A lot of my mining buddies have mentioned this article and now that we are all getting ready for the upcoming mining season, are wanting to make this unique Bedrock Buster.
There is a lot of new and inovative gold prospecting equipment available. This will be the first in a series posts to share some gold prospecting tools you may not be familiar with.
I ordered the plans for the Platinum Bedrock Buster. My son Jim and one of my mining parteners are building a unit for us to test on the Hard Times No. 1 and 2; claims with abundant amount of exposed bedrock, fractured and cracked. Setting up a dredge to clean cracks, requires lots of work, expense, dredge permits and performance bonds. This unit will do the job. It is non-mechanized, doesn't pollute the creek, is light-weight, easy to handle and does not require a dredge permit.
Bedrock Buster Gold Suction Pump
By: Randy - Mygoldpanning.com
The Bedrock Buster is a high vacum suction pump designed to work inside of bedrock cracks and other narrow openings. Some gold streams and rivers have deep cracks in bedrock and fractured granite shelves that do a great job of trapping gold of all sizes inside of them.
Unfortunately small nuggets and very heavy flake gold is inaccessible to everything except wire picks. Even with a slightly flattened tip on gold probes and other scraping tools, you will only get a low percentage of gold out of these places. The particles just fall off or around your wire tool. Yes I have faced the same challenges you do when working fractured bedrock.
What bothers me in heavily worked gold areas is that these cracks are still loaded with large quantities of semi-coarse and flake material. Nature has already done the work for you. There is an accumulation of this rich buildup trapped in deeper cracks. I have watched other prospectors use every thin tool imaginable, trying to lift, dig or pull gold from deeper recesses in prime gold area. After some hours of work, they do get a bit out, but, the lion's share remains stuck just beyond their reach.
This last summer (2010), I was working the cotton wood river just north of Quesnel, BC. The river has an amazing amount of gold in it and has been well worked by a number of miners. There are stretches of exposed bedrock "picked clean" by other countless prospectors over the years. What remains is large obvious bedrock cracks that have also been worked for the concentration of gold they contain. Surface suction dredges will only work so far down when placed over these cracks ( generally 3" - 4").
I had built a prototype of what is now called the Bedrock Buster. I asked permission of the claim owner before trying out my pump. He thought it was funny that I was going to mine empty cracks that have been worked to death. I just smiled and thanked him for the opportunity to see what I could find. I flicked out some of the longer gravel pieces that were either sitting on top or slightly wedges into the cracks. Water flow had carried some sand into these spaces, but there was mostly heavy black sand about 2 - 3 inches down from the top of the crack. This particular crevice started about 3/4" wide and tapered down to around 1/8" before ending. The easy wide part looked like a maid service had cleaned it down as far as you could easily see. As the crevice narrowed, you could see more and more black sand with just a little glimmer of yellow every so often. I started working the wide part first. I immediately attached the 1/8" stainless steel tip of the Bedrock Buster and started sucking. The crack was dry up this high so I added some water from my gold pan. I heard little particles hitting or landing in my capture cartridge. Plick, plick, tick sort of sounds. The opening held the water well until I removed most of it with the pump. I dumped more water in and slowly worked my way down to the water line. The crevice narrowed down to just under 1/2" here and water was no longer a challenge. The crack was full from the river's flow. However a new problem came up. I had sucked all the gold material up as deep as I could go. Normally this would be a huge problem, however, I switched tips to the fine spaghetti probe. The maximum reach of this tip is 2 feet and it has a built in non ferrous "pick probe" allowing you to dislodge trapped or embedded particles as you clean out cracks and narrow areas. I kept hearing little noises from the cartridge as material was shot into it. Water was now purging freely from the vent valve located on the control head. I managed to work my way down to the limit of the crack (about a foot). When I emptied the capture cartridge it was nearly full. A container filled full of black sand and lots of flake gold and little nuggets. This was from a previously "cleaned" crack.
I used the Bedrock Buster for 2 days and did quite well with it. Just over 3 1/4 ounces of mostly clean (once I cleaned it) gold. Again, this is in an area that other prospectors had already worked. The gold deeper down in the cracks and crevices seems to be safe from miners...up until now.
What I liked best is that you are right out in the middle of well worked spots. The spots that most beginners go because they don't know where else to go. I am busy pumping out gold rich cracks like I am trying to pump the river or crack dry. Water is raining down from the overflow (vent valve) of the suction pump. The few other weekend panners are working the same tired sands and gravels for a few flakes of gold.
Sometimes Knowledge Is Good!
Basic Bedrock Buster
The first model is a general purpose basic unit with two interchangeable suction wands. These nearly indestructible polypropylene wands have an internal diameter of 1/4". 1' & 2' lengths are standard with the Basic Model.
Platinum Bedrock Buster
The second unit is called the Platinum model. This is designed for the serious miner who plans to empty cracks and narrow spots on a regular basis. It comes with a 6" by 11/32" stainless steel nipple and a 6" x 1/4" 316 stainless steel nipple.
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