Opportunity to go sampling ore in Milford

I have this prospector buddy who has mining claims through a family network over in Milford Utah. He asked me if I wanted to join him and go learn how to sample ore. Oh, boy am I over joyed about doing this but the problem is that I have to rearange work to make it possible. I have been learning alot about mining and prospecting through this new friend of mine and so far I have throughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Experimenting with Arc

I haven't been doing any experimenting or building anything lately. I wish I had a shop to tinker in but non so far other than a garage full of stuff. I have been welding with my grand-dads arc welder and came across an idea of maybe figuring out how to widen the arc to melt metals. I still think if you can rotate a drum with considerable of RPM you can possibly separate metals in a liquid state??? Still invetigating but still have'nt found my answer. If anyone has a suggestion give me some insight to ponder.

Life In The Slow Lane

It's been pretty crazy here in Panguitch. I have'nt been to busy panning or doing any other type of prospecting. I did get out with the family about two times so far and went panning for gold in Marysvale. The Tushar Range Mountain is supposedly a very rich area to go gold hunting. The gold is very fine and it takes a lot of work to get alot of it. The snow was still melting off and the run-offs were very cold, even though we managed to have fun anyway. I have'nt done anything with the Searchlight project and the last time I was updated was that the funding has not came through yet. The whole process still intrigues me but the more I get involved here in Panguitch and make new friends and such I don't know if I want to go clear down to Searchlight, NV. I Have'nt done anything with my metal melting or anything related to it at all lately. I still want to build me another oven and melt some more stuff but until then, ???. I have been busy with work and that has been a blessing which we are just hanging by a thread in most cases trying to survive. I have been watching the gold prices and they are still very good to anyone who has any means to find, collect, or wherever gold is and still make a nice profit. Like I told a good friend, "If I could just pan gold and get 1-2 ounces a week I would do far better than working and I would probably enjoy every bit of it." O'well does'nt hurt to dream right! Hopefully I can get some more exciting things going on and let you know more when I persue my adventures. Until next time....C-ya.

Upgrading Furnace......

My New Years resolution is to finally get settled in our new home and to land a permanent job. With all the downturn and the Economic Crisis, I hope to get back to normal and to figure out what I want to do. I have two choices and both are pretty unsure as in what kind of work I want to do. I can either restart a new Tile Business and start over where I left off, or I can do alot of studying and become a Mining Expert and mine Base and Precious metals. I don't mind either but I think these two choices will cause me to work out of town alot unless I move my family closer to work. When things get all settled I am planning to rebuild my furnace and change it over to an oil burning furnace. Coal, briquettes and wood are nice but they seem to burn out to fast and I have to keep it restocked or it burns out. I am going to do a combination of propane and oil where I can get it hot real quick with propane then transfer the fuel source over to oil. I haven't decided whether I will do a drip system where the air intake will feed the oil to blast the furnace or do a system with a valve to determine my oil flow into the intake manifold that is mounted on my oven also fed by air. On "Lionels Lab" Website I have been coming up with some really good ideas, which I am a big fan of Lionels creations. I have a link to his website if you are interested in checking out what kind of projects him and his collegues are up to. I also have been offered an oven that is made out of fire bricks with heating elements string inside of the oven to heat it up. This is a 220 volt oven that will get around 2400'F which will melt most metals. I haven't got it yet but I am excited to build me a backyard lab so I can branch out to do my own Fire Assays for testing ores for people. I have a long way to go before I can call myself an Assayer, but I really love working with metals and testing ores for value. I really hope this company down in Searchlight NV pans out because I would really like working with this guy and learning all I can to become a Professional Mining Expert. This would really open up some doors down the road as far as becoming a independent consultant or just working for larger outfits doing Assay work. I'll let you know how things go as soon as they start happening.

2nd Trip to Searchlight Nv.

I headed down to Searchlight to work last Tuesday just right after the snow storm and I was stranded on the freeway about 20 miles from Las Vegas. I later learned that a fatal accident occured from black ice on an overpass on the freeway. I made it to Searchlight around 11 pm Utah time which Nevada is 1 hour behind us, and started working right when I got there. On Wednesday it snowed from 8 am to 6 pm all day long. The wind blew also so it was hard to determine how much snow fell on the ground, we estimated between 8 to 12 inches of snow and some places were 3 to 36 inches around bends and between places. Las Vegas even got about 3 inches of snow from what I heard and that was pretty good for a place that has a low elevation.
I mostly worked on covering water lines up and re-organizing the tool sheds and trying to get familiarized with the area. In between those jobs I would go and help out another guy with the Assay and Precipting the metals. I asked lots of questions and even pitched in and helped on some of the samples, that were being processed for evaluation. I really enjoyed doing that part of the work around this place, and when the snow melts the owner is going to start setting his equipment up to start mass producing this ore. The ore we are working is Copper and Zinc, and the left over sludge is going to be re-processed for the precious metals that may be in it. With the snow and partly the cold weather and some funding we are having a hard time getting the go for this operation and hoping for a break in the new year. I haven't had time to play around with my hobbies lately and with the process of moving and the holidays I don't expect to get to any of my hobbies for awhile. I will post some of my past hobbies later when I think and ponder about them and share them with you until I get to some of the new stuff down the road.

Searchlight NV. Trip....

This trip was very busy and very informative. First day there I ended up doing some plumbing work on a 14x70 trailer that was on the property. It was a very long day but I was able to get all the plumbling done, and then retired for the night. The next day was interesting... I was told to go and organize the sheds that have all kinds of cool stuff in them. These sheds are no ordinary sheds, these type of sheds are actual 14x70 trailers modified into different storage units for different things. I was organizing a plumbing shed that has all kinds of plumbing parts in it for just about any task you may get into. The other trailer has eletrical supplies, (which my friend is an electrician who his dad owns this place) who was very excited to see and talk about parts for just about anything. The other trailer was the tool shed which I have never seen so many screwdrivers, hammers, sockets and etc,etc. except in a Sears store. The last shed was the nuts and bolts shed, and this shed had almost every nut or bolt you would need to put something together with washers, lock washers, and all the drill bits you need to drill a new hole. Of course that wasn't the only sheds around, he had other sheds that had items of interest in them that I had'nt gotten to yet. Later that day I was visitng with one of the workers who does Assaying for this guy I'm working for and he showed me around and gave me a somewhat of a crash course on how to Assay ore samples to determine what kind of metals are in them. I really like this part because I always wanted to know how they did this, so I was all ears during this period of time. The next morning we got up and ate out for breakfast, then when we came back I was put to another task learning how to fill out claim papers and how to read the claims on the map and write down the sections to be filed. Wow!! talk about a crash course on mining and other interesting work, I havent had this much fun at work EVER unless I go home and build things after hours. I'm headed back down tomorrow morning and I sure hope the weathers nice with all the snow we are getting here in southern Utah. We don't see very many snowy days here in the desert!! And when it does snow it usually melts off the same day or the next. Hopefully I can get some pictures this next time to fill you in on all the fun.

4th Furnace Run Cont.....

I wanted to post some more pictures of the successful run I had today. This is another picture with the graphite crucible in the furnace with metal in it melting.

This is a pretty cool picture, the smoke that is sort of white looking was actually blue compared to the orange flames. Must of been some of the brass melting which I heard gives off blue smoke, I'm not entirely sure but I think was brass.

My poor furnace is on it's last leg. I bet it could last one or two more runs but it's pretty slim. The lid is almost crumbling and the inside keeps breaking more and more everytime I put more heat in it.

I don't know if I'm to motivated to re-build it just because I realized I don't need a furnace this big to do what I want it to do. I have thought about making a bigger crucible/ladle to put in the furnace to melt more metals at a time. I probably will take it with me and re-build it sometime in the near future.