that still stacked.
10:48All the time you're saying how this guy's incompetent,
10:52this guy can't do this, this guy all
10:54this can't work together.
10:55That's what I see.
10:58Today's the day.
11:03None of this stuff is dry.
11:06We don't always see eye to eye.
11:08We butt head on a lot of things.
11:10But I try to take as much pressure off as I can.
11:13I 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.
11:27OK, I'll start pulling from here.
11:28You know, you would think out here in the desert
11:30we wouldn't have a problem with moisture.
11:31But with a pile like this, that moisture gets locked inside.
11:34So 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.
12:02Vibrators get overheated.
12:06The vibrator that clears tailings from the screen
12:09keeps cutting out.
12:14Lowered an hour and 45 right now.
12:18You know, well, let's call it, I guess.
12:29We got rain coming in.
12:30We got to get the plant cleaned out.
12:32And we got to get this pay covered
12:33before it starts pouring down.
12:35You know, looking at the equipment that he has around here,
12:37it's easily $20,000 a month.
12:40Well, here, don't let me spill that.
12:42Let's keep the gold.
12:45They haven't made enough money to be
12:46able to really cover even one month of rental.
12:49My opinion, this operation is just days
12:51away from going broke.
13:10How's it going, guys?
13:11Good morning.
13:12Good morning.
13:14After a stormy night at the veteran mining
13:17company's claim in Arizona.
13:19Well, it was nice earlier than a rainstorm.
13:22Now it looks like more rain's coming.
13:24That unpredictability causes us a lot of problems.
13:28The crew weighs the gold from the abandoned two-hour test.
13:33Well, let's see your gold.
13:35Well, that's what we got.
13:37Well, that won't pay the bills, that's for sure.
13:50$0.02, guys.
13:53That's not good.
13:58You can call it $60 in gold.
14:00He probably burnt $200 in fuel in that two hours yesterday.
14:05after expenses this way leaves a monthly loss of sixteen thousand dollars if we don't have
14:14better results we're not gonna be around much longer i wouldn't be discouraged though you guys
14:20want to do this to be able to help vets we love the idea you know i think there uh
14:24there could be
14:25a possibility here to do that but i think it's going to be a whole change of process we'll go
14:29put our heads together and yeah try to figure some stuff out here better days ahead let's do it
14:36we'll see you guys back in the day thank you okay thank you we're not going to survive if we
14:42keep
14:42getting clean outs like this we can't even pay for our fuel yeah there's a whole lot riding on this
14:48but
14:48we're not a group that uh that takes failure lightly the reality is they're our final hope to uh keep
14:56this thing alive well they got a lot of bad things going on here the whole operation needs revamped
15:03doesn't have near the eccentric in it to get that material going down right well that dry wash box
15:10that screen on a lot of those is actually wore out holes in them there's a good chance we're losing
15:14a
15:14lot of that fine gold exactly that material is too wet you know especially right now yeah if it's going
15:19to be a dry plant you're going to run pay has to be dry 100 dry not damp not moist
15:24dry
15:26so what i'm thinking it's going to require planning but build a heating pad in order to be able to
15:31dry
15:31that material you know we're going to have to heat it from the inside out it's going to be on
15:35a pile
15:35and heat rises yeah i think the biggest thing is damp material well let's go talk to them let's do
15:41it
15:43we just got an inch of rain last night well if it keeps doing this every day we're in deep
15:48trouble
15:49from mid-june to september in arizona intense summer heat creates low pressure that pulls in moist tropical
15:57air over the gulf of california creating heavy monsoonal thunderstorms this year late season heat
16:07has brought even heavier rains onto bone dry ground creating disastrous conditions for dry washing
16:19how's it going guys it's going genuinely there's a lot to do a lot every step of your process needs
16:27help okay and the damp materials really got us worried you know because you know you're running
16:32a dry plant it's got to be 100 dry yeah we've been fighting yes we want to build a heating
16:37grid to be
16:38able to store your material yeah it's going to be pretty intricate and basically all the material
16:43that's stacked on top of it's going to get heated from the bottom up it's going to be a learning
16:47experience we've never done it before we want to work on your plant itself on that screen that eccentric
16:52isn't really doing anything underneath there yeah your dry boxes they're actually torn so we got to work
16:56on those as well okay we actually drove by your cut just a minute ago and it's under water right
17:01now
17:01is there any way we could pump that water out of there yeah we have a pump for it before
17:05it keeps
17:05soaking in yeah but uh as far as material roughly eight thousand dollars and then labor we both decided
17:12that we don't want to charge anything for labor yeah appreciate the military absolutely you know they
17:16keep this country where we can go out gold mining yeah so we appreciate that thank you for your service
17:22for sure so if you guys are good with it we're good with it my opinion is we're out of
17:28options
17:30we're all in well deal then yeah absolutely thank you sir to give this veteran-run mine a fighting chance
17:41one will build a unique heating pad to dry wet pay
17:47hot air from a diesel burner will blow into a central manifold then through a network of pipes
17:56while retaining walls hold the material as it dries to increase recovery on the plant custom adjustable
18:04eccentrics will allow more pay to feed through the screen the blow boxes will be upgraded with new mesh
18:13and aluminum back plates to prevent fine gold from being lost
18:19finally freddy will examine their cut to locate the best gold bearing pay
18:29so this is the beginning of the heating grid
18:32one kicks off the fixes with his one-of-a-kind pay dryer
18:42we've never built anything like this so we had to kind of design it on the fly we're building a
18:46manifold heat's going to radiate from tubes up and into the pile of material on top
18:54the idea that we have here it should work but ultimately we don't know until the test run when we
18:59get pay on there to dry it out we'll see how it does
19:10freddy asked us to get the pump set up to get the water out of the pit
19:15usually monsoon season is way earlier in the year so we don't have to really worry about the water issue
19:19of filling the pit as much it's just getting worse and worse this season down in the cut
19:28okay let's do it all right i'm gonna start it caden and larry pump out the flood water
19:38all our material and the cuts just going to be wet and we can't run that through the plant
19:43the sudden monsoons that come up are just a nightmare it's what you get when you play outside
20:02so your cut management you're most important as far as what to dig and what not to dig
20:07okay at the veteran mining company claim in arizona it'll make or break you the cut is now dry enough
20:17for freddy to examine i want to get in there and look at what they've been pulling out it may
20:22take
20:2210 pounds to find a color but if you find a color it should be decent paint this stuff right
20:30here you
20:31can actually see the layers in it yeah so that's lake bed silt gold doesn't travel in silt beds
20:37that stuff won't even grow potatoes let alone catch gold you're digging it all at one shot right
20:43yeah sure you might think there's gold because that top layer is going to have some gold in it
20:48yeah and then you're mixing it all together all you're doing is watering down your your pay
20:53yeah and it costs just as much to run that as it does stuff with gold in it yeah let's
21:00go have a
21:00look at that hole over there okay
21:10what's your average day then uh with the plant continuously breaking we're sitting at about
21:14two three grams a day yeah not enough the material is definitely shingled in here so an old river
21:24channel probably you know during the ice ages when this would have been a lot wetter area
21:30the rocks tell you a story see how these rocks are laid flat when it's in flowing and moving material
21:37it's not going to stand up right millions of years ago powerful rivers cut through the bradshaw mountains
21:45washing gold from hard rock veins into the basin below as the water slows and dries up
21:52the heavy gold settles into the gravel left behind
22:02this is the best looking stuff to me okay by far
22:07you know you can tell all this was put down by a stream bed so nature's sluice box right yep
22:12you got
22:13that clay layer on the bottom that wouldn't allow gold to pass through it clay layers act as false bedrock
22:20stopping heavy gold from sinking any deeper let's get some of those gravels here and have a look okay
22:35how many people help out here five most of the guys in the navy my dad was in the navy
22:41in world war ii
22:43he got to fight kamikazes in the pacific his ship never got hit though he's on a destroyer yeah awesome
22:54there you go
22:57you like it out here in the desert i like being in the middle of nowhere don't have to deal
23:01with people
23:02you know there's three colors fine gold there's one there one there one there a lot of what we've
23:12been finding though is that fine stuff yeah there's gold in it i'd say uh get in there and get
23:19that
23:19material okay if we can get a bunch of that out get it up here sounds good to me so
23:26it's one of those
23:27situations where if you don't hydrate your material and take the best of the best you go broke
23:40so we got all the pieces cut out for the manifold
23:44at the cut trailer one welds together the manifolds for the heating grid
23:52there's going to be one of these sections on each side so it's going to be a total of 16
23:55feet long
23:56by four feet deep and we're going to have three sides of this there will be the center section
24:01where the heat's going to get forced in and then from there it'll distribute across the tubes
24:05so it's just one to go all good
24:27swing that way
24:30at the plant freddie rallies the troops to begin work on the dry plant screen and shaker boom up
24:42track back
24:47it'll work yep
24:52so i'm going to design and build a whole new setup
24:55it's a design that i did years ago on some of my own stuff freddie's first mission upgrade the
25:02eccentric system for a more violent shake this is going to be the new shaft so their old one was
25:10only half length if everything works out like it should on this eccentric it'll uh make that machine
25:16work a heck of a lot better
25:23yeah it's not good so uh we've got to get the rust off here so it'll go through the bearings
25:29we'll start
25:29at that end i'm going to do a bush lat here yep okay and then uh back to you need
25:36more tape
25:36ah you need more tape easy i'm sorry
25:44sanding off the rust will help ease the shaft through the new bearings
25:56push her on through look at that she's going now that's almost too pretty for our plant
26:03are you out of the military too then or
26:05yes sir in the navy 80 to 90. okay aircraft carrier jet engine mechanic okay work the flight deck
26:13come from georgia um went in the military at 17. saw the world but i have always enjoyed prospecting
26:21always wanted to prospect out west after retiring in 2003 tim was a hobby prospect when he found the
26:29veteran mining company as far as being a vet myself coming out here has been awesome it's renewed my
26:36sense of what we fought for i can't imagine what this could mean some of our hardest hit combat vets
26:43the severe ptsd sufferers it makes your heart swell like it's a good deal if this mine works out
26:52just got to be enough gold here you know we're looking forward to getting gold in the pan yep well
26:57thank you for your help guys i can get her from here we've only got so much time here and
27:07uh you
27:08know look at the puffy clouds starting to fire back up in the sky now the dry plant cannot run
27:13material
27:14with any moisture in it so i am extremely worried juan are you still working on that heater hopefully we
27:21can get material on there and knock the moisture out of it ready one last push it's the final day
27:42of
27:43fixes at the veteran mining company's claim we needed a little more work area so we moved the manifold onto
27:50the trailer and with more monsoon rains on the horizon one tests out the heating grid the heat's
27:58going to be introduced right in the center and then from there it's going to distribute six to the left
28:02six to the right and then it'll go to the next one see it blow through there
28:15it's not really warm the burner generates 5 000 btu's of heat but it's not transferring properly
28:22through the grid we're not having really good combustion in there we need more draw through
28:28that's what i wanted to check before we got too carried away we're gonna have to put another tube in
28:34here we'll do it right here in the center originally the burner that i had anticipated had a little bit
28:39less cfm this one has more so we need to add more ventilation there isn't enough airflow to fully heat
28:47the grid we're gonna have to mark the center put the tube in get it in weld it but at
28:53least we know now
28:55you know running a dry plant you have to have completely dry material and right now during the
29:00rainy season it's almost impossible this is going to be essential for him to keep on running i still
29:04have a lot to do here what they had before was just some welded pieces on there that you couldn't
29:14adjust anything on at the wash plant freddy installs the new eccentric weights to the shaker screen now i
29:23can make it exactly balanced where there's no vibration so the farther i move this around the more
29:28out of balance it becomes so it'll shake harder the weights can be adjusted to a shake that best suits
29:35the material being run it's going to make the plant more efficient it's going to clean the material better
29:41it'll help out a bunch eccentrics in place the screen is lifted back into position you good i'm good
29:56okay that's a fit there you go
30:05real good fix looks good freddy has one final finishing touch so i just built this damper guys
30:13a toolbox liner turned dampener to slow down material there you go so when that material comes down
30:22yeah it's going to help push that material through that screen but it's going to help keep dust down
30:27and help more gold get into your boxes
30:33something that costs you know 20 bucks to make but it'll help save gold every time you run
30:42you got a crescent wrench and a hammer i got all kind of stuff i don't have a hammer
30:47screen fix complete tim and jim set to work upgrading the blow boxes with 200 mesh fabric and aluminum frames
30:57not looking good for the home team look like they were all glued in here the new mesh will help
31:02prevent fine gold from being lost don't want to get any on where it doesn't belong
31:09oh no i should have combed my eyelid shut i wouldn't doubt that last one in got that one done
31:18good job
31:19all right a number of years ago i enlisted in the army security agency
31:25i had top secret clearance so was able to work for nasa for a little while all of that sort
31:31of led me
31:32to be out here to do this a lifelong interest in prospecting led jim to the veteran mining company
31:40my investment is one of labor i start the day 3 30 in the morning and usually before daylight i
31:48try to
31:49have the machines greased sustaining this operation is a challenge different fun different day equipment
31:56breaks weather disagrees with us what i'm getting out of it is the satisfaction of doing something for
32:03the veterans long term by enabling this mine to be a success this is number two seven two
32:17we've relined them put new backing plates on i can't wait to see them full of shiny
32:32that's a wrap these are in
32:41you know if we don't have dry pay for this final run we won't be able to run so we
32:44have to use this
32:45by adding this orange tube in the center we should be able to get that extra heat
32:49back at the cut trailer one adds an extra tube the full length of the grid to improve the airflow
32:56and fix the heating issue let me run it look how hot this is the heat's traveling uh we wanted
33:06to make
33:06sure we had enough airflow so it would burn properly and be able to heat up the grid it's actually
33:11working
33:11really good now okay perfect yeah right now genuinely we're out of time we'll get the sides on we got
33:19to
33:19get this down to the to the plant so we get it set up get it fired off so we
33:23can start drying some pay
33:32yeah it's well built ready to see it go to work
33:40heating grid complete it's put into position ready to dry pay
33:48that's a beautiful piece yeah
33:53let's get some tailings bury it keeps it from moving but also it'll kind of insulate it
34:03we could probably cook eggs on that
34:12freddy was right on the mark on this in preparation for the second test
34:18larry and the vets stockpile high-grade pay for the dryer this pay looks really really good
34:25he's a gold guru
34:32we get this material up to the heat pad do our second run on this
34:39get to see how much we've improved and how much more gold we have
34:48we've got a lot of high hopes for this thing so it's what our future's going to hold up here
34:57all in all it's been a pretty good day hopefully this mine's sustainable
35:03though you can't run the material wet it's got to be dry or it will not recover the gold in
35:08the plant
35:39time will tell
35:39clear out the tailing chute in western arizona it's a little tiny fix but it's a big deal
35:46juan installs one last fix on the veteran mining company's operation we should be able to run a
35:53little longer and uh more importantly get more bold well there it is we should be able to fire this
35:58thing
35:58up now let's run the fixes we're hoping is going to make a huge difference we were right on the
36:12edge
36:13of make or break newly upgraded dry plant and bespoke pay dryer at the ready freddie and one kick off
36:23the second test
36:24fire her up
36:27oh
36:30she's going awesome it's been a long road but i can't wait to see how much gold we get
36:38well two hour test let's do it
36:46get some of this dry material all right let's get this first bucket in
37:04screen's working good one you guys can see that it's moving now good work fred nice
37:14the eccentric's working perfect the damper's doing its job it's keeping that stuff from bouncing up
37:23pretty warmed up wano yeah it's good that's hot right that orange is hot too
37:30the plant's running a lot better we got the material classifying through really well
37:39the box is doing really good we put a new vibrator on the discharge chute so it seems to be
37:46working
37:47good now dry paint and a dialed in eccentric material flows cleanly through the plant and into the upgraded
37:57flow boxes
38:05i'm hoping this uh second test run delivers more gold
38:12in the cut larry and the rest of the crew focus on high graded pay
38:18material we're getting up to the heater pad looks like this is going to be some good thing
38:30well look how dry this material is now it's a lot drier than we had before
38:36well that's two hours one last bucket
39:03it's a lot drier than we had before we had before we had before we had before we had before
39:09we had
39:10runs a heck of a lot better hopefully we'll have a better clean
39:26hey guys hey how's it going let's put it on the scale
39:32some super fine gold and some a little bit bigger gold yeah
39:38looks better than the first run
39:44there we go 0.08 going from 0.02 to 0.08 that's huge 300 increase
39:52running a full day would recover just under sixteen hundred dollars in gold
39:58enough to cover costs and keep the veteran mining dream alive at gold the price it is right now it's
40:05viable you can actually run the mine on that and get your buddies out here with those numbers it's
40:10sustainable you know i know this is really important to you guys so please keep us posted
40:13we're gonna give it our best shot well gentlemen we better get on the road thank you guys coming
40:17out here and working with you guys great meeting you guys thank you gentlemen
40:24thank you freddie and juan the improvements you made uh help us move forward we're not going to
40:30give up we're going to be here this time next year going from 0.02 to 0.08 it goes
40:36from not being
40:37viable to now they have a chance to run this mine with the vets the dryer's working they're being able
40:43to recover a lot more of the gold so honestly i couldn't be happier i'm more than pleased with that
40:50not only you know is it a gold mine it's a good cause right to help these vets be able
40:56to come
40:56out here and to work and maybe make a dime you know means more than the gold itself
41:07having freddie and juan out here uh you know they're incredible in what they do the plants running
41:13absolutely wonderful the boxes with new frames and mats and the vibrators and the fix the shaker deck
41:20the efficiency was tremendous where to find the gold what to look for was immensely able to us
41:26print anyone thank you for your efforts out here the the knowledge you bestowed on us and i hope to
41:34see
41:34you again down the road
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