by Trev(NZ) » Fri Sep 30, 2016 3:40 pm
Hi All
Maybe the Forum name needs to be changed to " Old Farts Gold Dredger dot Com. Home of broken down old gold Miners. Na, just kidding. Perhaps we could push for discounts on knee replacement surgery, hips etc. And of course " Dredgers Back", not " Shaggers Back" as that is like underwater dredging , a thing of the past, eh. Now only distant memories, children and grand children to remind us of our more fruitful years in that department. Still many a good tune still played on an old fiddle eh.
Underwater dredging is behind me now. Been there, done that. The days of double weight belts, fighting current, shifting tons of boulders and cobbles just doesn't ring my bell anymore. Plus all the places I knew, have been cleaned out. By me of course. So I am an above water man now. Dry land dredging. Been putting a bit of gear together for our coming summer, we are now in early spring, down here in New Zealand. Usually spring here on the South Island. West Coast of New Zealand, Westport.(My Town) is our wet season. With the river I frequent, (The Buller River) flooding regularly. But one of the joys of dry land dredging is one doesn't have to worry about the clearness of the water. So thats why I bought the inflatable, I can blow it up, at my launching site, or inflate it at home and put on top of my Honda CRV. Have made up a nifty set of roof racks for that. So most of the time it will be sitting on the roof.
Will be utilizing a custom built sluice, plastic of course, (polypropolene) that I put together last fall. That will be coupled to a Gold Cube most of the time. With a rather ingenious feed system. Sluice will take care of the bigger gold, and the Cube the fine stuff. Also built a pretty neat stand to set things up on, sturdy but light as.
Actually everything is light. No more lugging heavy motors around, suction hose etc. This dude has gone down to 3 inches. No more six inches, five inches, or even four inches. Will set the gear up on my back lawn in the very near future and take a few pics. So ya all know what I am talking about here. Will be using a three inch Hydroforce Suction nozzle, plus a smaller one I have made up myself, for doing cracks, sumps etc. (same principle).
Up on my old claim. The boat pic was taken on it. Well I got a little surprise, when I went for boat trials. Seems all those years I was sitting on gold, if it was my turn for top man. Funny how when you are dredging all you think is underwater. Well when I took the boat up there, I also took a pan and a shovel. And as you can see in the pic, there is a lot of muddy float sand. But under it is basement, bottom, hard rock. And it has cracks and sumps in it. Cleaned out one small crack, and well damm, it had good gold in it. Okay not get rich gold, and not as much as I was used to when I was dredging. But enough to put a smile on my face, and man there is just so much dry land available on that stretch of river, it ill see me out.
So thats my summer project. I will see if I can dig up a few more pics of the area. So for those of you, that just can't get out anymore, come along with me, as I develop this area, I also bought a Gopro Video Camera, so can really do some great vids and bang them up on Utube, and put the link on here. Will be like you are there with me. What ya reckon eh. Are you ready for an adventure, I sure damm am.
Cheers Trev
YAHOO nice to see you again. Still using the old 'suitcase style dredge or onto something new. Nice clean river I long for much. Take care-John PS-gettn' any
