The Alaska Gold Forums

Hey, Mythical, I have 57' of frozen muck on top of 33' of frozen placer gravel. The only power equipment down shaft is a 32lb electric jack hammer. Of course my hoisting apparatus is run by an electric motor as is the elevator I use to get up and down. While at Homestake I was on a special crew (me...

Self spooling winch; During a prior life, I had the opportunity to work on the Cook Inlet for a company called Schlumberger Off-shore. They were in the business of logging oil wells with tools that measured rock properties in wells that were 20,000 feet deep. The work required winches that spooled ...

Thanks for all the kind words. My intent is to pass-on some of the things I've learned while most of us could still dredge. Those of you that still can are very lucky. No, I'm not an engineer... in fact, I only had a 10th grade education (although I did graduate). I built 100's of models as a kid (c...

Curious as to your drift mining. I'm assuming this is placer... How deep, and how solid is the OB... sandy gravel? large rocks or boulders? Is it hard-pack? cemented or loose? Do you have powered equipment or are you doing this by hand? I have some experience with ground support in solid rock and in...

I have a Lewis Chainsaw Winch. It holds 150 feet of small (3/16") aircraft cable good for 4,000 lb. pull (can be multiplied with snatch-blocks). The chainsaw winch is very handy as it is portable (I can carry winch & eng. one load), holds a lot of cable, and runs at any angle. However, most of the ...

Joe/Kurt/etc: The one thing I KNOW FOR SURE is I don't know it all! Unfortunately, I do most of my "learning" by making mistakes.... luckily though, usually only once! Back in the early '80's I worked in the Homestake Mine (Lead, SD)... and learned how to drill, blast, timber, plus a host of other j...

At the below link you will find fairly detailed basic plans to build a Water Heater that uses engine exhaust that I've built (and used now for 8 years) on a Honda 6.5 and a Honda 9hp. This Heater will produce better than a 50 deg. rise in water temp. at more than 0.5 gpm GO TO - WATER HEATER PLANS -...

DREDGERS: Looking for a better way to splice suction hoses? I found a reasonably easy and inexpensive way to make an EXTERNAL HOSE SPLICE: GO TO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q8s7igpIOQuaspID-13V19fp3acJ7T8X/view?usp=sharing I've tried it... works great as long as you keep the splice underwater....

Dredgers: Sick of jerking your footvalve up & down trying to prime a pump?
Below is a link to a Simple Inexpensive ($5?) solution....

GO TO:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KBKbPU ... sp=sharing

FRIENDS, MINERS, PROSPECTORS, COUNTRYMEN: The miners in Oregon & California are slipping off the edge of NO RETURN with State Legislation PROHIBITING MANY FORMS OF MINING - in particular, most if not all forms of mechanized or motorized in-stream placer mining... including on Lands of the United St...