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I recently sold a crusher to a geologist out of Las Vegas. He opted to make the short drive here instead of me shipping it. Glad he did! What a great guy! He even brought me 8 dvd's jam packed with over 2,000 files. (Video, Doc, PDF, etc) with tons of stuff on gold, prospecting, mining, physics (sound, light, radio waves, resonance, frequencies etc), equipment, tons of maps, AND a box of Krispy Kreme Donuts!

I learned a lot from him in the hour and a half he spent with me, and have months of data to pour through!

To make a long story longer, we got on the topic of “Gold Rush Alaska”, and the ineptitude of the crews there. We both agreed they are loosing more gold than they are getting!

So, all these crews run thousands of yards of materials a DAY! They talk about “getting down to pay”, and when they find a few specks in a pan they are all “high fiving” for the cameras!

I don't know if it was the show that aired on the 6^th of Feb, or the previous week, but when they scraped down to bedrock, they were excited to see quartz, and “knew they were on the pay dirt”.

Truth be told, had they tested the quartz, they may have found a LOT more gold, but when you run thousands of yards a day, AND your trommel classifies it down to like .250, well ANY quartz rock with gold in it OVER a ¼ inch, or even a ½ inch, goes right on through to the tailings pile.

All that large quartz rock (where the small pieces of gold they get came from in the first place) could and probably is gold laden, and they just shit it out on the rock pile! They should examine that rock, and bring in a good sized crushing plant and they might be able to double their season's take.

The only one I ever seen on that show who actually realized that ALL gold comes from the hard rock veins was Dakota Freds son Dustin who took a chopper and some gear way up above because he knew that the gold in the valley came from the outcrops up above in the mountains.

So, when you find color in a pan here is what to keep in mind. Keep testing as you work your way up the stream or wash and it should get better. At some point the gold you are finding might just disappear. At that point, you need to look to the left and right of the stream or wash, and work your way up the sides, looking for “float gold” which is pieces of quartz, or occasionally some other host rock that contains a bit of gold in it.

Eventually you will follow it up , and moving laterally as you work your way up, you will find a “triangle”, that is, the gold quartz tumbling down hill will fan out. As you get higher up, it is not as spread out. Once you get to the source, you will have found the outcrop that pushed out all that gold in the rivers.

The outcrop may well have decomposed and weathered away, which there would be no more gold in the spot. BUT that is how the old-timers found outcrops and veins. Some were pocket gold where the

quartz is totally gone but an extremely rich pocket, or indentation of a lot of gold for those who look for it.

One of the things you hear a lot about is looking on old tailing piles with a metal detector. They say that the old timers left a lot of gold in those piles. I guess they are STILL doing it! Don't through away the possible “lion's share” of the gold.

And then there is Silver. A guy I came across years ago was selling a “gold mine”. Well I thought why would someone sell a gold mine if it were viable.? Good question, right?

I could not help but call the guy and talk to him. He said the gold mine was producing a ¼ ounce per ton. Ok... so why dump a gold mine that can produce a ¼ ounce per ton? The reply was “My silver mine runs 30 ounces per ton!” So, working the silver would pay out nearly twice what the gold mine would provide, and he wanted money for bigger equipment to process the silver.

I have to wonder how many millions the crews of Gold Rush toss out each year because they are not crushing that quartz stuff. Even if they classify at ½ inch in the trommels, how many ¾+ inch nuggets get dumped when you are talking thousands of yards a day.?

Bottom line... when you find some gold in your pan, sluice, dry washer etc, PONDER over where the source of that gold came from!

So, I loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly, kidding.. I did meet up with an aquaintence of mine who happens to hold claim on 70 acres outside of Oatman, AZ called the White Chief, which in itself is a historical site. There is two piles of ore, one was from the 60's or 70's the other older one was from the 30's I'm told.

On to the impact mill. I wanted to design something that "I" myself would buy and use! I wanted something within a resonable price range and still have the "tough" Crazycrusher construction to it. I designed it with the features I felt would be desired... like "Height" so you don't have to stoop down to use it". Like size, 14" diameter with walls a lot thicker than cheap sheet metal. Something that "I" could handle by myself. I put wheels on the front legs, so if you lift on the other end, IT ROLLS AROUND! How cool is that? I wanted something that, in order to open it up for cleaning or maintenance, I would not have to pull out a bunch of bolts! I used a single hinge system on the 10 gage door with a single hook latch!

Most all of the impact mills on the market are "chain flail" types. That is, they have a couple of links of chains bolted on the center axis and they spin around. I got to thinking... I chain "bends". I don't care how fast it's going, if it meets resistence it flexes. Think of being struck with a belt. Yeah it hurts like hell and stings! But the belt flexes. Now think of being struck by a baseball bat. You don't feel the sting because your arm is totally broken. I made my hammers using forged steel! They don't flex when they strike the incoming rocks.

Another feature I implemented that others don't is that I have "breakers" inside. Some IM's are round (to me that is not the best feature). The Crazycrusher IM is octagon shaped with a 5/8" breaker welded in at each of the 8 corners, so that pieces that are struck by the hammers will ALSO strike in to the breakers, thus making a single pass more effective.

Now, on to the "Bad"... There was a vibration on the frame. The frame I made is of 1-1/2" angle iron as well as the legs. I realized that this may be too "flexible" and will have to go with another base design which I already have on the drawing table.

Problem #2 was that the coupler between the two shafts kept coming loose and moving (on the impact mill side) until they seperated far enough that the IM would stop and the motor kept running. Using a keyed shaft with a key and set key, no matter how tight I got them, the IM side would always come loose. I equate it to the vibrations and perhaps a slight misalignment, which should be remidied with the new frame.

On to the "Good"... The crusher (when the coupler didn't loosen up) ran great! The rocks fed in shattered and the output was so fine that I think the 4 inch space between the bottom of the exit pipe and the top of the bucket, well the wind carried it away like it was smoke! About 1/2 just blew away! A shop vac could be attached to create a virturally dust free operation.

The door seal held tight with no leaks however the seal that exented in to the mill was chewed up, and the seal part beween the door and the mill sides were intact however I think maybe a harder rubber would be better.

From the ore that I did run, about 1/3 passed through a 100 mesh screen, and 1/2 passed through a 40 mesh screen. The remainder was over 40 mesh, only because I did not let it run and run, but swept out the inside of the mill when I was finished.

All in all, I think I will be ordering the new materials and begin to make them over the next couple of weeks. It works well, just have to fix the little things. I would not sell anything that I personally would not buy or own or use myself.

With the Crazycrusher hand operated model, I've built and sold over 300 of them, and only ONE asked for their money back. I want the Impact mill to carry the same solid construction and satisfaction that the hand operated one offers!

Cheers and happy hunting!

I finally completed the long awaited Crazycrusher Impact Mill. Finding the time to develop it was the main issue. This unit is the 2nd prototype. The first was just a mock up to test the functionality of it, and then went ahead with the perceived changes and built this second unit.

Now comes the task of finding the time to take it out and do test runs. Capacity needs to calculated, like how much it can handle (based in tonnage or yardage per hour). Looking for any “weak” spots that would need to be re-designed and implemented in to the 3rd unit, which will be the marketable unit... if it is taken to market at all. If not, at least I will have a nice impact mill to crush viable ores from old tailing piles.

But of course, I'll use the hand operated Crazycrusher for testing those piles. Since the Impact Mill weighs in at 120 pounds, (Mill, Stand and Engine) I don't see the need to haul it out in the field to do sampling, that's what the Hand Operated model is for... for “Prospecting”. The Impact Mill is for “Mining” production of ores, albeit on a small scale.

I'm excited with the features implemented in the design, and came with a lot of pre-thought of what “I” would want in a 14” impact mill with a 4” feed, easy open door, bottom output, easy change hammers, and more. I want the output powder to run directly in to the top of the Gold Cube. Crush a ton, take home a cup of cons!

Hopefully, if we go to market with it, it could be as early as this springtime!

Happy Crushing!

The Art of Prospecting.

This post is NOT going to tell you “how” to find gold, or what to look for, etc., but more so the finer details that some people may overlook or dismiss.

Gold itself will be again on the rise. Not to get all political and all, but the truth is it is politics that drives the price of gold up. You have the Obama Administration going to town with the Nations' credit cards, spending unheard of TRILLIONS, with the blessings of the House of Representatives who holds the very loose purse strings. You have the Private Federal Reserve doing Quantitative Easing (QE) and pumps billions in to the economy which only dilutes the money and devalues it, making the price of everything taking more “dollars” to purchase items. You have the shaky and uncertain Market where investors are cashing in stocks and bonds for gold.

Gold prices doubled in the first 4 years of the Obama administration, and perhaps will double again to $3,200. Time will tell. And then there is the matter of “Fractional Banking” practices, you know, selling each ounce of gold about 8 times, to 8 different buyers. What happens when those 8 people want their gold, or to even “see” the gold? When they realize they had been duped, well you can guess what could happen! Truth is, “If you can't hold the gold, you don't own the gold”.

Along with the rising price of gold comes the big corporate mining companies grabbing thousands of acres in mining claims to “sit on them”. Virtually locking the little guy out of getting their own claims. It's advisable that if you can file mineral claims, even for small “recreational” amounts of gold, it should be done more sooner than later, while you still have a chance to find something available.

I enjoy the “hunt”, be it placer or hard rock. I do both. In the world of ever controlling governments banning or limiting small dredge operations it is getting harder and harder to find those virgin river “glory holes” laden with the heavy yellow metal. What many forget to ask themselves is “where did the gold in the rivers come from?” The answer is normally “from above”. Veins and outcrops poke through, and eventually wear due to heat expansion and freezing water in the cracks eventually breaking up the quartz matrix and releasing the gold. That gold eventually washes down hill until it gets to a river where it slowly wears down and becomes lodged in a depression on the river bottom. I am sure there are tons to find, “if” one could actually dredge down to bedrock!

Over the past 150 years or so, the rivers have been so picked, and the surrounding hills have not had a chance to replenish the gold in the rivers. It could take a thousand years! You probably will not be around then, so the next best thing is to study up and look for “float gold”. That is, gold, probably still within its host of quartz, laying on the side of some hill. It broke from the outcrop and is on its' long journey downhill. The skill comes in by tracing the float back to the original source. The float gold will act like a pyramid, as you will find pieces closer together the further up the hill you go.

If you are lucky enough to find the source, and it has not fully decomposed yet, that outcrop poking through could lead to a very large and deep vein! SAMPLE... SAMPLE... SAMPLE....

Regardless of the method you use to sample the quartz, you will have to crush it down to a LEAST 100 mesh, and 200 to 300 would be even better. Like the old riddle “What's black and white and red all over?” Well is just might be some valuable ore! What's more, that quartz can also hold values in Silver ore, any of the Platinum group, and even copper, lead, zinc or any rare earth minerals. It's also said that the richest ores per ton contains the finest free-milling gold particulates!

It's far better to learn how to do simple field tests on crushed ores and know for a fact if it is worth paying for an assay to be done, than to blindly pay for dozens of assays that may turn out to be not worth the time or effort. But if you do find something promising, it's worth having a professional assay done and a claim filed.

If you are lucky enough to find a viable outcrop, you will have a few options after your claim is filed. (you will be filing a lode claim, not a placer claim). You can work what you can, going for the most valuable ore, the high grade stuff which will allow you to buy more and bigger tools to get in there, or you can sell or lease the claim to a company with the tools to do the job, but they will want to take a lot of core samples to see if it's worth the time and monetary expenditures.

To get started, and assuming your find is in a very remote area, it's advisable to have a utility quad to get to the area. You will need to haul in a small generator, an electric demolition hammer, and an impact mill. You can then run the hammer and quickly and easily break up the decomposing quartz to a size that will fit in the impact mill that will pulverize the rock quickly. Once that's accomplished, it's a matter of figuring out what you want to get out of your powdered ore and the best way to process it. There are dozens and dozens of ways, pending on what is in the powdered ores. Hopefully you will make enough to put in a road to your claim soon.

The Gold Cube will catch fine gold in the 100 mesh and finer in its vortex matting. Crushing to 100 mesh and finer with an impact mill will allow the prospector to run the powder through a Gold Cube

and after running a ton of rock, you will take home a cup of cons!

We think the Crazycrusher is just the tool to do the sampling with. Starting with a piece of ore the size of a chicken egg, with just a few passes you can reduce it to 100 mesh and finer, as fine as you want to take it down to with additional passes. At only 34 pounds, it's quite portable. No gas, no electricity. The ultimate in green technology and a must have when off the grid.

Sure, a pipe in a pipe, or a pestle and mortar works, but once some of the rock is turned to sand, well have you ever tried breaking a rock with a hammer when it's sitting on sand? Doesn't work too well.

Happy hunting!

Gary