Yet another mod...

This one is a bit unconventional for most, but priceless for me.

I built a dual pump/filtration system. This will ensure I have good water in the middle of nowhere. I'm planning a three week mining trip back to the claims in Wyoming this July and the only water source other than the creek is a natural spring coming out the side of the mountain. Someone many years ago drove a lead pipe in sideways to channel the water into a pool. I have more than once come down with a bad case of beaver fever from that water, but NO MORE.

One pump is to draw water up from the pool straight into a 45 gallon holding tank, and the other is to draw the water down through two filters and on to the Cat's fresh water tank. The pump drawing water from the pool is 3.0 gpm with a 30 ft head capability and can run dry without harm. The other is a standard 2.8 gpm pump.

Hose running from pool (simulated) to holding tank


Close-up of panel


45 gallon tank


Wiring from truck battery to pumps; using alligator clips to connect from one pump to the other


Can control incoming flow to and outgoing flow from 45 gallon holding tank


Picture showing filtered water flowing to fresh water tank


Very portable


TC

You could get you a pig tail and wire it so you can plug into your plug in in the back of the truck with the pig tail.
Looks like you've got it figured out for your water supply though.
Mining sounds like a lot of fun hard work.

Sounds like fun....take me with. Do you have pics of your mining fun. I would love to get do some hobby mining in the black hills.

Excellent idea on the pig tail Phil. I just might do that. Would save me from popping the hood.

As for mining, it's both therapeutic and potentially rewarding if you know what you're doing. Can get awfully frustrating and expensive if you don't though.

TC

When I first saw it I thought it was something to increase your fuel mileage.

Carpe Diem wrote:Sounds like fun....take me with. Do you have pics of your mining fun. I would love to get do some hobby mining in the black hills.

There's a placer claim in the Black Hills for sale on ebay right now. Don't know who it belongs to though, or it's background:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BLACK-HILLS-GOLD-PLACER-GOLD-MINING-CLAIM-FULL-SIZE-/120709498359?pt=Land&hash=item1c1ad8c5f7

Here's a few pics from the last time I took the whole family...

Kelly on the 3" dredge...


The boys messing around in a sampling hole...


That's me popping up from the production hole...


My youngest sitting on the 6" dredge. He's the one in the Army now...


Gold take from 3 1/2 days of messing around...


TC

Looks like alot of fun! I just watched an episode on gold fever this weekend that was running a dredge with amazing results.

Tom Massie, the host of Gold Fever, doesn't really sound as dumb as that in real life. I've visited with him and his wife Cindy too.

Not only does the Massie family own Gold Prospector's Association of America, aka GPAA, they own the Outdoor Channel as well. Very enterprising bunch, but so was their dad, George Massie; the founder of GPAA...a showman's showman. I swear he used the same bunch of nuggets in every one of his shows. The acorn doesn't fall far from the Oak tree if you get my drift.

TC

Great pics, TC of the mining. Thanks for sharing...

drove a lead pipe in sideways to channel the water into a pool.

I'm wondering if you really meant "lead" pipe? That could be very dangerous if the lead leached out of the pipe and into the pool over years of running water through said pipe.

Bob, I did mean lead. And very corroded at that. Might explain why I am the way I am.

TC

Very nice TC. Have fun

TC wrote:

Carpe Diem wrote:Sounds like fun....take me with. Do you have pics of your mining fun. I would love to get do some hobby mining in the black hills.

There's a placer claim in the Black Hills for sale on ebay right now. Don't know who it belongs to though, or it's background:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BLACK-HILLS-GOLD-PLACER-GOLD-MINING-CLAIM-FULL-SIZE-/120709498359?pt=Land&hash=item1c1ad8c5f7

Here's a few pics from the last time I took the whole family...

Kelly on the 3" dredge...


The boys messing around in a sampling hole...


That's me popping up from the production hole...


My youngest sitting on the 6" dredge. He's the one in the Army now...


Gold take from 3 1/2 days of messing around...


TC

Local pick-up offered.

Just noticed after looking at my own pictures, that I'm missing a couple of clamps between filters. Better go fix that.

TC

TC, you should be able to pick up a filter cartridge at Home Despot that can filter out heavy metals that'll fit one of your filter housings.

Pretty sure both filters handle lead, but I'll have to double check.

TC

Love the minning pics. Makes me want to hit the water again. My sluice boxes have been sitting dry now for about 3 years. Some friends of mine and I use to go to Vein Mountain, NC every year for the GPAA event at Thermal City. We never did come home with much, but it sure was fun.

Nice setup TC and great pix... back in our prospecting days, I spent more $$$ for gear than I ever got out of the ground, heh...but even so, it was a fun activity that even the DW would dole into, except for the time she was panning and a water snake went between her legs !!!! Course now, Commifornia and the Greenies have banned pretty much all dredging much less any gold prospecting... most now to to Oregon to play...

Running Bare wrote:Love the minning pics. Makes me want to hit the water again. My sluice boxes have been sitting dry now for about 3 years. Some friends of mine and I use to go to Vein Mountain, NC every year for the GPAA event at Thermal City. We never did come home with much, but it sure was fun.

Unfortunateluy, after the stroke, I was forced to cancel last summer's trip. Even at that, the creek was running so high and fast from extreme snow melt that it would have been a very dangerous venture anyway.

I've seen pictures of the GPAA/LDMA outings out east. I think they have one in Georgia too. Their disadvantage back east is, they don't have clear water to see what they're doing.

The Mrs. and I have several mineral trips on our bucket list. One of them is to head over to Franklin and pay to play at one of the gem mines in the area. I've been told, for a little extra, they'll put you in a honey hole and blast new material for you to seive through. Sweet!!

TC

John&ConnieNeeley wrote:Nice setup TC and great pix... back in our prospecting days, I spent more $$$ for gear than I ever got out of the ground, heh...but even so, it was a fun activity that even the DW would dole into, except for the time she was panning and a water snake went between her legs !!!! Course now, Commifornia and the Greenies have banned pretty much all dredging much less any gold prospecting... most now to to Oregon to play...

Yeah, I can't tell you how many thousands I've sunk into equipment. I finally decided if I was going to pay that kind of money, I'd sooner design the equipment I needed and have it fabricated to my specs instead of buyng commerically made stuff. They don't get the fine gold very well, and that's where the real pay-off is! Nuggets are few and far between, but flower gold buys the steaks!

The entire west coast is all bound up in legislation and regulation changes. The stuff in CA started over the Karuks complaining about their fishing rights. Now Oregon and Washington is thick in it and Idaho is starting to stink too. One of these days, the gov't won't let us mine anymore without taxing and regulating us to death! Plan of operations (POOs) and reclamation deposits for anything over 5 cu yards moved, was starting to be too much to deal with.

We had leased 200 acres on the east side of the Sierras and south of Bridgeport for years, but I finally gave them up last fall due to the cost of travel and maintenance. The new regulations were secondary; where our claims were, the BLM folks would never bother us cuz they were so remote. In fact, there's only two or three rangers to handle all of Inyo and Mono counties. It simply can't be done.

Besides, it getting too scary out west; the more remote the area, the higher the likelyhood that the cartels have planted a pot farm with an armed attendant. And, our claims were really close to 395, so we never knew when we'd run into a transient that was a half bubble off plumb. We always carried a side arm when we worked in California, more for the two legged critters than the four legged. I've never had to draw down on anybody and I hope I never do, but being in remote California, the odds of keeping my side arm holstered was getting mighty slim!

TC

half bubble off plumb.

Running Bare wrote: half bubble off plumb.

Ha ha.... I saw that and thought you were talking about leveling the 'Cat... lol