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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 25, 2017 17:24:11 GMT -5
What part of "let me get some of my honeydews (yes, women can have them, too!) done" did you not understand? LOL. I would have had them done in 10 minutes Liar. Good to know I can still hold your attention....
Dintcha know good things are worth waiting for, James?
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Post by MrP on Jul 25, 2017 17:49:11 GMT -5
Looks like its oxy-acc welded to me. I think you could be right about that...............................MrP |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller 
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Jul 25, 2017 18:10:33 GMT -5
What part of "let me get some of my honeydews (yes, women can have them, too!) done" did you not understand? LOL. I would have had them done in 10 minutes Liar. Good to know I can still hold your attention....
Dintcha know good things are worth waiting for, James?
5 minutes for that matter. Ladies have chores. We have insurmountable tasks to achieve. |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Jul 25, 2017 18:17:06 GMT -5
Looks like its oxy-acc welded to me. I think you could be right about that...............................MrP OK then, that might explain it. Thanks |
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notjustone
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2017
Posts: 426 
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Post by notjustone on Jul 25, 2017 22:43:30 GMT -5
jamesp doesn't the weld on the left look like it is cracked?...............................MrP By George it does ! Good eye Michael. It is a bit of a peculiar weld to start with, having a lot of heat to make such a blob. Someone must have had a powerful welder like a 400-500 amp stick unit. Probably on of those old 400 amp Lincoln's with a flat head 4 cylinder. I had one that burnt a quart of oil every 4 hours. Believe it was the old flat head 4 they put in a Willys jeep. Burned oil but burned rods quick too. A beast with that giant generator. most of them old lincolns (shield arcs) 200 amp ran a continental f162 or f163 4 banger and some of the 300s ive owned 3 of the 200 "pipeliners". my sa 300 had a f244 6 cyl conti. if you had one of the ones with the Hercules (willys jeep) it was an oldie. probably 40s or early 50s. |
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Jul 26, 2017 3:47:35 GMT -5
By George it does ! Good eye Michael. It is a bit of a peculiar weld to start with, having a lot of heat to make such a blob. Someone must have had a powerful welder like a 400-500 amp stick unit. Probably on of those old 400 amp Lincoln's with a flat head 4 cylinder. I had one that burnt a quart of oil every 4 hours. Believe it was the old flat head 4 they put in a Willys jeep. Burned oil but burned rods quick too. A beast with that giant generator. most of them old lincolns (shield arcs) 200 amp ran a continental f162 or f163 4 banger and some of the 300s ive owned 3 of the 200 "pipeliners". my sa 300 had a f244 6 cyl conti. if you had one of the ones with the Hercules (willys jeep) it was an oldie. probably 40s or early 50s. A friend got it in an estate sale and sold it to me for $250. It was 1950 - something. Built a barn out of it on the back 40 where there was no electricity. It had receptacles to run the grinders. I remember listing it for sale. Buyer snapped it up first day and had a sparkle in his eye. Said he was going to renovate it. Welded barn out of a pile of 20 foot heavy gauge 4 inch angle iron with 3/16" rods. Great welder. You must collect those old Lincoln's notjust ? The old school guys in the area had them on their trucks. Used them in full time welding business. |
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notjustone
spending too much on rocks
Member since January 2017
Posts: 426
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Post by notjustone on Jul 26, 2017 9:51:41 GMT -5
my father in law got me into welding he had 7 old shield arcs. I worked for him for a couple years as a helper. went to night school to learn to weld myself and get my first cert. he must have known I was serious about welding which his 2 boys never had any interest in because, I completed the class close to xmass on xmass morning he said see the 4 welders on trailers pick 1. got myself a bigger truck did a lot of heavy equip type work had some structural certs. aws and dot. them shield arcs would lay a smooth bead 8 10 12 hours a day, day in day out for years only problem was the 200s were 1500 lbs. where as the air cooled rangers bobcats champions weigh in at 500 lbs. don't weld as nice don't last nearly as long but are a fraction of the cost. so you see a lot of them on service trucks but the full time welders will almost always have shield arcs vantage or miller big40s.
bad timing for me just as I was getting in a lot of the big manufacturing plants were closing and every welder in the area was throwing a welder on a truck and lowballing to get into the bizz. father in law puts around for a while making less money each year then decided it was time to retire. wish ide have known he was gonna drop out I probably would have ended up with enough of his clients to stay in the game. but he talked about retiring for years, my list of clients kept dwindling got tired of dropping rate to compete. most clients didn't have cert or liability requirements so went with whoever was cheapest. just 1 day I got tired of not doing anything for fear if you missed that late nght or weekend phone call they would move on and you would lose that client. parked the truck took a pay cut for a nine to five and never looked back.
ps how many grinders did you burn up before you realized the exciter coils produced 110v dc voltage. if you didn't have ac/dc grinders they burnt right up.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Aug 5, 2017 9:31:15 GMT -5
Are we done with the welding now? Lol.
An update and a few more pics. Since I only took one photo on July 22, here's some from the same location a couple weeks earlier.
Early morning on July 2. Had the place to ourselves, a gorgeous morning. 
The club's claim runs up this valley, and includes the canyon side to the right (west).
Getting things unloaded.
Directly beneath my feet is where I dug my hole this day, and also the next time.
Breaking for lunch.
The hole mrrockpicker dug.
Buckets of classified material to take home and process. On this day, we worked 8+ hours and filled 17 three gallon buckets.
In the hole!
Running the material through a recirculating high banker at home the next day.
That was a great trip report and well photoed . Now show us some color . Alrighty, Rich, sometimes Dale. This is the gold found on July 2. Don't know what it weighs, it doesn't even register on my cheapo digital scale. No matter. Not enough to worry about.
This is the gold recovered on July 22, from approximately the same location, only deeper. Notice the chunks of quartz with gold attached! We have found that the gold in location tends to be pretty sharp, had not travelled along distance from it's source.
I have started collecting the small garnets out of the dirt when I pan. This bottle is from previous trips.
This one too, and it has a few other tinteresting things mixed in.
These garnets are from the last two trips to the Banner Claim.
All of them to date.
Hope you liked the extra pics. We'll be heading up there again tomorrow, for more fresh air and exercise, maybe a little gold. Jean
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Post by fernwood on Aug 5, 2017 11:02:55 GMT -5
Nice.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,723
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Post by Fossilman on Aug 5, 2017 11:33:08 GMT -5
Nice haul... Liking the color!!
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Post by rockjunquie on Aug 5, 2017 11:41:38 GMT -5
Great trip report- as always. Nice to find some of the golden stuff. Makes up for taking your life into your hands with the dubious characters lurking about and a fault line nearby. Would have loved to see that cave with the vaulted cieling- sounds scary fun.
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Post by wigglinrocks on Aug 5, 2017 19:20:26 GMT -5
Sweet color , may not be a lot but it looks like you are hot on the trail . Hope ya find the source .
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Aug 7, 2017 6:10:13 GMT -5
This is a clever set up. I suppose it multi-stage separates by weight ? Garnets, gold, hematite, etc. ? And the thought of that big structure was a ball mill makes sense for processing/crushing ore makes sense. Shame the old timers that operated it were not available to talk about it. |
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Post by rockpickerforever on Aug 7, 2017 6:42:18 GMT -5
James, the miners have been using these methods for years. Use the density of the gold to separate it. The riffles on the high banker catch the heavier gold. The three black tubs help to settle out the mud in the water. Bucket in foreground is muck from the first tub. The screen on the second tub removes the organic matter. The last tub holds the dirty water sump pump, which recirculates the water back to the high banker.
Up at 3 am yesterday to meet friends to investigate some other mining locations, then back to the claim. About five hours of digging, brought home 13 buckets to process. Dirty, dusty work. Long day, didn't get to bed until 11 pm.
Will be processing the dirt in the evenings for the next week, finish what's left on the weekend.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
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Post by jamesp on Aug 7, 2017 9:01:12 GMT -5
James, the miners have been using these methods for years. Use the density of the gold to separate it. The riffles on the high banker catch the heavier gold. The three black tubs help to settle out the mud in the water. Bucket in foreground is muck from the first tub. The screen on the second tub removes the organic matter. The last tub holds the dirty water sump pump, which recirculates the water back to the high banker. Up at 3 am yesterday to meet friends to investigate some other mining locations, then back to the claim. About five hours of digging, brought home 13 buckets to process. Dirty, dusty work. Long day, didn't get to bed until 11 pm. Will be processing the dirt in the evenings for the next week, finish what's left on the weekend. I use similar methods in separating grit in the rotaries Jean. SiC is density 3.4. Quartz gems and silica sand is ~2.7. The grit sure nuff settles to the bottom in a hurry in the wash pan. Pour off the top. Scavenge the settled grit. If the slurry is really thick I spray water into the wash pan to thin the slurry to assist settling the heavy particles from the heavy slurry. Pour off the top liquid. Collect settled grit for inspection/re-use. However, garnets also fall to the bottom, also at density 3.4. A 50 pound bag of garnet weighs more than a 50 pound bag of quartz ha. Sure seems like it. Long hours. They say gold miners lived short lives. Good thing Bob brings home some supplemental bacon. Clever devices you guys use. I wish I had a source for sluice-able gem or gold rich soil by the dump truck load. I would love to build a serious sluice with my water supply. And plenty of low places on the farm to dump the waste soil. With that 3 stage arrangement you guys must be able to separate the slightest density variations. I owned a piece of land that had an open field in the crotch of the Chattahoochee River and a large creek. It flooded constantly with 5 to 10 feet of water. Sediment falling out of the muddy organic particle rich water settled on that field for 1000's of years. The soil was rock free and 15 feet deep, 30 acres. My buddy said I should have attempted to get a permit to mine the top soil. Ha, the river regulators denied that permit so fast heads spun. Let's just say that the value of that top soil was way more than any amount of money I will ever have. And was in high demand. Wetland classification, regulators not interested in allowing any such soil disturbances. I hired a tractor to deep plow it and the ONLY rocks were arrowheads and chips that Native man left behind. In a high hump in the middle of the field. Wow, they tanker trucked in the water for the mine. May have been their biggest expense. |
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Post by nowyo on Aug 11, 2017 0:02:19 GMT -5
Great report, Jean, especially with a little history thrown in. Love poking around those old mines. Have a Keene sluice that "modified" with legs, pump and spraybar so it works as a highbanker, too. Cool stuff.
Russ
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Gem'n I
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2008
Posts: 980
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Post by Gem'n I on Aug 12, 2017 19:55:52 GMT -5
Wow,,,thanks for sharing...cool pics!!
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I would have had them done in 10 minutes
