I suspect that the contention is another producer driven invention. His involvement as a proxy for the claim owner and resident gold mining authority are a little too perfect for the dudes to be truly upset. But this past episode has highlighted their supreme lack of knowledge at anything concerning gold mining. Literally with what 40 days left they finally have a real wash plant operator/engineer look over their plant? Honestly I googled sluice boxes and found more detailed information on how to build them than these dudes could ever dream of knowing. One of the main sluice boxes they had, had one fucking catch in it? Also, what happened too the 30 buckets of material? I hardly suspect they were able to pan all of it on the silly ticking clock deadline the old man put in place. After getting the new and improved plant working they'd be best to rerun that stuff and get what they can.
Also, what happened to the wave table? I'd assume that with a few actual miners looking over their shit, they'd at least ask them to help set up the table correctly.
I just don't understand how a group of guys can be so god-damned retarded about everything. They consistently screw up every single procedure in the process. And when somebody suggests something different to improve their chances, they get all butthurt and angry. "Hey look! Here's a new guy with tons of successful experience. Lets hate the fuck of him for being new." I'm sure the producers wanted to amp up the drama, but it makes no sense why a guy who can actually help them and make some money would be looked upon so unfavorably. It just makes them look like even bigger knuckle-dragging, chest pounding mouth-breathers.
Too be fair the whole wash plant set up scene at the end was kind of a toss up. The shit wasnt lined up and I too would have been concerned that using the excavators bucket which could have bent or snapped the metal. Other than that Id probably make him the team leader and kick Todd and his stubborn dad to the fucking curb.
They had the tab started though, so it wasn't going to break. The worst that would happen would be one of the tabs bending, which could be squeezed back together with the bolt. Excavators have very precise controls. A good operator could scratch your nuts with one, so it can be a good tool for doing things like that. That is, as long as you have a good operator in the seat. But they had Todd running it, so I too was nervous when I watched it.
They are finally GETTIN THE GOLD! 7-8K in three days ain't bad, and you know that's from half assed panning. I wonder what portion of gold is being missed or looked over in their operation. Guess they really did say fuck it to the wave table. Youd think theyd get the seasoned dude to give it a look over.
Wow, that machine with the magnets really seems to work. That guy will be rich. The last shot where you can actually here the gold just swishing was pretty cool. I know there is only one episode left, and they will end up all destitute, but it looks like they actually found the glory hole. Too bad it was too little too late.
Seems if he added a second stage to further separate the gold from other minerals not picked up by the magnets it could be even more effective. But it does seem a lot easier to use than the wave table was. I thought it was hilarious they ran Jacks forbidden bucket right after he walked off, I had hoped to see more of this type of job site humor on this show. Isnt the glory hole supposed to be a bonanza of gold? Not being well versed in gold mining glory holes I wonder if they actually hit one or are just hitting deeper dirt that hasn't been run before. It would seem on average that there would be more settled at the bottom near bed rock to begin with. I didn't think about it until this episode but they have been running a lot of stuff that was already excavated by the claim owner before. It might have already been run or the area was filled back in with much less profitable stuff. So a lot of the stuff in the buckets might be worthless, or theyre idiots and fucked it up somehow. Im curious to know what type of size and amount of gold is usually found in a glory hole. I'd like to see them really go through the new traps in their sluices, the black sand at the end might be more profitable in the end but I wanna see some GOLD NUGGETS! Im guessing most of the next episode will be fighting the elements and then the last ten or so minutes will be actually separating what they got.
I don't know about anyone else here, but watching Jack run the excavator drives me up the fucking wall. Seriously, is that god damn thing idling when he's digging? The hole that he's been working on the entire season could've been dug in two to three days. He's not even digging to grade, he should be getting at least 3 digging cycles per minute.
In think they screwed the pooch kowtowing to Jack's glory hole mission in the first place. Todd gave up arguing in the second episode and theyve been futilely digging in the same spot ever since. I really wish that instead of producer driven drama theyd have tried to make the whole series a lot more informative. Spent time explaining just how you locate a glory hole* and how they determine where the most likely spots for gold are. They briefly went over it but then focused more on jack putting around diggin for his glory hole. * this double entendre is never not funny.
Well that was a hugely anticlimactic ending. I mean obviously they werent going to come out ahead but how they edited down them packing and leaving in the last five minutes left so much unanswered it's basically a complete wash. It didnt look like they ever completely ran the buckets or winterized shit, what a complete hack job by the producers. Knowing the highly contrived nature of the show kind of ruined it but Id still be interested too see if they could come back to the same spot next year and make a better run of it. Ive been reading Dorseys blog and I hope he gets his show off the ground, it be nice to see him go in a different direction as well.
That whole attempt at a dramatic exit along the road was fucking laughable. A couple inches of snow on a road, with a fucking front end loader leading the way? I have trees bigger than that fall over my road on a regular basis due to wind storms... "monster tree" indeed. I just love how they're well over $250k in the hole, and are all excited over 14 oz of gold.
No shit... it's not like it was all shiny and gold... there seemed to be a lot of other crap in there. I wonder how they deal with that when they go to sell it? Surely the gold broker has some means of purifying it before paying out. And what was with that pump just sitting in the ditch in the middle of nowhere? Seriously?
From the comment section on Dorseys blog people have mentioned that there is some sort of payment rates for unseparated material like this. They don't give the market rate for pure gold but some sort of estimated value of what the gold content is. I don't know for sure but it would seem to make sense if the process of further separating it or purifying it through chemicals would be cost prohibitive for an operation of this size.
I kind of imagine the guy says "I'll give you this for it", and they either take it or try and get a better rate somewhere else.