Everything I've been saving
for the last ten years is in this operation.
So darn hard to separate it from your gold.
There's three families that are completely dependent
on the gold that's going to come off this plant.
This season is kind of a make or break.
Oh, my gosh.
- Oh, man. - Such an idiot.
You almost don't even need to pan
that to know there is gold in it.
- That's pay. That's pay right there. - That is pay.
Don't move.
Little nervous. No gold in this.
That's not good, Fred.
We really can't afford to have bad clean-ups.
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
I've done some prospecting in this area of Idaho,
but I've not even been close to this spot back here.
Well, real pretty country back here.
Looks like gold country to me.
Freddy and Juan are in Western Idaho,
seven miles from historic mining town Silver City,
en route to a trio of young guns
who have called in a last ditch plea for mining help.
So we're actually going to go see a buddy of mine, Chris.
I met him about a year ago, Fred,
and worked with him a little bit.
He and his buddy Derek and his brother Matt
are out here trying to make a good go at it.
Last year they didn't do all that well.
Roger that.
And really, all three of the guys and their families
are dependent on the gold for their livelihood.
If we can get them a little more gold in their pocket,
it's going to be a big deal to them.
Well, it's a nice little setup they got down here, Freddy.
It is.
Hey, guys.
- Hey, what's going, Juan? - What's going on, Chris?
- Good to see you, buddy. - Good to see you again.
- How you've been? - Doing excellent.
- Freddy, Chris. Chris, Freddy. - Chris.
- Nice to meet you, Freddy. - Nice to meet you.
- This is my buddy Derek. - Derek, nice to meet you, Derek.
- And his brother, Matt. - Hey, Matt.
How you doing, Matt?
So, Chris, tell me a little bit about everybody's role.
- This is Derek's claims. - Okay.
You know, I worked with him a little bit last year.
We've been mining together and we kind of drug Matt into this.
He's never done it before. So...
Yeah, flying blind.
- Here we go. - Yeah, here we go.
And this is my first week ever mining.
- So I'm green. - Oh, really?
- I'm green. - That's all right.
Yeah. He's learning the ropes.
Yeah. It's been interesting.
With a decade of experience,
mine owner Derek True is all in after investing
his life savings of $125,000 to buy
and equip his own claim, named True Mine.
So to build up this operation, it's taken me about two years.
I built the trommel and then also added
the feed hopper and the other conveyor last year.
It's kind of been trial by error and the gold total
for last season ended up being 27 ounces, not enough.
We have to get 100 ounces this season.
So kind of changed things around.
So added Chris, added Matt, called them up and they wanted
to give it a go and we decided it
would be a good idea to call in Freddy and Juan.
My investment, everything I've been saving
for the last ten years is in this operation and it needs to be successful.
Yeah.
I'm glad, Juan, you guys could come up, because the biggest challenge,
though, when it comes to like cleaning it up is there's like
an amber sand or like a yellowish amber sand moissanite maybe.
It's really hard to get those sands out.
Well, let's see what it is, huh, Fred?
Yeah. I'm curious to see.
You guys living out here when you're mining here?
- Yeah. - Second home.
- We got all our families up here, too. - Oh, really?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Last year, Derek was up here pretty much by himself,
and he's having a little hard time getting...
getting things really dialed in.
This year we're kind of coming together.
So we're going to give it a shot and see
if we can all work together as a team
and if we could really get this dialed in, it could really work.
- Yeah. Really, it's make or break. - Absolutely.
I lost my... my company a little bit ago, and this is my last chance.
I'm so thankful for my brother taking me
under his wing and giving me this opportunity.
I don't want to fail him, so it's going to be
a challenge, but I accept the challenge.
The True crew have pulled in six ounces so far this season.
With 12 weeks left, they must pull in at least
another 95 ounces to turn a profit and keep their families' dreams alive.
Yeah, with the three of us being here, I mean, there is a lot on the line.
It's just the added stress of having two more families, you know.
That's a cool looking plant, guys.
How many yards an hour will it do?
It's running about 23 right now.
You need more yardage.
- You got three families dependent... - Yeah. Three mouths to feed.
Let's run a plan.
Let's run a four-hour test to see how much gold you get.
Sounds good.
Make hay when the sun shines.
Slinging dirt.
All right, let's fire it up.
Send in the water.
The four-hour test will give Freddy and Juan
the chance to assess how the wash plant runs
and highlight any flaws in their setup.
There we go.
First bucket. Here we go.
We only got three hours and 59 minutes left to go, Juan.
Nice.
When pay dirt drops into the hopper,
the conveyor belt feeds it into the small mobile eight-foot trommel
where water jets wash the gold and fine material from the rocks.
Derek's extra long 16-foot sluices
help separate the gold from the heavy mysterious sands,
the main nemesis to the operation.
That's weird.
What's that?
They got water going to the bottom of that belt.
Conveyors aren't designed to run wet.
I see what they're trying to do,
trying to use it to clean that belt off,
but at the same time it may be making him lose gold.
Look at all this material that's already come down.
A river runs through it, Juan.
Yeah, I guess we get a pan and take a look at it,
but there's a lot of stuff in there that should be going through that screen.
- Yeah, I'll go grab a pan. - Okay.
See what's in her, huh, Juan?
Yeah.
Let's hope nothing.
- Do you see any gold in it? - Yep.
One, two, three, four.
Oh, there is a nice piece right there.
A lot of heavy in there.
Yeah.
I don't know what the amber sands are.
So darn hard to separate it from the gold.
Yeah, it's pretty bad, Fred.
This is the first time in nearly 50 years
of panning gold that Freddy has encountered sand this heavy.
Gold is 19 times heavier than water and sinks to the bottom of the pan.
The lighter material is washed away first, then the heavier black sands.
But the amber sands have a weight much closer to gold,
making it extremely difficult to separate.
Being in a gold mine isn't easy,
but anything worth having doesn't always come easy.
Derek has done a lot of hard work
on building this wash plant and getting this equipment going.
And he has a lot of passion in mining like I do,
and it's really been great to see us
pull this together and make it work with Freddy and Juan's help.
Go over to your right a little more, Matt.
I'm not going to lie.
I'm not multitasking very well today.
Yeah, last year was not the best.
It started with a bunch of equipment problems
and keeping the wash plant going with one guy.
Twenty-seven ounces just was not enough gold for the effort put in.
Coming into the start of this new season
with the three of us guys depending on making money,
it has to be better than last year
or else next year, there might not be a next year.
There's three families that are completely dependent
on the gold that's going to come off of this plant.
Yep. Whatever gold's in the sluice box is feeding these guys.
Oh!
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, man.
Such an idiot.
It's going to be okay.
That's not good, Fred.
I forgot to open the rear hatch
and then all of a sudden I'm looking up at the sky.
Hopefully this will work.
So should I pull the PTO and everything out?
Just don't touch anything right now.
- Okay. - That's probably the best thing.
My brother is probably going to kick me off the site.
Hopefully, nothing's permanently damaged.
I forgot to pull the handle.
101, lift the gate.
Well, and then, I pushed... I pushed it to disengage
when it was like and then it was... just too late.
I was straight up.
Gravity took its effect.
Did you put the brake on?
No, I didn't do anything.
Just bailed?
I feel like a flippin' idiot.
What happened?
Pulling wheelies?
That's kind of an interesting way to, you know, dump the truck.
It's not the best first impression for...
- It's all right. - ...first week on the mine for sure.
- Hey, that's all right. - For sure.
Just seeing the look on his face.
Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure.
- You probably won't do it again. - Absolutely not.
- I'll let you get back at it. - Thanks, guys.
Gentle!
- Oh... - You're all right.
Oh, my gosh...
Whoo! Thank you, Jesus.
Matt is as green as they get.
I could see Derek get frustrated with Matt,
but he knows that Matt's been through some tough times,
and that's why he's got him up here trying to help him make a future for himself.
With the rock truck back in action, the test run
has just two more hours remaining.
Oh, my God.
Actually started off in my younger years
as a commercial helicopter pilot.
I lived a pretty wild life.
I liked to play on the weekends and I went on my quad
and was riding around having fun.
And I fly off a cliff, hit the rocks,
and I was in a coma for three days
and full body cast for three months.
And you know, I had a traumatic brain injury.
My brother said, hey, you're in a tight spot.
You love being in the mountains.
Let's give this a try.
I am not back 100%, but I just want to overcome it.
I don't want to let it hold me back.
Matt, you're good to go.
Right now, as you can see,
we've got quite a bit of material coming down here that
never even has a chance to get washed.
Yeah, they're losing gold here.
Look at that right there, Freddy.
No, as he's dumping material,
all that fine material is just going off the top of it.
You almost don't even need to pan that to know there's gold in it.
- That's pay. That's pay right there. - That is pay.
All that should be going down the sluice box.
Just going out on the ground there.
I'm going to say 5% of their material, huh?
Yeah, at least 5%.
Take her away, Matt.
Oh, no.
Matt, the hopper is jammed up.
Oh, boy.
Hurry up.
Matt, the hopper is not feeding material.
With 30 minutes to go in the first test run...
Yeah. If you want to hurry up, you've got to push dirt down.
I will.
A clogged hopper has shut them down.
They plugged up, Juan?
Yeah, he's plugged up.
That's not good, Fred.
Matt, material is stacking up.
You're gonna have to push it down.
The thing is dry again.
Argh!
That's not good.
Hopper's getting plugged up when the material gets wet.
You see the bars down there.
Sometimes they'll get built up on that and it can't...
it won't slide past them.
And we have to do this at least, I don't know, every hour.
I mean, we're up here for five, ten minutes at a time,
and it takes away from us digging pay out of the cut.
The clogged hopper costs the operation a total
of five to ten hours per week of critical mining time.
I've been fighting it and fighting it.
I hope these guys can find a solution to fix that thing.
The hopper is slowing them down by a lot.
Yeah, that's the most important thing here is that hopper.
This plugging up, which is costing them time.
You know, and at the end of the day, time is money.
Less time running is less gold in the box.
- That's all. - That's exactly right.
There we go.
All right, Derek, we've got you all fixed up.
I'm going to head back down and keep your pay coming.
We're four hours now.
All right, I'll call the boys.
- I'm going to shut her down. - Sounds good.
Well, curious to see how much gold they end up with.
See what we got in the box and then go from there.
Yeah.
Get the hammer over there.
Seeing some gold.
All right.
The gold from these mats will determine
the total that Freddy and Juan want to beat in the final test run.
What do you guys need a day?
Full running day.
You got three guys and three families out here, right?
Yeah, three guys, three families, about $3,200.
Roughly 1.75 ounces.
$3,200 a day.
And that covers fuel costs, labor, everything.
Have you been able to make that so far?
No. So far it's been about ounce a day.
- That's not enough. - And that's for a ten-hour day?
That's for a ten-hour day, yeah.
Okay.
If it doesn't turn around this season,
I think, you know, we're going to have
to look at doing something else.
Now that, Fred, families are out here,
you know, it kind of makes you realize that, you know,
there's a lot of people that are riding on this.
Yeah, well, you know, you got a lot of mines
with families out there,
you forget that they've got a whole bunch of mouths to feed at home,
not just the people at the mine here.
There's... there's kids all over the place.
So it kind of kind of shows you,
you know, how many mouths are dependent
on gold coming out of that sluice box.
There you go. Last of it.
Amber is heavy, isn't it?
Very heavy.
It's a real pain in the ass to clean up.
So darn hard to separate it from your gold.
On top of the five to ten hours a week lost to the hopper,
the young miners lose one full day a week on their clean-up process.
See, that's our problem. It just hangs up
on those ambers, man, we just can't get it out.
I don't know what the amber sand is.
Yeah, that's really the biggest challenge here.
How are you getting that out of that sand?
Well, we usually get all the visible we can get
the bigger stuff that we can separate,
and then we will plop some mercury in.
Using mercury.
Yeah, that's been the only way we've been able to really capture most of it.
So you're getting what you can like that?
Yep.
And then the rest of it, you're amalgamating.
We spend hours panning trying to get that
fine stuff out of those sands.
- And you never get it all. - You never get it all.
I hate to see you using mercury.
Mercury, an element used in gold recovery
for nearly 3,000 years, absorbs gold,
leaving behind other materials.
That mercury's eating it up.
The mercury is then vaporized to extract the gold,
a dangerous process as the fumes
can cause severe poisoning and brain damage.
I had one friend that got pretty ill from using it, using it wrong.
These guys are using it right, but they're still using it.
If there's any way we can get them to not use it,
get them into the 21st century, that'll be good.
It's crazy.
This is how a lot of the old timers used to clean up their gold.
And people still do in a lot of countries around the world.
Most people are shifting away from it.
You know, in the modern era now, you know,
we don't have to use mercury anymore.
There's better ways to do it.
That's all we've been able to find so far with our budget, at least.
And we understand that you need every speck
of gold out of there to pay bills.
- So... - Yeah, every speck counts.
Well, I guess finish doing your process on it
and when it's done, we'll grab a scale and see what's there.
Weigh her up.
Ryan, it's Freddy.
To determine a safer clean-up method,
Freddy reaches out to a local friend for intel on the mysterious sands.
We're helping some guys in your... in your home area actually.
There's a weird yellowish mineral here
that's really hard to separate the gold from.
Yep. I'll look into that.
I'll see if I can get that geology report.
Thank you very much, Ryan. Bye.
Hey, guys.
- How's it going? - Pretty good.
Clean-up complete...
Got a scale and a pan here.
...Freddy and Juan weigh up the gold.
So this is the stuff you were able to clean up without amalgamating it?
That stuff you had to clean up with mercury in that fine stuff?
Taking care of the mercury. Yep.
Makes it a real bugger.
Makes your gold brittle, right?
- You could take your gold... - Yeah.
- ...and break it right... See? Break it right in half. - Jeez!
Yeah.
- Let's weigh it up. - Well, let's weigh it up, huh, Juan?
- Yeah. - There you go.
For this mine to be viable,
the crew need at least 0.7 of an ounce from their four-hour run.
0.61.
0.61, huh?
- It's not great, guys. - No.
It's not horrible, but it's not spectacular. How's that?
So a third of their gold, they're having to use mercury on, Juan.
Yeah.
That figure is not a... not a good clean-out.
We really can't afford to have bad clean-outs.
If it was one guy and one, you know,
one family to feed, it would be all right.
But it's taken three of you to get it, right?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
And that's what we want to make work is
all three of us working together on this.
Yeah. This is definitely not enough to feed our families.
Can you help us?
Yeah, there's ways we can help you.
We just need to go talk about it.
- All right. - We'll figure out a game plan.
With three of us here, we need every speck of gold that comes out of that box.
What do you think, Juano?
Well, I think we need to start with the... with the feeder first, Fred.
After a clean-up of just 0.61 ounces,
Freddy and Juan game plan radical solutions for the struggling True Mine.
Grizzly bars on it.
You noticed right off they weren't set quite steep enough, right?
Yeah, they're not steep enough.
He's dropping material on there. It's getting seized up there.
And then he's actually losing quite a bit.
He's out there with a stick and a fencepost.
I think the quickest and easiest thing we can do is steeping them.
Let's cut some new brackets out
and we'll use his existing arms and just move them over.
Right. Just put some new ears on it.
Yeah. What's your plan on the on the hopper itself?
I'm thinking of cutting these cross members
out that are in there, going that way and we'll put one in lengthways.
It's going to hold the center of that material up
and it's going to relieve the pressure inside of there.
Makes sense.
The next thing is, you know, coming off of that hopper. Right now,
he's got that conveyer set up.
He's got a sprayer spraying the bottom.
It's counterproductive because he's trying to get
that gold-bearing material to wash off into the hopper of the trommel.
But it's not, it's washing it downstream.
Now, let's do something we've never done before, Juano.
Build a wiper system in there and it's gonna constantly touch that belt.
Yeah.
What do you think about... I'm 100% good with us giving our labor on this one.
You know, the truth of the matter is there's three families.
It's not just three guys.
It's three complete families that are dependent on this gold.
I don't have enough fingers to count all the kids.
Now, there's a whole herd of kids out here.
I'd have to use fingers and toes.
I think there's a whack of them out here.
One of my biggest deals here is to get them to stop using mercury.
Just to get them away from doing that.
I'm 100% with you.
- Yeah. - Okay.
- I'm good with it. - Done.
- Let's do it. - Yeah, let's go talk to them.
Freddy and Juan identified three problems with Derek's plan.
First, rocks jam the grizzlies forcing pay over the side.
To fix, they'll increase the pitch to steer away
the rocks allowing pay to pass into the hopper.
Second, the hopper clogs, causing lengthy shutdowns.
So they'll remove the crossbars and replace them
with a single beam for more even distribution.
Third, water sprayed onto the conveyor washes away gold-rich material.
Juan will install an innovative spring-loaded
rubber wiper to scrape valuable paydirt into the trommel.
But first, Freddy has a surprise to correct
an issue near and dear to his heart.
- Hey, what's going on? - Working on it again, huh?
Oh, yeah.
Now, the big one is, you know, you guys are using mercury to clean up
a percentage of your gold, right?
When we did that gold wave, a third of your gold
that you recovered, you had to use mercury to get it
'cause you can't, because of the heavy material in this creek.
So we've got a table, a used finishing table
to clean your gold up and then you won't have to use mercury anymore.
Dang!
Thank you guys so much.
And, you know, really, it comes down
to Freddy really wanted to see you guys get off of mercury.
The truth of the matter is, you guys, you know,
you guys got your entire families here.
Even though you're doing it safe there's a better way to do it.
So it's just been out of our budget, kind of.
That's awesome.
That's... Yeah.
That's why we're willing to do it.
If you guys pay for the material--
It's $1,000 for the material.
We're willing to throw in our labor.
So...
But you guys have to help.
Put us to work.
All right, well, let's get to work, then.
- Sounds good, guys. - Thanks, good sir.
- All right. Thank you. - You're welcome.
- Appreciate it. - No problem.
Thank you so much.
- All right, let's do it. - Let's do it.
So a finishing table should totally speed up
our clean-ups that we're having to use the mercury for.
So if we can totally eliminate that process and the table
will capture more than we've been able to, it's a win-win.
- Hey, Matt. - Hey, good sir.
- How are you doing? - Good, buddy. How are you doing?
It's a good day to be alive.
- Hey, you want to give me a hand with this? - Let's do this.
All right.
Yeah, we're going to put that wiper together,
but I'd like for you to know how it goes together,
so that way, when you got to adjust it...
- And everything else, you can do it. - All right. Teach us.
- Teach me. - Yeah.
Only two days left in the rescue,
Juan and greenhorn Matt begin assembling the wiper,
which will stop gold-rich pay getting lost off the end of the conveyor belt.
- Okay, hold it like this. - Okay.
- You hold this. - All right.
Then what I'll have you do is turn... turn it on for me.
All right. Hold on, where's the...
It's actually crazy because we learned that gold
is being thrown away in the whole process as well as water.
So it's going to help us quite a bit with this new addition.
I see it immediately. You're down here.
You want to learn as much as you can, as quick
as you can and that's the right mindset to have.
To be honest, after my accident and a couple year recovery,
I got back into the swing of life and I actually started
my own trucking company and transportation brokerage
and ran that fine for ten-ish years.
And then two of our biggest customers,
they took us for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.
So we had to file personal bankruptcy
and had to start over completely.
So my brother saw it and he was like, "Dude, I want to help you."
So I'm here kind of trying it out.
That's pretty wild, man. Whew...
It's been a hell of a ride.
- For sure. Yeah. - That's unreal.
You got a new opportunity, a new chance to rebuild.
Exactly.
You know, you're here with your brother, you know, your loved ones.
- Chris is a great guy. You know, great team. - Super awesome team.
I want to shake your hand, man.
Oh, yeah. I appreciate it, dude.
You know, good on you.
I wouldn't be where I was at now
if I didn't experience what I experienced.
And it was a rough ride for many years, to say the least.
You know, it's been great seeing Matt's drive and
ambition to learn about mining and have... take passion and pride in it.
He's done some, you know, little mistakes like
any rookie guy would do, but that's understandable.
And the fact that he owns up to them and keeps
pushing on forward, I think that's awesome.
And I'm enjoying teaching him how to be a true miner.
And we're going to put an arm with a spring,
but as this belt turns, what that's going to do
is going to... this edge is going to clean the belt.
So that way we're not losing material and water down
the back of this conveyor.
Awesome.
You got that last bolt?
Last bolt.
- There we go. - Thank you, sir.
Look at this masterpiece.
It's starting to look good.
I don't know about masterpiece, it's something.
Well, it's going to catch our gold
that's running away.
Looks good, Matt. I'm happy with it.
I appreciate your help.
- Do I need to catch you? - Yeah. Please.
Could you?
Right on, buddy. Thanks.
Thank you.
After we were doing that clean-up the other day,
talked to a geologist friend of mine that's local.
With news in on the amber sands,
Freddy analyzes the report with Chris.
So here's why the dang stuff is so heavy.
It's showing 43.86% lead,
7.40% silver, 1.55% copper.
So there's your weight right there.
You know how heavy lead is, you know how heavy silver is
and then copper is no lightweight little piece of metal.
- So there's your weight. - That explains a lot.
That's why it's so darn hard to separate it from your gold.
I think we found the culprit that's made it
where you can't clean your gold up.
Nice. No, I really appreciate it.
That's awesome.
Now that we know how heavy that material is,
that gold table is a good option to get your gold cleaned.
Sounds good.
Your table's here.
- Yes! - All right.
Looking forward to running it.
- There it is, Fred. - There's the table.
- Dang! - Look at that.
That is legit.
To eliminate the use of mercury
and help separate the amber sands more effectively,
Freddy supplies the crew with a gold table.
- What do you think, guys? - Yeah!
Awesome.
- Oh, my goodness gracious. - Beautiful.
That's a beautiful machine.
Doesn't that thing look cool? Look at that. Look at that.
Ho!
Hot shottin' it, guys.
There's not a scratch on it.
- About there. - Yeah.
- There it is, guys. - Thank you, guys, so much.
- That is beautiful. - Look at that.
That is just going to be a game changer for us on clean-ups, man.
- Yeah. - You were saying
well, we're down to 300 mesh gold.
She'll do smaller than 300 mesh. Yeah.
So, like, there completely goes our mercury, man.
We'll actually be capturing what we haven't been able to.
That's the whole reason for this table.
- Now you're in the 21st century. - Awesome.
- Time to step up. - Thank you so much.
This is going to be an absolute game changer.
Well, hopefully it helps you catch more gold to help you feed your family.
With the knowledge you have, it's a guarantee.
There's no guarantees in gold, buddy.
This season's kind of a make or break for next season.
And I think Freddy and Juan might just be the key to our success.
- All right. - Let's get back to work.
Let's get to it.
We're running out of time here.
We've got a lot to get done and not a lot of time to get it done in.
Only one day until the final test run.
Freddy still needs to fix the crew's biggest bottleneck, the clogging in hopper.
What we're going to do, we're going to put this square tube lengthways
in his hopper and keep it from clogging up on 'em.
Nice, clean cut.
You can see here, I'm putting a bevel on this
with the grinder. That's going to allow my weld to penetrate.
We'll get a full penetration weld here
and then we'll put a fillet weld on the outside.
Coming at you.
That'll do.
- Got it. - Got it.
Coming down.
I'll get the crane out of the way.
Then I'll come in there and help you.
We'll get her centered up and tacked in.
All right. Sounds good.
Freddy, you're looking good today, sir.
Thank you. You too.
Well, you know, and I've been using a new conditioner,
so I actually, I think I'm--
You're not shining as much.
- You can see there's a difference, right? - Yeah.
- That new conditioner is really working out. - Yeah.
I don't even have to have my sunglasses on this time.
We're not running now, but you can't put a price
on these guys coming here with all their knowledge
to fix everything and dial it in.
So it's priceless.
Whatever it takes will make us more efficient in the end, once we get running.
Then I'm going along.
You'll see a little hole behind it where I'm filling it.
So I'm burning all the way through there and filling it in.
There's our route pass.
So it's burnt all the way through.
Beautiful.
Got to watch the master.
Soak in some tips, man.
We put this cross tube in lengthways inside here.
And what this is going to do, it's going to help
hold some of that weight off the belt and keep that belt from plugging up.
We're putting these supports in just for download
on this so this tube doesn't try to bend in the middle.
- Clear! - Clear.
It's hot.
The last one done.
What do you think, Derek?
That looks good, man. It looks like it should really just work.
Thanks, man.
Freddy fixing that. That's just awesome, man.
I can't wait to see it run.
I mean, seeing his design come to action, I don't see how it can't work.
So it should save us tons of time.
Just four hours left before the final
test run, Freddy races to finish the fixes.
- There we go. - Oh, yeah.
- Beautiful. - Oh, yeah.
To stop rocks blocking the grizzlies,
Freddy and Derek used the new steel ears,
which will allow the bars to raise an extra five degrees.
If you put it on crooked, it's your fault.
I know. Right, man?
Looks pretty good right there, huh?
Looks good.
Don't move.
What do your kids think of the gold mining?
Oh, they love it.
- They love it. - They do really.
They loved it. You know, a boy and a shovel, right?
- Yeah. - Even the girl, man.
- Pile of dirt. Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Think it'll hold?
I think that is beautiful.
How's it coming, Derek?
Good, man.
Freddy is doing all the work.
Yeah.
Well, fit her up, guys.
- That works. - It looks good.
You know, hopefully this saves you from poking all those dumb rocks out.
- I can already hear my back thanking you. - I know.
You know, I think it's awesome how Freddy and Juan
travel around helping other miners like... small guys like us.
You know, we don't have a ton of money.
We do a lot of this all on our own, just hard work.
I think it's going to actually be awesome if it actually works.
Have I told you how good you look in those new sunglasses?
- Thank you, Freddy. - You're welcome.
I appreciate that, bud.
You know I try really hard to look good for you.
And that's what I do, Fred.
- You know, I wake up in the morning-- - Take pride in it.
I take pride in my looks, and I want to look good.
You know, really, they hired me because I'm eye candy.
- You are eye candy. - You know, I can't weld.
- Mediocre plumber. - Yeah, at best.
You are eye candy.
Yeah, but you know what, I'm chubby.
I got it all going on, Fred.
You know, dad bods.
To prevent the hopper from clogging,
Freddy and Juan have installed a crossbar to improve feed distribution,
raised the angle of the grizzlies to stop rocks
jamming and gold-rich pay falling off the side.
Added a wiper to the conveyor belt
to help scrub gold into the trommel
and to prevent using mercury in their clean-ups,
Freddy and Juan have gifted the crew a gold table.
Now it will all be put to the test.
Let's run four hours.
- All right. - All right.
All right, let's fire it up.
Yeah.
All right, D, we're fired up.
The second test run must prove the fixes
will deliver at least 1.75 ounces per day
to make the True Mine profitable.
Do not have a backup plan going into this.
I mean, everything, my investment,
everything I've been saving for the last ten years
is in this operation and it needs to be successful.
Here's the moment of truth, Freddy.
- First bucket, Juan. - There it is.
That grizzly bar is working better already, Freddy.
It is.
When we did our initial test run several times,
he had to go out there and actually poke the hopper.
The way it's designed too,
we've gone from 30 degrees to 35 degrees. It's looking good.
It's doing exactly what I'd hoped it would do.
It's keeping the weight off that belt.
It's not plugging.
Then it's a constant feed forward.
Before right there is where that other bar
was, Fred, that would already be getting caught.
During that four-hour initial test
probably lost 20 minutes of downtime
because of this feeder plugging up.
I'm happy with that, Fred. Good job.
- Looks good. - Thanks, Juan.
So far we have not had to stop once for the feeder.
I mean, she is just feeding beautiful.
We're just saving tons of time.
Grizzly bars are working good.
It feels good when everything's running smooth, man.
- Wiper is doing its job, Juan. - It's working, Freddy.
We don't have a stream running anymore.
No, no.
You know, we're saving all that water
and then we're scraping all that material off the bottom of the belt
- and in the sluice. - Yep.
You know, for a... for a cheap little home built scraper, it's working all right.
- Yeah. Good job, Juano. - Yep. Thanks, bud.
Oh, this is make or break.
Already struck out in a couple endeavors
in life and this is pretty much my...
my last chance to be able to provide and keep my family fed.
Mining is one of the things
I've always been really passionate about.
Freddy and Juan could make it to where we could do this for full-time jobs,
I mean, it'd be like a dream come true.
- Here we are, Freddy. - Last bucket?
Last bucket, man.
- Last bucket, Derek. - Last bucket.
All right. Sounds good.
Shut her down, guys.
That was a good run.
Four hours, right on the nose.
I'm excited to see this clean-up, Freddy.
I am too.
Well, fingers crossed, Juano.
Yeah.
What happened to all the water, Matt?
Is there some gold there?
Oh, yeah, nice little picker right there.
Oh, wow.
What do you see, Juan?
That's pretty good, Freddy. All in here.
All throughout here. Look at that.
Yeah, that's a good pile there.
Across here, fine gold.
Damn. It looks good, boys.
I'm excited about it.
You know, what I'm learning is just tweaking
finite details is kind of changing quite a bit.
Yeah.
Turn you into a semi-pro yet, Matt.
I wouldn't even go that far.
Still a greenhorn.
Well, clean her up, guys.
All right.
I'm excited to see if this is going to weigh out.
Yeah, hopefully it's turned around and gotten a little better.
So time will tell. Right?
Yeah.
Ready, Juano?
Yeah, let's get it fired up, Freddy.
As the gold table vibrates,
material is separated using water flow.
The heavier gold collects in the central tapered grooves,
which feed into collection cups at the end,
while the lighter material is pushed from one riffle
to the next until it falls off the side.
Well, moment of truth, guys.
Here we go.
Fingers crossed.
The three of us are practically feeding our families.
I mean, really, we're eating out of the sluice box.
So, I mean, every ounce we get, I mean, it counts.
Well, first scoop.
Let's see how it does.
If successful, the table should separate the gold from the amber sands.
A little nervous hopefully, because this stuff is heavy.
Yeah, I know.
But Freddy has never experienced this material before.
See what it does?
Watch this, guys.
And if it fails, so too will the last hope for the True Mine.
I'm not seeing anything on this side.
- You? - No.
No gold in this.
Well, it's way heavier than most sands.
You may have to adjust your sprayers just a little bit here.
Let me make sure those hoses are in there.
Here we go.
Watch right there.
Boom.
It's what it is.
It's splitting that all.
It's pretty cool stuff.
It's crazy.
I've never seen anything like this.
We've got a nice line of gold, Freddy. Looks good.
- That is a nice line of gold. - Wow.
Oh, look at it.
- It's so crazy. - More coming.
- Looking good. - Turn that water down up here.
You know what's kind of cool about this,
I'll be honest with you, as heavy as that stuff is, I was nervous about it.
Yeah, it's pretty heavy.
I'd look like a fool if I couldn't clean it up, right?
Yeah.
Pretty neat.
- It looks good. - Yeah.
It's actually doing a really good job separating that stuff.
So that beats a pan and mercury, huh?
Oh, yeah.
I think this would be faster, too.
- Yeah, it will be faster. - Yeah, totally.
Process you have to go through
with the mercury, this should be faster.
Yeah. Way faster.
You're going to get more gold, too.
Derek and I have talked about getting a table
for a long time and it's really going
to help us out and get away from mercury.
At the end of the day, it could be the game changer, you know.
So this goal is probably 10% cleaner than your gold.
So a lot of the weight we did on that first test, it was dirt.
Yeah.
And some of that is heavy mineral.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
But this is all-- this is cleaner.
And what do you think, guys?
- Oh, yeah. That looks good. - Yeah.
This should take a day off of what we were doing before.
It just took so long with those concentrates and having to amalgamate 'em.
You want to dry this up, Derek, and we'll get a weight on it.
- Sounds good. - All right.
- Sounds like a plan. - Let you handle the treasure. I don't want--
Don't spill it.
If this doesn't work, I have no other options.
I've exhausted everything else.
It has to work.
Here they come, Juan.
Let's see what it is, Fred.
- Yeah, moment of truth. - Moment of truth.
Yeah, moment of truth.
Well, it looks better.
Right. There is 0.61 guys.
That's how much gold you had the first four-hour run.
So we got a little left in here.
Everything else from here on out,
hitting the scales and increase.
Here we go.
For this mine to turn a profit the results
from the second test needs to deliver at least 0.7 ounces.
0.63, 0.64, 0.67, 0.7, 0.71.
0.71. That's pretty good.
What is that, Freddy?
- About 15% or so. - Yeah, 15%.
- That's pretty damn good. - That's going to add up.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
There's going to be more than that because your runtime
is going to go up exponentially because of the table.
'Cause what we tabled that in probably 15 minutes?
Yeah, right.
With Freddy and Juan's fixes and the new cleanup process,
a full day of running could net the crew over
two ounces of gold worth $3,600,
enough to support their families and turn a profit.
And the truth of the matter is,
none of that has mercury on it, right?
So that's pretty damn good.
And it's even better.
So, you know, mining is a numbers game.
The table, the way this all worked out,
I think it's gonna give us what we need and I think
it's going to make a huge difference.
- Happy with this? - Yeah, really happy.
We are happy with it.
I mean, so thankful.
It's awesome.
- Well, take care of those guys. - Yeah.
- We will. - It's our new baby.
You take care of this. It'll take care of you.
Yeah, absolutely.
- Here's your gold. - Awesome.
I am done. Pleasure.
- Yeah. - Right on.
- Thank you. - Bye, guys.
See you later, guys.
Well, Juan.
I'm happy with that, Freddy.
Yeah, I am, too.
You know, at the end of the day,
it was an increase and, you know, honestly, great family, great guys.
I'm proud of what we did here.
I am, too.
- I'll follow you out. - Got it.
No, this is-- you know, it's been a great experience.
I'm looking forward to see where this things takes us.
Keep making the teamwork, making the dream work.
The future of Matt and Chris and I-- I mean,
I think it's looking pretty good.
It's looking up.
Really no option for failure now.
I'm going to step it up and we're going to knock this one out of the park.
I'm super excited for the future.