Allow me to introduce myself...

[DaveL]

Hello, I am DaveL, a new member.
Big thanks to Jim for helping me register.
I am a professional engineering geologist in Ca and OR, and a recreational prospector/miner in the Trinity gold fields of northwestern California. I enjoy prying open bedrock cracks and running my sluice by a cool Norcal river on a hot summer day. I'm also a member of the New 49ers prospecting club.
I look forward to becoming acquainted with other like-minded individuals here in this forum...

[Jim_Alaska]

Welcome Dave. I am sure we will all benefit from you being a member of these forums. I, like you, really enjoy breaking open bedrock cracks, along with the thrill of discovery. I did that one whole summer, mainly because we could no longer dredge due to California's illegal ban on dredging.

I'll try to find the post I made about this on the New 49'ers forums and show you the results if I can find them. Not great for any commercial operation, but not bad for a hand operation with an old crippled guy at the helm.

[Jim_Alaska]

This is the post I made on the New 49'ers forums last year, so it is two years old. I told our new forum member, DaveL, I would repost this if I could find it because he likes cleaning bedrock cracks also.


OK here's the recount of my mining in an old hydraulic pit last summer. Even though the club motto is "miners helping miners", I am not going to reveal the location I was working. This is not because I am hoarding it to myself, anyone else can work there that finds it. I would personally like to see more members out on the claims prospecting for good places. There are a lot of claims that go untouched for years at a time, this place I worked was one of them.

We have to remember that many claims were used mainly for suction dredging, s many members don't even think of them for mining out of the water. In any event although this claim is very accessible, people just don't even think to try it out to see if there is anything worth working for. I was at first looking at this section of the claim for nugget shooting. I didn't find anything with the detector except the usual square nails, boot tacks and lead shot.

But what caught my eye was that in many places in the hydraulic pit there was a lot of ancient bedrock, some of it quite high since this was the bottom of the river at one time. As I looked over this situation I saw many cracks and crevices. So I though this might just be a good place to crevice.

I came back with a whole pile of crevice tools, most of which are home made, chisels, hammers and my gas vac.
Of course because I am basically lazy I concentrated on cracks and crevices that could be easily scraped out. The exposed bedrock was not very extensive so it was not long before I had worked it to where the only method left was the hammer and chisel the larger cracks open. This was hard work and it got really hot on those rocks once it hit ten o'clock in the morning, so I usually quit about that time.

This kind of mining takes a lot of time, it is not for the faint-hearted or those not willing to work hard for their gold. I even pried apart some impressive slabs of bedrock with a six foot bar and even at times a hydraulic jack. Some of the slabs I couldn't move out of the way by lifting so I had to just pry them aside with a long bar.

There is no water to be had close by so I simply dry classified what came out of the cracks and ran the remainder through LeTrap sluice in a small creek on another day. So, all in all it was hard work, but I could see with every clean-up that I was getting good enough gold to keep working and keep me interested. I will say that I didn't get rich doing this, but did get what I consider good gold for my efforts.

If club members would just get out on their own or with a friend and do some real looking around on claims that have been neglected by many, they might just be rewarded with a golden surprise.

So, with that said, I will post a picture of some results I got last summer doing this.

[Johnedoe]

Nice gold there Jim.......

[DaveL]

That IS good gold, Jim. I am impressed; a long bar and hydraulic jack is outta my league. I have a three-footer and that's enough extra weight when hiking in gorges. I also classify it a 5-gallon bucket and carry it away to be washed. After filling a 2 by 3 foot black plastic tub, it goes through the ol' EZ Sluice.
Sometimes a little chunky gold can still be found in the black sand if you work at it.
I'd attach a picture but it won't stick for some reason.

[Jim_Alaska]

Good post Dave. As far as the six foot bar and hydraulic jack are concerned, I don't carry them very far. I am disabled so anything I do is very near where I can drive the truck to.

You can display pictures from your computer by clicking on the "attachments" link on the bottom-left of any message window you write in. Then move down to where it says "add files."

[Johnedoe]

A little beach gold from Cape Disappointment, Washington... Jim...

Also a test regarding attachments.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Hmm well no image I get an error parsing server response...

[DaveL]

Relieved, it's not just me.

[Jim_Alaska]

Sorry guys, I am working on the attachment feature. But it looks like something has changed on the server I use and I have to get tech. support to fix it.

Been kinda overwhelmed this week too. I'll get it, just please bear with me.