- 1 hour ago
Gold Rush Freddy Dodges Mine Rescue - Season 6 - Episode 10: Desert Storm
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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
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 drive we really need pretty
00:39and one's help pretty and one must devise new tactics look how hot this is we've never built
00:46anything like this to even the odds fire up oh look at that that's a beautiful piece
00:54they'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 freddie and juan respond to a desperate call for help at a claim run by a group
01:32of military veterans with a great cause
01:38how's it going guys good good good larry yeah nice to meet you how are you what larry pleasure
01:44larry freddie 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
02:00have you been able to collect about 10 ounces 10 ounces what's your best day 13 grams out of how
02:06many yards 130 that's not real good we know yeah what's your goal this year 80 ounces and where you
02:13at right now uh we're not even over an ounce do you have any gold we can look at yeah
02:19i got some
02:19right here yeah it's fine gold we know we lose a lot especially on fine gold yeah and there'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
02:40an operations specialist did two trips to vietnam but gold it always fascinated me after 10 years in the
02:49navy and four decades running a successful business larry walked away from retirement for one last mission
03:00my 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
03:18his retirement fund into this 20 acre claim the cost to keep the equipment uh the rentals is quite scary
03:27we really need freddie and juan's help now we've borrowed to our limits soon uh it's going to be more
03:35on the break it in than the make it in you have a group of guys that you're helping out
03:39are those the
03:40vets you're talking about yes uh we got about five veterans the end dream is veterans can come out here
03:46and learn heavy equipment operation learn mining we have to get the gold right first to be able to
03:50do that how much do you have invested in this operation a little over 120 000 personally and uh
03:57160 000 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 paint uh
05:12larry basically runs the whole pit operation well let's run it before the rain hits the forecast for
05:19today is 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 yep
05:45you know what to see a 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 leaving the
06:04heavier gold behind this tough situation here and see the little dust storm that's pay dirt blowing he's
06:14losing gold all over the place we don't get this working a lot better for us everything's at stake
06:21we're going to lose the mine 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
06:51on making a difference i've lost military friends due to ptsd and what i've seen work is getting a
06:59group of guys together and doing something to give them a sense of purpose once again but if we don't
07:05get our plant 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 way it's distributed to the sluices and then three the sluices themselves
07:30another day in the neighborhood
07:32that's good 500 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 for
07:52the veterans i decided to go all in on it
08:10that's a good day in the dirt so every day is a good day in the dirt for them roger
08:21that
08:24i've got about 35 000 invested and uh that's a significant sum of money for my wife and i
08:32tim moves the freshly dug pay across the pit we can bring veterans on the ground out here and man
08:38i can face my creator and say yep i helped do that but uh you know an operation like this
08:44we've got our
08:44share of problems i wish i had a nickel for every load that i ran through this thing
08:52jim screens material through the grizzly
08:58i'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
09:14he can pick up and move it over to the plant 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 then it gets 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 so none of
10:24that 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
10:33it's all soaked he told me to say all right i just just let me handle
10:40larry yo can you come with me on this one anything that he's brought up here is none of
10:45the flattened out stuff that was to dry he's got that still stacked all the time you're saying how
10:50this guy's incompetent this guy can't do this this guy always can't work together because it's what i see
10:58today's day
11:03none of this stuff is dry we don't always see eye to eye we butt heads on a lot of
11:09things but i try to
11:11take as much pressure off as i can i wonder for 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
11:29desert 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
11:54at the dry plant there's another snag
12:03vibrators overheated
12:06the vibrator that clears tailings from the screen keeps cutting out
12:14lord 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
12:43yeah they 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
13:16claim in arizona well it was nice earlier than a rainstorm now it looks like more rain's coming
13:22that unpredictability causes us a lot of problems
13:27the 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
13:51you can call it sixty dollars in gold he probably burnt two hundred dollars in fuel in that two hours
14:01yesterday after expenses this way leaves a monthly loss of sixteen thousand dollars
14:11if we don't have better results we're not going to be around much longer
14:17i wouldn't be discouraged though you guys want to do this to be able to help vets
14:20we 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
14:42fuel yeah there's a whole lot riding on this but we're not a group that uh that takes failure lightly
14:50the 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
15:04to get that material going down right well that dry wash box that screen on a lot of those is
15:10actually wore out holes in them there's a good chance we're losing a lot of that fine gold exactly
15:14that material is too wet you know especially right now yeah if it's going to be a dry plant you're
15:18going to run pay has to be dry 100 dry not damp not moist dry so what i'm thinking
15:25it's going to require planning but build a heating pad in order to be able to dry that material
15:30you know we're going to have to heat it from the inside out it's going to be on a pile
15:33and heat
15:34rises yeah i think the biggest thing is damp material well let's go talk to them let's do it
15:41we just got an inch of rain last night well if it keeps doing this every day we're in deep
15:47trouble
15:48from mid-june to september in arizona intense summer heat creates low pressure that pulls in moist
15:55tropical air over the gulf of california creating heavy monsoonal thunderstorms this year late
16:04season heat has brought even heavier rains onto bone dry ground creating disastrous conditions
16:12for dry washing how's it going guys it's going genuinely there's a lot to do a lot every step of
16:24your process needs help okay yeah the damp materials really got us worried you know because you know
16:30you're running a dry plant it's got to be 100 dry yeah we've been fighting yes we want to build
16:35a heating
16:35grid to be able to store your material yeah it's going to be pretty intricate and basically all the
16:41material that's stacked on top of it's going to get heated from the bottom up it's going to be a
16:45learning experience we've never done it before we want to work on your plant itself on that screen
16:49that eccentric isn't really doing anything underneath there yeah your dry boxes they're actually torn so
16:54we got to work on those as well okay we actually drove by your cut just a minute ago and
16:59it's
16:59underwater right now is there any way we could pump that water out of there yeah we have a pump
17:02for it
17:03before it keeps soaking in yeah but as far as material roughly eight thousand dollars and then labor we
17:09both decided that we don't want to charge anything for labor yeah appreciate the military absolutely
17:14you know they keep this country where we can go out gold mining yeah so we appreciate that thank you
17:19for your service so if you guys are good with it we're good with it
17:25my opinion is we're out of options we're all in well deal then yeah absolutely thank you sir
17:34to give this veteran run mine a fighting chance
17:40one will build a unique heating pad to dry wet pay hot air from a diesel burner will blow into
17:49a central
17:49manifold then through a network of pipes while retaining walls hold the material as it dries to increase
17:59recovery on the plant custom adjustable eccentrics will allow more pay to feed through the screen
18:08the blow boxes will be upgraded with new mesh and aluminum back plates to prevent fine gold from being
18:15lost finally freddy will examine their cut to locate the best gold bearing pay
18:27so this is the beginning of the heating grid one kicks off the fixes with his one-of-a-kind
18:34pay 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
19:08freddy 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 issue
19:18of filling the pit as much it's just getting worse and worse this season down in the cut
19:26okay let's do it all right i'm gonna start it caden and larry pump out the flood water
19:37all our material and 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 it's what you get when you play outside
19:59so 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 it'll make or break you the cut is now dry enough
20:14for freddy to examine i want to get in there and look at what they've been pulling out it may
20:19take
20:1910 pounds to find a color but if you find a color it should be decent pay
20:26this stuff right here you can actually see the layers in it yeah so that's lake bed silt
20:31gold doesn't travel in silt beds that stuff won't even grow potatoes let alone catch gold
20:37you're digging it all at one shot right yeah sure you might think there's gold because that top
20:43layer is going to have some gold in it yeah and then you're mixing it all together all you're doing
20:48is watering down your your pay yeah and it costs just as much to run that as it does stuff
20:54with gold in
20:55it 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 oh not enough
21:16the 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
21:26the 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
22:06so nature's sluice box right yep you got that clay layer on the bottom that wouldn't allow gold to pass
22:12through it 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 my dad was in the navy
22:38in world war ii
22:39he 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
23:01no there's three colors fine gold there's one there one there one there
23:06mm-hmm a lot of what we've been finding though is that fine stuff yeah there's gold in it i'd
23:14say uh
23:15get in there and get that material okay if we can get a bunch of that out get it up
23:19here sounds good
23:20to me so it's one of those situations where if you don't high grade your material and take the best
23:27of
23:27best you go broke so 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
24:23swing that way at the plant freddie rallies the troops to begin work on the dry plant's screen and
24:33shaker boom up
24:38track back
24:44it'll work yep
24:48so i'm going to design and build a whole new setup it's a design that i did years ago on
24:54some of my
24:55own stuff freddie's first mission upgrade the eccentric system for a more violent shake
25:02this is going to be the new shaft so their old one was only half length if everything works out
25:09like
25:09it should on this eccentric it'll uh make that machine work a heck of a lot better
25:20yeah it's not good
25:22so uh we got to get the rust off here so it'll go through the bearings we'll start at that
25:26end
25:28i'm going to do a bush lathe here yep okay and then back to you need more tape
25:33you need more tape easy i'm sorry
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 plan
26:00for you out of the military too then or yes sir in the navy 80 to 90. okay aircraft carrier
26:06jet engine
26:06mechanic okay worked the flight deck come from georgia um went in the military at 17. saw the world
26:14but i have always enjoyed prospecting always wanted to prospect out west after retiring in 2003
26:23tim was a hobby prospect when he found the veteran mining company as far as being a vet myself coming
26:30out here has been awesome it's renewed my sense of what we fought for i can't imagine what this could
26:37mean some of our hardest hit combat vets the severe ptsd sufferers it makes your heart slow
26:45like it's a good deal if this mine works out just got to be enough gold here you know we're
26:50looking
26:50for it to get gold in the pan yep well thank you for your help guys i can get her
26:55from here
27:01we've only got so much time here and uh you know look at the puffy clouds starting to fire back
27:07up in
27:07the sky now the dry plant cannot run material with any moisture in it so i am extremely worried juan
27:15while you're still working on that heater hopefully we can get material on there and knock the moisture
27:21out of it
27:33ready one last push it's the final day of fixes at the veteran mining company's claim we needed a little
27:42more work area so we moved the manifold onto the trailer and with more monsoon rains on the horizon
27:49one tests out the heating grid the heat's going to be introduced right in the center and then from
27:54there it's going to distribute six to the left six to the right and then it'll go to the next
27:59one
28:10the burner generates 5000 bt use 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
28:24we got too carried away we're gonna have to put another tube in here we'll do it right here in
28:30the
28:30center originally the burner that i had anticipated had a little bit less cfm this one has more so we
28:37need to add more ventilation there isn't enough air flow to fully heat the grid we're gonna have to
28:43mark the center put the tube in get it in weld it but at least we know now you know
28:50running a dry plant
28:51you have to have completely dry material and right now during the raining season it's almost impossible
28:56this is going to be essential for him to keep on running i 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
29:22the more out of balance it becomes so it'll shake harder the weights can be adjusted to a shake that
29:29best suits the material being run it's going to make the plant more efficient it's going to clean the
29:35material better it'll help out a bunch eccentrics in place the screen is lifted back into position you
29:43good i'm good
29:51okay that's a fit
29:54there 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
30:27something 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 kinds 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
31:10last one in got that one done good job all right
31:15a 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 uh 3 30 in the morning and usually before daylight i try to have the machines
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
32:08this is number two and two
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
32:44back at the cut trailer one adds an extra tube the full length of the grid to improve the airflow
32:51and fix the heating issue let me run it look how hot this is
32:58the heat's traveling uh we wanted to make sure we had enough airflow so it would burn properly and be
33:04able to heat up the grid it's actually working really good now okay perfect
33:10yeah right now genuinely we're out of time we'll get the sides on we got to get this down to
33:14the
33:15to the plant so we get it set up get it fired off so we can start drying some pay
33:27yeah it's well built ready to see it go to work
33:34heating grid complete it's put into position ready to dry pay
33:43that's a beautiful piece yeah
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
34:07freddy was right on the mark on this in preparation for the second test
34:13larry and the vets stockpile high grade pay for the dryer this pay looks really really good
34:20he'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 tank it shows what our future is going to hold up
34:47here
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
35:28well this is the last piece of the puzzle
35:30this vibrates to be able to clear out the tailing chute
35:34in western arizona it's a little tiny fix but it's a big deal
35:39juan installs one last fix on the veteran mining company's operation we should be able to run a
35:46little longer and uh more importantly get more gold well there it is we should be able to fire this
35:51thing
35:51up 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 newly upgraded dry plant and bespoke pay dryer at the ready freddy and one kick off the second test
36:17fire her up
36:20oh
36:23she'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 dancer's doing its job and keeping that stuff from bouncing up
37:15pretty warmed up wano yeah it's good that's hot right that orange is hot too
37:23the plant's running a lot better we got the material classifying 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 now dry paint and a dialed in eccentric material flows cleanly through the plant and into the upgraded flow
37:58boxes
37:58i'm hoping this 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
38:22and look how dry this material is now it's a lot drier than we had before
38:29well that's two hours one last bucket
38:58that dryer works fantastic i'm at a top screen
39:02runs a heck of a lot better hopefully we'll have a better clean
39:18hey 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
39:31it looks better than the first run
39:37there we go
39:390.08 going from 0.02 to 0.08 that's huge 300 increase
39:44running a full day would recover just under sixteen hundred dollars in gold enough to cover costs and
39:53keep the veteran mining dream alive at gold the price it is right now it's viable you can actually
39:58run the mine on that and get your buddies out here with those numbers it's sustainable you know i know
40:04this is really important to you guys so please keep us posted we're going to give it our best shot
40:08well gentlemen we better get on the road thank you guys coming out here and working with you guys
40:11great meeting you guys thank you gentlemen thank you freddie and juan the improvements you made
40:20help us move forward we're not going to give up we're going to be here this time next year
40:26going 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
40:38i couldn't be happier i'm more than pleased with that not only you know is it a gold mine it's
40:45a good
40:46cost right to help these vets to be able to come out here and to work and maybe make a
40:52dime
40:52you know means more than the gold itself
41:00having freddie and juan out here uh you know they're incredible in what they do the plants
41:05running absolutely wonderful the boxes with new frames and mats and the vibrators that fix the
41:12shaker deck the efficiency was tremendous where to find the gold what to look for was immensely
41:18valuable to us thank you for your efforts out here the the knowledge you bestowed on us and i hope
41:27to see
41:27you again down the road
Comments