2:39
What a joke. Really, what the I think the biggest issue that we have right now is that we don't have water coming out of the spray nozzles is just Hang on, Tyler. I'm out of here. Sorry I kind of wussed out on you for an hour or so yesterday. Juan, I hold nothing against you because the truth of the matter is I was in the air conditioned office and you were dead right outside on top of that steel plate. A case of heat stroke has left Freddy and Juan a day behind schedule on their mission to help Maya's gold mining venture.
We still got a lot to do, Fred. I'm just worried that uh it's going to take a little more time than we thought with this heat. Going to be a blast for Ernest today. So we got 3 foot there, 4 foot here, another 11in piece out of that one right there. So if we made all the riffles for this 11 and 1/2. Yep. Just cut those off. These guys are nuts for mining in this heat. Back at the mine. Holy crap. It's all boulders. I don't even know if we're going to be able to move them to get over there.
Maya and Count are trying to move boulders that are blocking their path to a piece of ground they are convinced is unmined. But Freddy fears has already been worked by the old-timers. We've got to move that rock, man, cuz we can't get over to our new dig area. I think it's all untouched. That it doesn't look like anybody's been there. I want to find one of those potato sized nuggets over there, dude. It's not even Oh man. Oh, come on. Stop. Spark. Hey, go grab a fire extinguisher. Last thing we want out here is a fire. Anytime we try to move a boulder, we get sparks off of the metal against the granite. We're out in the middle of the Sonor and Desert and there is no water
out here. And all it takes is one spark. And with this wind, there's no way we could catch it. Damn, man. We got to get this moved. There's no way to get over there. I need a break. It's too damn hot, man. I got some cactus in my foot. I think it looks like Maya's ground has been hit pretty hard by the old-timers. To understand Maya's gold deposit, Freddy's headed to nearby Stanton. I need to find out more about the area in general. One of the best things we could do is find an old-timer that's mined gold around here and pick his brain.
Woody, I assume. Hey, how you doing, buddy? Doing okay. Have a seat. You know much about this place. Uh, no, I don't. This place had massive gold in it. It was unbelievable. People flocked out here. But the thing is, this old boy come in here named Stanton. He had a merchandise shop and somebody else did too and he didn't like the competition between the two of them and so he actually got him killed. From that point on he just kind of took over the whole place. Then he changed the town to Stanton. If you wanted something you had to come to him to get it. People wouldn't even come here because it was so dangerous. And so uh one day three of the members of the gang that he was using came in there. All three of them just loaded
guns on him. Killed him dead on hell. And they drugg his ass out of town and buried him back out here someplace so he wouldn't wouldn't bury nobody else. Back in that day, there was a lot of gold, massive gold out here. But the thing is, it's been lit clean most of it. Yeah. Jeremiah's mine. It's been flipped over. There's some places up here. I could show you in the bowler patches, all the boulders, there's a bunch of them tied together.
Mhm. And that means the coal could fall and get caught into all of that. It's like a magnet to the gold. Thousands of years ago, rivers ran across this part of the country. These ancient creeks carried gold down from the mother lode. When fast flowing water hits boulders, it slows down, causing the heavy gold to drop out of the current and settle. As the creeks dried up, gold concentrated beneath the boulders, creating pockets of pay dirt. So, you think there might be some gold into that boulder patch up at Jeremiah? If the gold's coming down there, I guarantee you it has to be there. I don't think we're going to be able to move them.
Back at the gold devil, Maya is still trying to access what he believes is virgin ground. How's it going, guys? Hey, how's it going? So, what's up, guys? I got to move the boulder to get over to our virgin ground. Trust me, guys, that patch is mined out. I just met with Woody and we talked about the boulder patches. If we can break up these boulders, I bet you there's gold under there. Instead of mining beyond the boulder patch, Freddy wants to get beneath the boulders. This could give Maya access to untapped pockets of gold and nuggets.
I've got my best gold out of the boulder patches. really trying to move these rocks with that little bitty excavator. It's like bringing a spoon to a gunfight. I mean, I got to get it out of the way one way or another. I wish we could blast it, but with fire restrictions, we can't do that. Freddy can't risk starting a wildfire by using explosives to crack these rocks open. He'll need to be smart. I might be able to show you something to break them cold where there's no fire, no explosions, nothing. It just takes a little bit of time.
This is an expansion fluid. As it dries, it expands. Say, I don't have time to help you on all of them, but we'll try one, see how it works, and then you'll have that cat in your bag. Let's drill some holes. Give it some help. Burn it up inside. Spin this for a minute. Just get some air through it. Okay. The non-toxic expanding agent is a compound of calcium oxide and silicon dioxide. We got a matter of minutes to get it in. Expansion juice. I like it. When mixed with water and poured into Freddy's drill holes, it will expand with a force of over 20,000 PSI. 10 times the force of a car crusher.
All right. And we need to put the tarp on it to find out if it's worked. just does its thing. Now they'll have to wait 24 hours. It's final test day. Time for Freddy, Juan, and the Bush Creek boys to find out if the fixes have them headed toward boom or bust. I'm really looking forward to it. Um I can't wait to see the water run across it for the first time and see the difference in Freddy's setup and riffle systems than what we had.
You know, all your gold after we did that cleanup was all small. Mhm. The ripples that you guys had in there before were just like this. They're they're meant for big chunky gold. You really don't have that. It's fine tuned to the small gold that you have. Yep. You got riffles up top that create less of a vortex. So, our velocities ought to be better going down through here to keep those riffles constantly cleaning those heavies out that we don't want. And then obviously the big the biggest thing was we moved that big jig plant out of here. Yeah. So now we got that out of the way. We brought your secondary slouch right underneath the primary and we reconfigured it as well. And at the same time it's riffled for more of the fine gold.
Okay. We've got three different riffle configurations in there. We got two different carpet configurations. This is something completely new that we've never done before. It looks really good. Yeah, it does. Well, let's give it a shot. Huh. Let's see what it does. Yeah. Hopefully it works good, too. Not just looks good. Yeah, like me. You just look good, huh, Dennis? It's all about making money. Whether we, you know, we love the area, we love all this. It's all great, but it all boils down to if you can't pay the bills, you're going to have to go home.
Freddy, I'm nervous about the test today. I am as well because that material doesn't look good. Looks like crap. It looks worse than it did the other day when he ran. With the excavator out of commission with a busted hydraulic hose, the crew will run the poor quality pay. But any increases they see from running this old dirt should pay off tenfold once they access the new cut. Well, let's fire it up, man. Do it. The plant needs to run for 7 hours to accurately assess if the improvements have worked water.
It's definitely This is the most changes we've ever had in one box. I want to push hard to show the world what we could do here can you know learn something about this place and gold mining. Freddy and Juan you know said our ripples have way too packed and that's troubling for us. You know it just indicates that we are losing it down that box and it needs improvement. be freaking incredible if all this works out like they want. Feel good. Feel good. YEAH. RIGHT HERE. WE'LL FLOW IT DOWN THERE. It's doing good. The new improved slooes flow fast, preventing heavy material from packing the riffles. But Freddy spots a new problem.
We need TO PUT A DAMPER IN HERE. OKAY, good call. Juan, we use some of this old carpet for a damper. Okay, what else do we need? Some screws. Yeah. A dampener is a device that slows the velocity of the water. It also forces any float gold down into the riffles. What's up, Freddie? We're going to put a dampener in. Okay, at the top feels pretty good, but it's picking up velocity going down. So, uh, we're going to put this in there to try to slow that water down.
There he goes. This simple device made from scrap should help capture more gold. Last bucket. That's it. Last bucket. The finaliz. We're just about there, huh? Yep. And trust us, we want you guys to catch as much gold as possible because that's our bay right there. Exactly. After a 7-hour final test run, will Freddy's fixes deliver the Bush Creek boys more gold. Hey, we're going to shut her down. Let's look at something here. What's in these mats could decide the future of the Bush Creek mine.
Moment of truth. Ready? Moment of truth. like, huh? Look at the gold there. That's what we want to see. Oh, man. We didn't check that out before, did we? No. Nope. I like it. Looks mighty, mighty, mighty fine. That riffle. Every riff's got gold in it. I see a lot of gold. That's nice. I'm excited. I can't wait to clean it out. Oh, wow. Look at that. Yeah. Down in that fiber underneath it. Oh, yeah. All the way through it. Yeah. It's in the carpet.
It's all the way through the carpet. This is awesome. Fantastic. I haven't seen Mike smile that much since we've been here. Thought his smile was broke. Yeah. This doesn't look good. This is bad. What do you think we should do? After three days of prospecting, Freddy's running out of options. There's got to be gold in here that the old-timers missed. They hydraulic this. Pretty sure that's why there's so much material missing.
The most efficient thing the old-timers had during this time period was hydraulic mining. It's a huge water cannon that just washes the material. Drawing from further up the creek, the old-timers would use a water cannon to blast huge amounts of pay dirt downstream into primitive slle boxes where the gold would collect. If this was hydraulic like I think it was, there's a chance they might have left quite a bit of gold in this bedrock. You can see this fractured bedrock over here. See the cracks in it? Yeah. Well, those pieces of gold, they're coming down. They hit that crack and they fall in.
The old-timers didn't get it right cuz they were trying to pry this with pry bars and all kinds of stuff. The old-timers thought this freaking tough digging. Okay, maybe they left enough. Let's see. Freddy believes the gold that didn't make it into the old-timers slooes got trapped in the fractured bedrock. This is plan B. I hope we don't have to find a plan C cuz I don't know that there'd be one. Give her hell, bud. Hope and pray that we can find some serious gold.
I need to turn this thing around. I need to get my debts paid. Perfect. Let's see what's in it. Well, fingers crossed, man. Yeah. Look at that. Heck yeah. There is. Holy cow. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 colors. And some of them pretty flipping nice. That's phenomenal, Freddy. So, that's in the bedrock that the old-timers couldn't clean up. They left a lot of gold laying there, didn't they? Well, they didn't have a track. They had bars and picks. This excites me.
I'm hopeful. Thank you. Well, we need to start stockpiling this. We're wasting time. Thanks, sir. It looks really good. That was a nice pan. He's excited about it, then. I'm I'm giddy. Freddy found a good spot. I'm very hopeful that goal of 25 oz and hopefully to pay back my investors is in reach now. From what I can tell, they left a lot of gold behind in the bedrock. So, we're going to harvest it. Gosh, I'd like to pull a half ounce out of here every day and turn it into a profitable number. Let's measure these riffles real quick.
Okay. Inspired by Freddy's 15 color pen, 21 and a quarter and the prospect of some gold rich pay dirt. 40 48 Juan and Kevin start a major overhaul of the SLLE system. What we're going to do is we're going to make a little bit of a change. If you did feel it before when it was running, the top box was completely packed. You can't even get your finger in it. We noticed that. So, what we want to do is by get eliminating those riffles where they have the under riffles and the top riffles and then also adding a little uh little more pitch. It's going to help
clean those out so they actually work properly. They'll tumble better. Huh. They're completely packed up. That gold just skips right across the top of it. just bounces along and makes a lot of sense. How's she going, Juan? It's coming along, Freddy. I'm just putting these ripples back together. Looks good. I'll start lowering this loose then. A1. Yeah. All hands on deck right now to get this done. We've got, you know, just a limited amount of time. We only have one day left. After stockpiling the new pay, Tyler joins Kevin for the final critical fix, accessing clean water.
Freddy wants to bring our fresh water from up here. So, we're bringing a pipe from up here where the fresh spring runoff is coming clear down to the last pond that we're actually pumping out of so that the water that we're using for processing is cleaner. It potentially means cleaner water running through the wash plant. Uh more fluid type water working our gravels and uh more gold recovery, more gold in our pocket. I hear water flowing. There she is. Look at that. Now we've got the clean water where we need it. You know, we've had you guys shut down for a couple days now, but you have.
I'm hoping that, you know, the improvements we made are going to help you guys out. It's the final day on Freddy and Juan's mine intervention. Time to see if their fixes can rescue Mike's dream. You know, it's our goal that the increased recovery will make up for it in short order. Well, I'm really looking forward to seeing the results of it. Yep. Right here, we teed into your existing water line. Now, we've got water going into that dewatering barrel, so it'll wash that material more and hopefully keep that gold from going up that conveyor and gone forever. Well, before guys, you had some riffles in here, but it wasn't really a slle box. It was a chute. It was a good shoot to transfer material,
but it was also transferring the gold to go up that conveyor. Right. We actually built you a new slle run. Every chance we can give that gold to get settled out and get trapped, we want to make sure we can do that. And that's what we're doing with that slle. Yeah. We're looking forward to seeing what that slle box actually gives us. Well, in that little slle down there, guys, the riffles you had in it were the wrong riffle for that type of material. We've simplified it and we've got a ripple configuration in there now that's going to go after that fine gold. I'm looking forward to those green mats turning yellow.
Well, really guys, there's only one thing left to do, huh? Run, run, run. Let's run it. Fire it up. Let's do it. All right, firing up. Hope we get lucky with some gold today. Woohoo. First bucket, huh? First bucket. Exciting. Freddy. Yeehaw. The first scoop through the new ripples. Boldly put this dirt where no dirt has gone before. So, we built a real slle box here. Now, the gold that's getting by that jig has a fighting chance. And as long as it's got a fighting chance, we've got a chance to catch it.
Well, the final chance looses are running a hell of a lot better than they were before. You can see them doing their job now. You can actually see in the drum how the drum from halfway over it is a little cleaner. And look at the material. It's quite a bit cleaner. Oh yeah, definitely. You can see it right now. It's visible. It's already clean compared to what the drum was before. It was completely brown. The whole thing.
Moment of truth. I'm going to take a pan off where Juan took it there and see what's in there. Well, let's go pan this, guys. It sounds counterproductive because of dewatering trauma, but what it's doing is help break up the rest of that material up and get it down, get it screened. Rather lose a little water than a lot of gold. Yeah, for sure. The first test run showed Mike was hemorrhaging gold with nine pieces in just a single pan.
Not a speck of gold. No, no gold mono. Way better. That's what we want to see right there. I'm happy with that. Extremely happy. Is you have to make the material do what you want it to do. You have to force it to do it. If you let it go on its own, it's going to do whatever it's going to do. I'd say y'all did it. What? Freddy just pulled off the conveyor. I mean, it's a complete game changer. Mike, last bucket. 4 hours. Last bucket. Moment of truth. So, how's it look?
It looks good. Yeah. The results of this test will determine if Freddy and Juan's fixes have successfully secured Mike and Will's future here. If we get a 10% increase, I'll really be happy. It'll also make me sad because we've been throwing some gold away. This is what we got in the 4-hour run. Okay. And once again, we got a nice flat nugget that didn't fit in the vial. So, we're going to just pour in there what we got in the 4-hour run. We're in a little bit better material. The first test delivered 1.6 oz. Anything more than 2 oz promises a profit. 2.2. 2.2 oz. A 37% increase on the first run.
Over a 100 day season. This could deliver Mike 440 o worth over 34 of a million dollar. I am so happy with you guys coming up here and the work you did. You're going to make us a lot of money in the long run with this stuff. That's right. That's going to be a windfall. It's fabulous. I'm so happy for it. And now we've got a better outlook on the future that's going to help keep us afloat. What do you think, Will? I think it's absolutely amazing. I mean, y'all took something, made an adjustment, and it's proof right there that I mean, it's going to change our season.
10. First bucket at Ryan Merritt's Mammoth Mind. Give her hell, Nolan. Let's make some gold. The second test is underway. Running 2 hours like the first run. It will give Freddy and Juan a chance to see how their fixes have worked and whether the new ground really does have gold in it. So, this material is downstream quite a few miles from where we're at, right, that we're running right now in the second test. Well, I'll guarantee that there is decent gold in there. Some of the gold that we're running from 5, six miles away came from this property before it was mined out years ago. So, uh,
you know, that's pretty cool. This looks like some better paid dad brought me. You know, we've worked with quite a few father and son operations over the years. These guys get along well. Yeah, they work great together. Yeah, they're a good team. So, the young man, but he's very respectful. He's a good man. Yeah, he's not afraid to work hard. Works hard and he's respectful to his father. Can't ask for much more than that. Straight away, the new spray bar hits the mark.
Look at that, Brad. Pretty darn clean. Yep. We can take that. Take that any day of the week. One. Yep. That's good. The rocks are getting their hair wash now, not just their feet. Oh, it's doing great. Spray bar that they installed. It seems to be washing the gravel. Awesome. I haven't seen any gold yet, but I know it's in the box. It'll be a good cleanup today. It's a little lean on water. Not enough water in the slle could reduce the amount of gold the mats can hold. Go down with it a little bit, huh?
You get on that side real quick. Let's lower one. Half Freddy and Juan dropped the angle of the slle to increase the speed of water and help the gold get lodged in the mats below. Three four five. That's better about right there. Good. Take a look at the box. Huh. Yeah, that feels really good, right? Yeah. I like it. You know, it was a little lean on water, so we had to increase the pitch, but it feels really good. Yeah, for the amount of material he's running, it's running just fine.
I like it. I can probably pick up the amount of material. We're running less uh material per hour now than the first run. Yeah. But, uh, everything's running good. I can smell the gold in this. What I've been waiting for. You know, we weren't able to do a lot here, but what we did is going to make a huge difference. It will. You know, that slle they had in here before was a, like I said earlier, was a two steps below scrap iron. Yeah, it really was. Effective splooing area in that entire box was probably only about a foot.
I don't think it was even that. Yeah, at least here they got a full 12 ft of effective area. Yep. And multiple changes in it. And this will be a slouch box they can have for years to come. 100 times better than it was before. I know the plants are covering gold, but if there's not enough gold in that material we found, that's on me because that's what I spent my time here the past days doing. So if there's not enough gold in that dirt, that's my button. After 2 hours. Hey Nolan, one more. That'll be the last bucket. Freddy calls time on the test run. Yeah, there's gold there.
I see gold there. I see more gold right there in dirty water than you had in that first pan. Oh, come on. On our first right there. Yeah, I know. in the muddy now. Well, we'll see. Into some better ground anyway. Look at that. That's a nice lake. A nice little flake. So right there, that one piece right there, it's a thousand times the amount of gold you had the first 2-hour run. That one piece of gold right there. You can Yeah, I can weigh that. Pack, pack, pack, pack with gold. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's a good one.
This is going to be a fun clean up. Nice. From our first test run, it wasn't looking good. So, I'm glad we found gold. So, I'm excited about that. I think we found the silver lining, you know, at the end of the tunnel. In our case, the gold lining. Overnight, the lead counterwe has cooled and can now be welded to the front of Cory's backho to keep it steady. Measured. So we can get a perfect center. Center's right here. He's going to have a 5 yard an hour plant, but in order to feed that 5 yard an hour plant, he's going to have that backhoe running so we can get material and feed the plant as well. So
it's going to be a real crucial piece of equipment from now on. There it is. We're in. Does it fire up pretty easy? Oh yeah, it does. Okay, perfect. wall watch. Well, she's no speed demon, but uh it's moving. I'm not popping any wheelies anymore, so that's always a good thing. There's not a lot of water here, but there's some. By the cut, it's the moment of truth for Freddy's spring fix. Who you going to try to get to help you when Carl leaves, Cory? At the moment, it's going to primarily be me, but after talking to our son and the abilities you've given us to be able
to get him out here permanently, that part of the plan will probably start moving upwards. Okay, Brandon followed me into the Marine Corps. He's got a beautiful family, a wife, and three just gorgeous little babies. He has expressed a high desire to come out here and mine. However, he just can't until he knows that it's profitable enough for him to also take care of his family. having him to mine alongside me. Um I think honestly it's probably every father's dream to have something that you can do with your kids. So that would be just amazing. There we go. Pump's running.
Here's our water. How was that, Fred? What I did is the little pond there, it's like 8 foot maybe. I trenched from it to the other ponds downstream that are deep, like 10t deep. He may do 1,000 gallons a day, 500 gallons a day. Yeah, it's still going to help. It's not much of a spring, but it's make up water where he doesn't have to use as well. So, what we're going to do here is we're going to actually make a hopper. Doing anything right now in this humidity is it's absolutely uh it's a task. It's a chore. Unfortunately, we're running out of time. If we just had your truck, we'd have all the tools we need. But without his plasma table, he'll have to make the hopper the oldfashioned way.
A come on, baby. You guys weren't here when Cory was talking about this. Cory's out here honoring his friend's memory by making his uh dream work. And Carl actually came out here to help Cory, you know, with his dream. So, buddies helping buddies. Yeah. Awesome. Yep. Kind of like U-T. You guys help us out all the time. So, that's what friends are for, right? Well, just about done with the hopper. We'll be that much closer to doing our test run. How we doing, gentlemen? Hey there, Juan. Yeah, we're all ready to take it down to the site where we're going to set it up.
Well, this is very, very nice. I mean, I think Cory will be able to really get rolling on uh producing some gold. To complete the fixes before the final test, the plant is lifted to its new home. I'm very excited to see the truml knowing it's going down there getting ready for an actual run. Set it over here. Yep. Come this way a little long. Well, good work everyone. We uh got it put together. If you want to use your backho to start digging your payout tomorrow, we'll be back in the morning and we'll do a test run. Yep, sounds good.
See how much gold we get. I think that's uh that's probably enough material. What do you say uh we feed the plant with the excavator since it's here? Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. The second test run will determine if Cory can upgrade his operation from hobby to full-time miner. Hey, Freddy. Yeah. Do you want to do the first couple buckets? Show them how it's done. You got it. All right. Next run you run, you can actually feed it with your backhoe or when you get a new Minia X, you'll be able to feed it with the Minia X.
Yep. Starting timer now. First bucket. First Yeah. Look at her go. This is nuts. I'm ecstatic. Steve is probably dancing around on his little cloud seeing something like this and be able to run. I have no worries at this point about keeping this place as these things come through here. I'm already thinking flakes are fine sitting in this loop. So, I'm all good. Morning on the chicks with picss mine. And with just 72 hours left on the build, Christine struggles with her condition.
I think we're just to a point of where, you know, you just can't right push your body like that. I think it's a great opportunity with Freddy and Juan being here to dive into more of the prospecting. The prospecting, right? and I can spearhead the more intense physical side of it. I can be the Watson to Detective Dodge. Well, cheers to that. I don't know if he's going to buy it, but I say go for it. Time to get to work. Okay. Well, that's it.
All right. I feel sad that I cannot do what I used to be able to do, but I really don't like to dwell on it. I'm about getting up, being as positive as I can. So, with prospecting and research, there are so many things that I can do in the operation for our team. So, what I'm doing here is I'm getting the sides of the new slle box uh tacked in place. One's new slle box will replace the old clogging slle with an expanded steel riffle system to suck down heavy gold into the mats. Hey Jamie, you want to give me a hand? Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to put this on first and then you can put the gloves on.
Okay. Wow, look at that. You know, just by wearing that shirt makes you 20% a better welder. I'm in with Christine and her situation, you know, you're doing a lot more of it yourself. Yes. You know, one thing Freddy and I always say, if you don't have a welder, fabricator, and a mechanic on site, you don't have a mindsite. I would agree. You're going to strike it like it's a match, right? Real slow. I'll pull back, get a little puddle, then I'll push back into the puddle, come back, get a little puddle going. Okay. So, you just stacking. What you're doing
is what you're stacking. Okay. Like that? Yep. Get a little closer. Get a Get closer. There you go. Okay. Pull back. Pull. Stop. So, look at it right now. You see how hot that metal is? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, you're long arcing it. The further you get away, the further that arc has to jump and it'll actually start dissipating that heat amongst, you know, both pieces of steel and it actually gets hotter. Okay, I see what you're saying. So, so, so you need to constantly keep your rod about that distance right there.
Right. Okay, I got you. Don't worry. After we're done with this, you can teach me how to give a haircut. All right, I'm in. A little slower. Perfect. That was good. That was all you. That looks good. You're a great coach. Thank you so much. With everything that has happened with Christine. I am willing to step up and give 1,000% and make this a successful operation. Let's walk down here on the other side of the claim. This is actually the most important thing. You can have the best wash plant in the world, but if you don't have the gold in the ground or if you're digging in the wrong spot, you know, you ain't
going to make it, right? Freddy teaches Christine her new prospecting role on the mine. Just really valuable for me to go out with Freddy and have him teach me these things directly so I can, you know, be a bigger part of that part of our operation. So that building up there is the old part of King Tut. Okay. The Kingt Mine sits alongside a string of hard rock claims and was discovered in the 1930s by female ranch owner Ali Duncan. The mine was soon bringing in hundreds of ounces of gold a week. You're right. Kind of in the outwash of these mines. Gravity works. So when mountains erode, gold and gravel and rocks, they all go downhill.
Okay. So that's the source for all the gold in these gullies. Oh, yeah. I see. Let's put our detective hats on here. If Christine and Freddy can find the stream beds or washes that run from the hard rock mines, they should find the gold. This drainage here, this drainage here. Got one, two, three total drainages. We got these, you know, these streams coming together up top. We've got a stream going into that side. Right. Another one. These two washes. And then these two come together right here. Right? So we got double the amount of rework material here. We're talking nature slle box. So in theory, this should be the best gold right here under my feet.
That's pretty amazing. But to get a true test on the ground, they call in the cavalry. It'll give us an overall look of the material from the top down to the bottom. So, if you dig into tailings, what is it? It's soft, right? Right. Everything's haphazard in the tailings. You can see that bottom layer. Yes. I can see the coarser rocks in it down there. Yes. And see how hard that is? Uh-huh. Right. That means it's virgin, right? That should be your best gold. Virgin means never before mined ground.
A miner's holy grail. Well, let's see what kind of gold, if any, lives in this. Huh. It's going to be a deciding factor for our future. Come on, ladies. Show up. Moment of truth. Huh? Right. Look at that, guys. Holy cow. Last season, one of the guys, he left the truml over here. The chain broke down. To bulk test the new material, Freddy eyes up a broken down test trauml he's seen in Raul's boneyard. What do you think? I like it, Fred. I like the idea of it. Was this a test trauml? Huh? This is a trauml.
Have you used it? We washed two yards then since went sour. The master link it broke the another issue that had it doesn't have a spray bar in the trum the motor run. Yes, it does. We had it to start it just with a rope here. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, it runs. What we might be able to do here is even if I do another section of sprockets and then we'll put a spray bar in it. Get these two tied into one manifold so we have one pump feeding the whole system instead of multiple pumps. Yep. Five times cheaper to run than the main wash plant. Raul will be able to use this trauml on every piece of promising ground.
It's a big weight on our shoulders. Freddy and I want to do the most that we can here to help Raul and Helen. And uh that looks like it's going to be us having to work on their test trauma and also on their main plant. So it's really a twoin one rescue. And uh that's a lot of work. To provide Raul a way to bulk test his spotty ground, Juan will resurrect the test tuml with a new spray bar, then design a bespoke manifold to maintain uniform water pressure throughout the system to keep goldbearing pain moving through the plant. They'll add a custommade sprocket and chain to efficiently rotate its drum and add Freddy's signature riffles in the slle to catch fine gold.
These were uh something that they added onto the trauma to be able to guide the chain, but they didn't really work. So, we're going to pull this complete assembly off and build a whole new assembly for it. That was a better one. The sprocket's going to actually be a two-piece sprocket that we weld on the outside of this drum. That way, it can actually turn the trauml. Okay, Fred, I'm going to be spinning this for a second. What I'm doing is I'm just getting it lined up and I'm about ready to start welding it to the drum. We want to make sure that it's perfectly aligned with this drive sprocket so that way when it
runs, it runs true. The true we can get it right now when we're setting it up, the better it's going to run in the long run. Put the clamp on it. Then bring the piece of chain over here and we'll do the same thing over here. Fun times, Freddy. Fun. With the chain connected to the trauml's drive system. There we are. Can you let go of it? Juan takes the drum for a spin. Charger up. How did that get far off? And I went right on my line. Let's see. It's built off in this. It is. It's not built square. No.
The base for the motor that runs the truml is welded on. Out of line. I'm just going to have to readjust. This is going to slow me down. The whole thing's built off. Yeah. And you can tell by the look right here. They got a quarter inch difference from here to here. Yeah. I'm going to cut the motor off and shift the whole thing. Going to have to. That's the only way I can get it close. Yeah, it is. We genuinely might be screwed. So, really, the pressure's on now. We have a lot more work than what we originally anticipated because we're going to run out of time on this one.
It's always something mo on at the parade's mine in British Columbia. Um, whomever built this, you know, they had great intentions, but uh, unfortunately, they didn't know how to read a measuring tape. After fixing up the test trauma, Freddy and Juan discover the motor's mount is off center. I assumed things were square and straight. you know, the gearbox, the way they had it set up, uh, it wasn't perpendicular to the drum, which created a lot of problems, but, uh, that's how it goes. We're just going to have to make it up somewhere. Once you think you got something figured out, something else pops out and bites right in the ass. So, are we still square on your sprocket down there?
Yeah, pretty square. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Let me weld it right there. I like it, Freddie. Someone built that in their garage. They had the best of intentions. They tried hard, but uh unfortunately nothing was right. Um but I'm really happy the way it turned out. Okay, we're going to lift this up. With just two days to go, one puts the main wash plant on hold to carry on with the work on the test trauml. That thing is hot, Trevy. Next up, fabricate its main spray bar. This is going to be the end of the trauml right here. Right around there. It's going to turn uh this way to the left. It's going to be a lefthanding turn. But what we're going to do is
since the material is going to turn to the left, it's going to be piled up right here. That's about where the material is going to start sliding. Actually, right about here. I want this coming out at a 90 right here. That way it can curl over. So reality is the spray bar should be spraying roughly right there. Okay. Put some more lube on there, Freddy. Yeah, we'll throw some on here. Where's our soap? After adding the drums brand new spray bar, Freddy uses bubble soap to ease the hoses onto the trauma.
Good thing your little bubbles work, Freddy. Yep. It's still pretty tight on it. Tiny bubbles. Okay. Well, let's move this to its new home. Coming up. After 24 hours work on the test trauml, it's finally ready for the bulk test. Doing good, Alex. Looking good. Wow. Well, thank you very much. You know, I mean, this is Well, we are here to help you, buddy. Thank you very much. We're here to help you.
I really appreciate Let's run the bulk test. See what's in it. Okay, we'll do that. Freddie, firing up. Freddy's plan. Run 50 buckets of hay through the trauma to get a dollar per yard result. First bucket. So far so good. It's clean. Well, about to start this test run. See what happens. It's late in the day, so uh we may not be able to get 4 hours. It's our last day here. We'll at least try to get a 2hour run and see how it does. First buck I don't want. Yeah. Dustin pushes pay dirt into an automatic feeder. A belt conveys the evenly spread material up to the wash plant's hopper.
A combination of pressurized water and the newly improved shaker wash the goldrich dirt from the rocks. Fine material is then sent through a series of slooes where newly installed riffles catch the gold Tyler needs to keep his dreams alive. It's time to turn and burn and start seeing some gold in the box here. We're flat broke and I can't keep contributing my blood, sweat, and tears without seeing some sort of return. That's what it's all about. Look at slowing down. It's It's shaking hard though. You see the whole plant shaking? Too much speed. You think? Can you slow down the feed to it?
Yeah. You want to go up there and I'll watch the end? Yeah. The wash plant is overwhelmed with material, so one adjusts the speed of the new conveyor. That thing's barely at an idle. There's still a lot of dirt in there. There's no water in the sprayers. The sprayers are clogged. All right, we blew the sections apart. Ready? Ready. TURN IT DOWN. OH, NO. Got it off. Getting my ass kicked. I had to turn it off while it split down that pretty hard. We were losing it all.
I give up, dude. Holy. It just opened up, split up, and exploded. This isn't bad. The buildup of material and the burst hose caused by backed up pressure from the clogged spray bars means the second test is over in just 15 minutes. What a joke. Really, what the I think the biggest issue that we have right now is that we don't have water coming out of the spray nozzles is just Hang on, Tyler. I'm out of here. That's what I tried to do is well again come out here and help Tyler cuz I know he's he's struggling man.
He's hurt. Without the promise of gold, Dustin has a tough call to make. In a position where it's like he's got so many bills at home and I can't spend more time out here. No, I know how it goes, man. This you don't don't feel bad at all. Just feel like I'm letting everyone down. You're not though. You know, there's a bunch of things that culminated and you know, unfortunately in mining, that's how it goes. Regardless, man, thank you for your help. Great working with you. Hey, likewise, man. All right. Later, Dustin. I just need some time, go back home, and uh re-evaluate what I need to do financially to keep myself going. I'm going to do everything I can to come
back out here and help Tyler where I can. I hate feeling like we got beat. I know. We've worked our ass off here. Yeah, that's no joke. Yeah, the battle's done here for now. Daylight running out, the crew raced to fit the new punch plates. Of all the people we could have out here, Juan's definitely amongst the top in the world. It's awesome to have him up on the plant, you know, know that things are happening the right way. What a guy. One more weld and then we got to put the spray bar on.
Watch your eyes. We can lift that thing up. Let's get it up there and uh we're ready to fly. As one finishes the new plates. Weld this up. Tyler prepares to install the repaired spray bars. All right, hang that. Good. Watch your eyes. Let's try to get as square as we kind of can. That looks great. Spray bars in place. Alex attaches the bowl valves and all new pipes complete the fixes. It's going to be a riddle monkey. This is it. They're They're all tight.
Ready to go here. Well, guys, we all done? Let's try it out. Let's give it a shot. Huh. This is probably one of the most ambitious rescues we've done over the years. Tyler definitely needs a win here. So hopefully we're going to see him be successful. It was a lot of work. We got it done in really short time, but I'm spent. You're spent. Alex is spent. Travis is That's what I mean. Everyone's done. Well, let's fire it up, man. Let's give her a whirl and see what happens. 8:00 p.m. and a full day behind schedule, the crew prepare to run an unprecedented third test. Of course, I'm excited. Fingers crossed that it works.
Be great to get to wash and make some money. Finally, get this thing going. First bucket right there. Start the timer. You know, I would love to do a long run, but it's already getting late. So, I'm going to do a 1-hour task and we'll go from there. Oh, look at that. We don't have a water park anymore either. Huh. What a difference having those. You know, honestly, that conveyor that we bought that looks like it belongs in a museum is working perfectly. So, I couldn't be happier. People say the American dream has disappeared, but I don't believe it has. You got freedom, and with that freedom comes ability to do sweet jobs like working on a gold mine. I'm excited. I'm excited for Tyler, you know, and the
possibilities of him being able to, you know, crawl out of the hole that he's in. And I think he's really pleased right now as well. I honestly felt like, you know, after the last test run that he lost hope, but I'm seeing a new Tyler right now. He's excited. Uh I think he sees some light at the end of the tunnel. And that's what this is about. You know, we wanted to make sure that we took care of him and helped him out to the best of our ability. And now he's running.
