Operational improvements for improving hand mining (highbanking) efficiency - Lean Manufacturing style

[PickaxeCA]

Hello all,

I am interested in becoming more efficient with regard to moving dirt by hand. A lot of time is spent discussing things like matting, but a good operator can make nearly any highbanker/matting/pump/hose work well.

Highbanking is a bulk material handling and excavation effort.

In Lean Manufacturing (e.g. Toyota) it's all about continuous improvement and ruthlessly eliminating waste from the value-creation process.

With this in mind, what are some tips for moving dirt in the most efficient manner possible?

How might waste be removed from the process?

This includes decisions such as where to dig your pit, how to manage tailings, how to avoid touching the material too many times, how to reduce wasted motion e.g. uncessary footsteps, turning, how many cleanups to do in a day, etc.

An obvious answer is to dig a pit right by your highbanker, shovel quickly, do fewer cleanups, pile up the tailings next to the pit, and fill in the pit when you're done.

I feel like there are more tips beyond this.

For example - I saw a guy bring out 2 x 4's and rebar to make a tailings retaining wall right next to the pit. He would then remove the 2 x 4's, and easily pull the tailings down into the pit for much faster reclamation.

One idea I might try is a tailings sled, sort of a rock sled to move tailings in bulk. Instead of continuously scraping tailings away, one would do a couple of pulls of the sled, move them in bulk, dump, and get back to digging quickly.

Those are just a couple of examples, let's get a conversation going about how to maximize hand mining efficiency for highbanking, but focus on time management, economy of motion, mechanical advantage, leverage, etc.

You ideas about how to engineer a more efficient hand mining (highbanking) process are welcomed.

[Joe S (AK)]

One thing that comes to mind is the idea of "circles" (a moving excavation / settling /tailing pit)

Dig for a certain interval (lets say 2 or even just 1 day or so) and discharge your new tailings to the side of your new excavation. Then start moving the digging in a circular direction while using your discharging new tailings to backfill into the old hole behind you. Continue to make some sort of a circular path through your pay field until you return back, eventually, to your starting point. At the end of the exercise you just have to return your side stored tailings to finish leveling your digging pit and any gross irregularities in the now filled in excavations. Any sort of quick final leveling of the old tailings would be needed but the constant hauling of bulk tailings would, pretty much, be reduced to a minimum.

Now, the "Circle" could be any shape or any size - a spiral, a race track, or up one side of a line and then right back down along side the old excavation ending up at your starting point . Big circles, tight circles, back and forth, "here" to "there" and then back again - just ending up where you started. All you're doing is using your equipment's discharges to backfill behind you until you're where you started. Of course you would have to tailor specifics to your ground but a little experience and starting small should help to keep the re handling down to a bare minimum.

If your operation is large enough, the overburden generated from any surface material removal could be stacked alongside the "moving trench / backfill operation" and used (with the dreaded willow roots and branches) in the self rooting reclamation phase.

Other ideas? There just have to be things that others do here to reduce the expenses of constant refilling and reclamation.

[PickaxeCA]

I like the idea of a circle, and ending up where you started. Makes sense. Heavy pans!

Ideas so far (including the obvious ones):

1. Set up highbanker no more than one shovel length away from excavation site
2. Run continuously
2. Tailings retaining wall (if staying in one spot)
3. Tailings sled (similar to a rock sled, but for moving tailings in bulk)
4. Mine in a circle formation, backfilling with coarse and fine tailings as you go (minimize manual tailings transport, use gravity to your advantage where possible)

[Slatco]

If you use a fast cleaning sluice like a LeTrap or use spare set of carpets you can speed up the time of cleaning up your sluice box. Also a marine boat tank tied into your water pump will let you run longer between fuel fill ups.

[Fleng]

Could we expand the discussion to include manual methods. I think it should be allowable to use a stationary bike to drive a sluice or alternator/battery/water pump combo. California is waiting.

[Joe S (AK)]

Hmmm Slatco, There is something that helps to get more bank run through a box -- and it's pretty easy no matter what well running box you use.

In the past I've mentioned simply saving all your concentrates over a certain time of running (a day, a weekend, a week or so) and then, at the very last set-up, re-running those concentrates through your box. No time consuming, streamside panning means more bank run through the box. The temptation to over load your box during the final run has to be stifled and just your personal feed rate used, but if the Gold was found to start with it should, using care, be found at the end. What you are down to is only one, time consuming, cleanup for your chosen time interval. We all know that the final panning of concentrates does take quite a large portion of the overall time, so, why not take that final pan-out back to camp or, at the end, back to someplace with light, and all the comforts (like a handy beverage) next to your comfy pan-out chair?

By deferring the final pan work until later, the stream side work volume would be maximized with only brief clean-outs to give you a break and then a quick return to shoveling. More shoveling streamside means more of the good stuff to brag about afterward.

Joe