Gold rush

[ikarl]

Parker and the grizzly bar situation was just plain stupid.

The reduced gold-take with the screwed up grizzly was -$1,000 per hour. Why didn't he just employ someone to operate the grizzly manually.

[youngsyr]

ikarl said:

Parker and the grizzly bar situation was just plain stupid.

The reduced gold-take with the screwed up grizzly was -$1,000 per hour. Why didn't he just employ someone to operate the grizzly manually.

I expect it's difficult to get someone onsite in the middle of nowhere, half way through the season, to only employ for a few days until your mechanic gets back.

I still don't understand why he didn't just have the loaders jump out the cab every few loads to manually operate the grizzly bars - it can only have added the time of a return trip from the cab to the bottom of the loader (at best 20 feet) every few loads. Certainly a lot less time than repairing the damage caused by running rocks through the plant?

Todd's crew are having a season to rival Guyana - halfway through, next to no gold and most of the team have walked. Will be interesting to see how they fill the rest of the episodes.

Am struggling to see how that DIY trailer cost Tony $15,000?! It's just a few I beams, a couple of old knackered axles and some welding?

[Borroxs]

Sway said:

Old cigar chewing guy hasn't been around for a while either .

'Chris Doummit'.

Great bloke. Knows his stuff.

[Sway]

Cheers. He does indeed - always wondered why Parker didn't go with him as crew chief once Gene left. Then I found out how old he is - let's just say he's aged incredibly well!

[paulwirral]

I used to like this programme but it's now degenerated into typical discovery funded rubbish to add drama . The driver could have easily used the machine to clear the bars , either by pushing the waste or lifting the bars with the bucket after disconnecting the ram .
Tony , well who would have thought he and his number one man gene wouldn't even bother with an hours groundwork to check the height of the bridge , even then if it was that close they could have let the tyres down to gain clearence and re inflated them at the other side , it's not like they were ever going to cross the bridge at speed !
Todds crew , no wages , really ? I wouldn't work in a sthole for a known moron who has a track record of epic failure and look like a fool on tv without at least negotiating some form of monthly payment from discovery .
In my opinion it's gone the , American chopper or fast and loud , fake drama route .
I did see the Todd vs Dave trailer a few weeks ago , I'd guess it's gonna be on the last of the series , maybe after Todd yet again tempts Dave back with the promise of untold wealth and probably a 90% share of the profits only for it to go tits up yet again .

[trooperiziz]

I think someone has been having a little fun

http://goldrush.wikia.com/wiki/Chris_Doumitt

"Chris played running back for the Oakland Raiders from 1993-1997. He finished 2nd in the 2002 world's strongest man competition"

[Sway]

Forgot to mention it earlier, but has anyone caught "Gold Diggers" on NatGeo?

S1e1 was shown yesterday afternoon, seems much more grounded in reality than the recent gold rush seasons - one guy is working a claim with his family, and they really are banking on a decent season otherwise they're all completely fked...

[paulwirral]

Sway said:

Forgot to mention it earlier, but has anyone caught "Gold Diggers" on NatGeo?

S1e1 was shown yesterday afternoon, seems much more grounded in reality than the recent gold rush seasons - one guy is working a claim with his family, and they really are banking on a decent season otherwise they're all completely fked...

Is this the programme that features a big bloke who laughs a lot , a few crews who when something breaks just sort the problem out with a shrug of their shoulders , and the guy who works with his rather attractive daughters ? I remember it from a while ago if it's the one ? It was just people getting on with it instead of saying prayers and knocking tin hats together or bullying their crew .

[R8Steve]

Sway said:

Forgot to mention it earlier, but has anyone caught "Gold Diggers" on NatGeo?

S1e1 was shown yesterday afternoon, seems much more grounded in reality than the recent gold rush seasons - one guy is working a claim with his family, and they really are banking on a decent season otherwise they're all completely fked...

I'll have a look for that tonight, it's always the first series of these kind of programmes that i like, after that it usually goes downhill. Mainly due to the fact that discovery has given them that much money they don't really need to worry about actually doing well any more and it just becomes an act to keep the discovery funds coming in. Deadliest Catch appears to be the only one that remains pretty much unaffected but then you can't really start messing about in the bering sea!

The Hoffmans were in exactly the same situation in series one and had to sell their airport to fund it all iirc.

[Sway]

paulwirral said:

Sway said:

Forgot to mention it earlier, but has anyone caught "Gold Diggers" on NatGeo?

S1e1 was shown yesterday afternoon, seems much more grounded in reality than the recent gold rush seasons - one guy is working a claim with his family, and they really are banking on a decent season otherwise they're all completely fked...

Is this the programme that features a big bloke who laughs a lot , a few crews who when something breaks just sort the problem out with a shrug of their shoulders , and the guy who works with his rather attractive daughters ? I remember it from a while ago if it's the one ? It was just people getting on with it instead of saying prayers and knocking tin hats together or bullying their crew .

Very possibly. Couldn't watch it properly as my daughter was busy being violently ill, but do recall some eye candy...

Just looking online, there was a 2013 (US aired) series called "Alaskan Gold Diggers", can't see that this has already been aired over here but may well have been.

Seemed decent, and as another poster put - these sorts of shows tend to have a shelf life of a couple of series before the celebrity and money overwhelm the original premise of the show...

[Beyond Rational]

I'm increasingly convinced that Freddy Dodge is employed by the TV company to set it all up for filming and to give it some credibility, the Hoffman crew just turn up for the TV fee. Also think the Hoffmans purposefully mine the tougher sites with more chance of calamity just to give them the redemption story either at the end of the season (or the year after), when they decide to switch to mining the bits where the boreholes indicate gold deposits.

[tactical lizard]

I'm not sure why Tony has spent 1.5m dollars on that second dredge plus all the labour costs of moving it and getting it running.

His new power barge would make an excellent dredge if he plonked a new wash plant and bucket line on it.

[trooperiziz]

tactical lizard said:

I'm not sure why Tony has spent 1.5m dollars on that second dredge plus all the labour costs of moving it and getting it running.

His new power barge would make an excellent dredge if he plonked a new wash plant and bucket line on it.

I agree, I don't see where the value is. Parker got his fully bespoke and compact wash plant for $750k, I can't be more than another $750k to plonk one of those on some floats and add a bucket line. Then you have a brand new barge to use!

[Borroxs]

trooperiziz said:

I agree, I don't see where the value is. Parker got his fully bespoke and compact wash plant for $750k, I can't be more than another $750k to plonk one of those on some floats and add a bucket line. Then you have a brand new barge to use!

I suspect the buckets themselves are something you simply cannot buy anymore.... something no one makes in this form.

There must be something unique about the barges and I suspect it's this.

[Andy_stook_2k]

Dredge running costs are tiny compared to a standard operation, fuel etc.

[trooperiziz]

Andy_stook_2k said:

Dredge running costs are tiny compared to a standard operation, fuel etc.

Yeah, we get that, it's the question of buying a broken down old one for $1.5m, when it seems cheaper to make a brand new one.

[Borroxs]

trooperiziz said:

Andy_stook_2k said:

Dredge running costs are tiny compared to a standard operation, fuel etc.

Yeah, we get that, it's the question of buying a broken down old one for $1.5m, when it seems cheaper to make a brand new one.

you also have to ask, something that's been sitting around 30 years or more, unused, still has a second hand value of 1.5 million? Surely if people know the value of a dredge, they'd have been using them, restoring them, etc. I would have thought that actually they had maybe $10,000 scrap metal value, if people don't think that they have a place in gold recovery anymore? Its only Tony Beets that's using them these days isn't it? He should have been picking up a dredge for a bargain price, if its been sat there since the 1950's and is in the middle of nowhere.

[tactical lizard]

I'm fairly sure there would be someone who could cast new buckets for a new dredge, it's not like they even need any designing when he has spare buckets that could be used as a template.

With 1.5m dollars you could build a new dredge system on top of that power barge.

[8.4L 154]

Borroxs said:

trooperiziz said:

Andy_stook_2k said:

Dredge running costs are tiny compared to a standard operation, fuel etc.

Yeah, we get that, it's the question of buying a broken down old one for $1.5m, when it seems cheaper to make a brand new one.

you also have to ask, something that's been sitting around 30 years or more, unused, still has a second hand value of 1.5 million? Surely if people know the value of a dredge, they'd have been using them, restoring them, etc. I would have thought that actually they had maybe $10,000 scrap metal value, if people don't think that they have a place in gold recovery anymore? Its only Tony Beets that's using them these days isn't it? He should have been picking up a dredge for a bargain price, if its been sat there since the 1950's and is in the middle of nowhere.

Doesn't the $1.5m value actually include the cost of moving and restoring it? I'm also not convinced you could buy/have made such a thing for $1.5m given no one has the tooling or experience to make the bucket lines, custom fit tailings stacker and control system, and a wash plant would be a one off custom design rather the red series or slucifer over goldzilla, all of which were likely only custom plants by virtue of being built to order and having options and minor modifications asked for by their purchasers to suit the material mined but still 90% off the shelf. Even if you did try an build something, most of it would have to be done on site (expensive, $15,000 for the useless trailer) or moved the same as the dredge (just as expensive) and no doubt the old timers built these things a) to last and b) to be dismantled, and moved to a new claim, exactly what Tony is doing.

I cant remember what price tag was put on the Pomrenke Christine Rose dredge on gold divers, but IIRC it was up there in similar cost and it was just a small wash plant on a barge with an excavator on the back, so nothing like as sophisticated or efficient in gold retrieval, and as indicated in the last episode even dredge 1 was loosing quite a bit of gold out the back and it was made quite clear Todd was mining what Tony was throwing away. Well until Mike fixed it so future Todd has even less success.

[P-Jay]

Borroxs said:

trooperiziz said:

Andy_stook_2k said:

Dredge running costs are tiny compared to a standard operation, fuel etc.

Yeah, we get that, it's the question of buying a broken down old one for $1.5m, when it seems cheaper to make a brand new one.

you also have to ask, something that's been sitting around 30 years or more, unused, still has a second hand value of 1.5 million? Surely if people know the value of a dredge, they'd have been using them, restoring them, etc. I would have thought that actually they had maybe $10,000 scrap metal value, if people don't think that they have a place in gold recovery anymore? Its only Tony Beets that's using them these days isn't it? He should have been picking up a dredge for a bargain price, if its been sat there since the 1950's and is in the middle of nowhere.

I asked the same thing a few weeks ago. It's worth $1.5m, apprently, but has been sat rusting for 30 years because no one uses them anymore - I would imagine for good reason. It fails on the most basic of rules for calculating value - "it's only worth what someone will pay for it". Either there was some crazy old nutter who sat on it for 30 years saying he wouldn't part with it for less than seven figures until the planets alighened in such a way that someone wanted to buy it for that or, it's true value was $0 - because whilst it might be worth $10k in scrap, it would have cost more to get it someone to be scraped.

I'm not sure how much I'll watch, it's become habit - but it's become so contrived now it's almost complete soap opera. How many times can you watch someone runing across a gravel road shouting "shut it down!".

More to the point, where the hell is the vid of Dave giving Todd a dig!!