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Gold Rush Freddy Dodges Mine Rescue - Season 6 - Episode 10: Desert Storm
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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
13:52that's not good
13:56you 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
14:21we 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 thank you
14:35okay
14:35thank you we're not going to survive if we keep getting clean outs like this we can't even pay for
14:42our fuel yeah there's a whole lot riding on this but we're not a group that uh that takes failure
14:49lightly the reality is they're our final hope to uh keep this thing alive well they got a lot of
14:57bad
14:57things going on here the whole operation needs revamped 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
15:18you're going to run hey it has to be dry 100 dry not damp not moist dry so what i'm
15:24thinking
15:25it's going to require planning but build a heating pad in order to be able to dry that material you
15:31know we're going to have to heat it from the inside out it's going to be on a pile and
15:34heat rises yeah
15:35i think the biggest thing is damp material well let's go talk to them let's do it
15:42we 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 tropical
15:55air over the gulf of california creating heavy monsoonal thunderstorms this year late season heat has
16:06brought even heavier rains onto bone dry ground creating disastrous conditions for dry washing
16:18how's it going guys it's going genuinely there's a lot to do a lot every step of your process needs
16:25help okay yeah the damp materials really got us worried you know because you know you're running a
16:30dry plant it's got to be 100 dry yeah we've been fighting yes we want to build a heating grid
16:36to be
16:36able to store your material yeah it's going to be pretty intricate and basically all the material
16:41that's stacked on top of it's going to get heated from the bottom up it's going to be a learning
16:45experience we've never done it before we want to work on your plant itself on that screen that eccentric
16:50isn't really doing anything underneath there yeah your dry boxes they're actually torn so we got to work
16:55on those as well okay we actually drove by your cut just a minute ago and it's underwater right now
17:00is there any way we could pump that water out of there yeah we have a pump for it before
17:03it keeps
17:04soaking in yeah but uh as far as material roughly eight thousand dollars and then labor we both decided
17:10that we don't want to charge anything for labor yeah appreciate the military absolutely you know they
17:15keep this country where we can go out gold mining yeah we appreciate that thank you for your service
17:20for sure so if you guys are good with it we're good with it my opinion is we're out of
17:27options
17:28we're all in well deal then yeah absolutely thank 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 the blow boxes will be upgraded
18:10with new mesh and aluminum back plates to prevent fine gold from being lost
18:18finally freddy will examine their cut to locate the best gold bearing pay
18:27so this is the beginning of the heating grid
18:30one 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
19:05we'll see how it looks like we're going to be able to get the water out of the pit
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
19:24down in the cut okay let's do it all right i'm gonna start it kaden and larry pump out the
19:32flood 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 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 okay
20:05at the veteran mining company claim in arizona it'll make you or break you the cut is now dry
20:13enough for freddy to examine i want to get in there and look at what they've been pulling out it
20:19may
20:19take 10 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 gold
20:31doesn't travel in silt beds that stuff won't even grow potatoes let alone catch gold you're digging it
20:38all at one shot right yeah i'm sure you might think there's gold because that top layer is going to
20:44have
20:44some gold in it yeah and then you're mixing it all together all you're doing is watering down
20:48your your pay yeah and it costs just as much to run that as it does stuff with gold in
20:55it yeah
20:56let'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 sitting at about
21:11two three grams a day oh not enough the material is definitely shingled in here so an old river
21:20channel probably 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
21:48the heavy 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
22:09that clay layer on the bottom that wouldn't allow gold to pass through it clay layers act as false bedrock
22:17stopping heavy gold from sinking any deeper let's get some of 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 his ship never got hit though he's on a destroyer yeah awesome
22:50there 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
23:12there's gold in it i'd say uh get in there and get that material okay we can get a bunch
23:18of that
23:18out get it up here sounds good to me so it's one of those situations where if you don't high
23:25grade
23:25your material and take the best of the best you go broke so we got all the pieces cut out
23:38for the
23:38manifold at 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
23:58the heat's going to get forced in and then from there it'll distribute across the tubes so it's just
24:03one to go all good
24:24swing that way
24:26at the plant freddie rallies the troops to begin work on the dry plant screen and shaker boom up
24:38track back
24:44it'll work yep
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
25:06half length if everything works out like it should on this eccentric it'll uh make that machine work a
25:13heck 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 uh back to you need more tape you
25:33need more tape
25:34easy i'm sorry
25:41sanding off the rust will help ease the shaft through the new bearings
25:52push her on through
25:54look at that she's going now that's almost too pretty for our plan
26:00were you out of the military too then or yes sir in the navy 80 to 90. okay aircraft carrier
26:06jet
26:06engine mechanic okay worked the flight deck come from georgia um went in the military at 17. saw the
26:14world but i've 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
26:45well i think it's a good deal if this mine works out just got to be enough gold here you
26:50know we're
26:50looking forward to getting 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
27:15are you still working on that heater hopefully we can get material on there and not the moisture out of
27:21it
27:25we can get material on there and not the moisture out of it and not the moisture out of it
27:34so it's
27:34ready one last push it's the final day of fixes at the veteran mining company's claim we needed a
27:41little more work area so we moved the manifold onto the trailer and with more monsoon rains on the
27:48horizon one 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
28:04see blow through there
28:09it's not really warm the burner generates 5 000 bt use of heat but it's not transferring properly
28:17through the grid we're not having really good combustion in there we need more draw through
28:23that's what i wanted to check before we got too carried away we're gonna have to put another tube
28:28in here we'll do it right here in the center originally the burner that i had anticipated had a
28:34little bit less cfm this one has more so we need to add more ventilation there isn't enough air flow
28:40to
28:41fully heat the grid we're gonna have to mark the center put the tube in get it in weld it
28:46but at least we
28:47know now you 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 at the
29:11wash plant freddy installs the new eccentric weights to the shaker screen now i can make it
29:18exactly balanced where there's no vibration so the farther i move this around the more out of balance
29:23it becomes so it'll shake harder the weights can be adjusted to a shake that best suits the material
29:31being run it's gonna make the plant more efficient it's gonna clean the material better it'll help out a
29:37bunch 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 something that costs you know 20 bucks to make
30:31but it'll help save gold every time you run
30:37you 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
30:49aluminum frames not looking good for the home team look like they were all glued in here
30:55the new mesh will help prevent fine gold from being lost don't want to get any on where it doesn't
31:01belong
31:04oh no a silicone eyelid shut i wouldn't doubt that last one in got that one done good job all
31:14right
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
31:28a lifelong interest in prospecting led jim to the veteran mining company my investment is one of
31:36labor i start the day uh 3 30 in the morning and usually before daylight i try to have the
31:44machines
31:44grease sustaining this operation is a challenge different fun different day equipment breaks weather
31:52disagrees with us what i'm getting out of it is the satisfaction of doing something for the
31:58veterans long term by enabling this mind to be a success this is number two and two
32:12we've re-lined 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 paper this final run we won't be able to run so we have
32:39to 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 one adds an extra tube the full length of the grid to improve the airflow and fix the heating
32:52issue let me run it look how hot this is the heat's traveling we wanted to make sure we had
33:01enough
33:01airflow so it would burn properly and be able to heat up the grid it's actually working really good now
33:07okay 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 can get it set up get it fired off so we can start drying some
33:18pay
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
34:07ready was right on the mark on this in preparation for the second test larry and the vets stockpile high
34:15grade 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 got a lot of high hopes for this tank it shows what our future is going to hold up
34:47here
34:51all 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
35:03time will tell
35:28well this is the last piece of the puzzle this 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 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 oh she's going awesome it's been a long road but i can't wait to see how much
36:28gold 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 watch 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 one oh yeah that'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 good
37:40now dry pay and a dialed in eccentric material flows cleanly through the plant and into the upgraded flow 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
38:22well 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
38:45hey larry can you uh head up here to the plant roger there
38:53everything was smooth down in the pit i had to go up here with the plant
38:59that dryer works fantastic and the top screen runs a heck of a lot better hopefully we'll have a better
39:19clean
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
39:380.08 going from 0.02 to 0.08 that's huge 300 increase yeah running a full day would recover
39:47just under sixteen hundred dollars in gold enough to cover costs and keep the veteran mining dream
39:55alive at gold the price it is right now it's viable you can actually run the mine on that
39:59and get your buddies out here with those numbers it's sustainable you know i know this is really
40:05important to you guys so please keep us posted we're going to give it our best shot well gentlemen
40:08we better get on the road thank you guys coming out here and working with you guys great meeting
40:12you guys thank you pleasure 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 i
40:38couldn'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
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
41:27see you again down the road
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