Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Gold Rush, S03E11, Pink Slip


 





Audible Review


PINK SLIP

 

At Quartz Creek up in the Klondike, Todd's turbo trommel seems to be working perfectly, after about 3 months at a stand still. It appears to be washing the paydirt as it should, so Todd Hoffman hopes that he can keep his promise towards his investor. Three weeks ago, Jason which is Todd's investor, gave Todd an ultimatum, he wants to see a total 350 ounces of gold from the Hoffman Crew, when he returns in three weeks, Todd promised that they'd get 250 ounces from Indian River and that Quartz Creek would produce the remaining 100 ounces. Todd orders a clean up of the turbo trommel, which for the first time has been running without any problems, since it was fixed last week. Team Todd is positive that they'll see 100 ounces from the trommel this week, as their investor will arrive on site next week. And so they start by cleaning the sluice on the trommel, it's Todd and Jack's first cleanup of the season. Jack Hoffman cleans up the concentrated dirt in the gold recovery room by himself, while the rest to Team Todd predicts that they'll get atleast 15 ounces out of this cleanup. As Jack returns from the gold room, he breaks the cleanup total to the crew, which is a very disappointing cleanup, a total of 7.34 ounces, worth less than $12,000 is all they got out of the turbo trommel. They're 93 ounces short from the 100 ounces they need, to keep their investor off their back, as Jack Hoffman states, for the average person it would be a decent cleanup, but for them it's not even enough to buy them fuel. With their investor coming in just six days, Todd is 93 ounces short, he knowns something is wrong with the trommel, because the dirt he puts through it is good paydirt.

Down at the Big Nugget Mine, in South-East Alaska, Parker Schnabel has been digging towards bedrock on Emerson Trench for two weeks, and finally his seeing a change in the dirt. Glen, Parker's fine gold specialist gathers a test bucket of dirt from 20 feet down and processes it, but he has no good news for Parker as he shows him the test result, the material which is 20 feet deep near the bedrock, appears to be worse than the overburden above which got Big Nugget Mine 12 ounces last week. Parker decides that they keep digging the last 6 feet to bedrock, because he hopes that there's good gold down there.

Back up in the Klondike, at the Indian River claim, Team Turin is about to run out of paydirt from their first digsite, their washplant "Big Red" is chewing through the final 5000 yards fast, Greg Remsburg predicts that within five days, they'll be out of paydirt and if Dave Turin hasn't opened up their second digsite, then the washplant has to shot down, which would loose them time and money. Dave is currently half way with clearing the permafrost from the second cut, and he needs to clear the remaining 6 feet of melting permafrost before they run out of cut one paydirt. The permafrost is melting fast is the hot summer sun, making conditions tough, Dave plays it safe by only stripping a 200 foot area. Dave struggles with keep traction on the muddy deck and soon gets the D9 dozer stuck in the muck, on the upper bench. Dave radios Greg Remsburg for help, and Greg now has to climb a steep hill in the 460 excavator to reach the upper bench where Dave Turin is stuck with the dozer. Eventually he manages to get the excavator up in the bench, before the dozer slips over the ledge down 30 feet, he also manages to pull the dozer out of the melted permafrost. 




Down at Porcupine Creek in Alaska, the 270 excavator is still broken, the frame holding the idler wheel, which broke for the first time six weeks ago, where back then Fred Hurt made a new one from scrap metal, failed to hold. Dustin says that they've re-welded is several times, and that it wasn't meant to be a permanent fix, only a temporary one. Dustin tells Fred that they're spend about the same on repairing the frame, as it would've cost to just rent a brand new machine, Fred though has no money and decides to once again just to re-weld it. As they finish the fix, they put the frame back in and installs the 300 pound idler wheel onto the frame. With the 270 excavator back up and running again, the Dakota Boys rush back into the glory hole to make up for lost time, but just six hours after the fix, the frame breaks once again, at the same time, Dustin hears from Melody that their loader is spilling fluid, she suspects that it's transmission fluid. Dustin arrives to take a look, and indeed finds out that it's transmission fluid which is leaking, he states that they'd have to take the entire machine apart to fix it, which would be the end of the season for the broken loader. Fred arrives to discover the loader being broken, and eventually has to make a call that he's been avoiding. Fred calls for more credit on a loan. 

Across the creek from the Dakota Boys, at the Big Nugget Mine. Rick believes that they're moving close to 2000 yards a day out of the Emerson Trench digsite. In a race to get down to bedrock, Parker is running his washplant to the max, but running so much dirt in the washplant, has caused the tailing to back up into the machine, if the build up stops the trommel the motor on the washplant could burn out. At the time Glen was responsible for keeping an eye on the plant, so Parker confronts him with it, then Glen and Parker starts a fight about the issue. Parker apologizes to Glen moments later, for being so rough and aggressive towards him.

Back at Porcupine Creek, the Dakota Boys are dead in the water, both their 220 loader and the 270 excavator are still both broken down. But Fred has comes through, he's gotten more credit and comes back to the claim with two new rental machines, a loader and a brand new 340 excavator to replace the 20 year-old 270 which broke down. Both Dustin and Melody is happy about the new equipment. They can finally get back to chasing their 160 ounce goal for the season, with brand new equipment. Fred unloads the 340 excavator off the trailer and waste no time putting it to use back in the glory hole. The Dakota Boys finally have the right equipment and their washplant is processing good material, they're back in the hunt for the 160 ounces of glory hole gold.





Back up at Quartz Creek, Team Todd tries to determine what lead to their disappointing cleanup of 7 ounces. They fire up the turbo trommel and Todd had Jim Thurber panning the tailings that the trommel dicards. Mitch their team mechanic spots something hanging down within the trommel. As Thurber finishes panning the tailings, he sees gold in the pan, which means that they're loosing gold out the back of the trommel, there's 14 visible colors in the pan. They shut down the trommel to inspect what Mitch discovered hanging down from the trommel, right off as Mitch enters the trommel, he sees daylight through coming in, between the spiral and the drum, he also finds the object which was hanging down. It appears to be urethane, which seals between the spiral and the drum, it's come loose which allows fine gold to slip down into the tailings. Mitch says that he can weld it instead of replacing the urethane, but it has to be grinding smooth, he estimates that it would take over 400 feet of welding and that it would take about two weeks to do it. Todd decides to call it quits on the trommel costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, shutting it down for the rest of the season. Without a washplant, it is game over for Quartz Creek. The team is clearly frustrated and Todd admits that he failed this summer with Quartz Creek.

Less than two miles from Quartz Creek, over at Indian River, Dave Turin is racing to get down to pay gravel in the second digsite, their washplant is getting through their stockpiled dirt fast. If Dave can't get down to paydirt and soon, they'll have to shut off their washplant for the time being, costing them over $10,000 a day in lost gold. As they're one bucket away from finishing their stockpiled paydirt, Dave hits paydirt in cut number two.

Back in Alaska at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker is nearing the end of a two week dig down to bedrock at Emerson Trench and they shortly hit bedrock down in the pit. Parker has Glen test the bedrock dirt, but the results are disappointing, the test shows no gold in the pan. 3 weeks, $30,000 and over 700 man hours, digging down at Emerson Trench, just to find nothing.






Across the creek from Big Nugget, at the Porcupine creek claim, the Dakota Boys have been running their washplant for 3 straight days. Fred shuts down the washplant, but to have any chance at hitting their 160 ounce goal for the season, they need atleast 2 ounces per day, or 6 ounces total from the last 3 days of running. They pan the concentrate from the cleanup and heads inside to weigh the gold. After running the plant for 20 hours over 3 days, they pull in 14 ounces or $22,400, which is more than double the amount they needed to stay on track towards their 160 ounce goal, the Dakota Boys are now at a total of 75 ounces for the season.

At Indian River, back up in the Klondike. The con weigher belt which discards the tailing has stopped moving, Dave Turin acts fast and has Chris cut the power to the washplant, as the belt is moving it creates heat and shuts of the electrical safeguard. They reset it the safegaurd and fixes the problem quickly. They start their final cut one cleanup and right of the batch they find their first Indian River nugget. They take all the miners moss which traps the gold over to the gold recovery tent at Quartz Creek, as Jack extracts the gold from the concentrate. He weighs the last Indian River cut one gold, and heads over to Idian River, to break the cleanup total to Team Turin, which is 53.78 ounces worth a staggering $86,400. Which brings Indian River's total gold tally so far up to 223 ounces, worth about $356,800, they're almost only responsible for all the Hoffman gold so far this season. With 6 weeks to go they're well on their way to hit their 501 ounce goal for the season.

Back over at Quartz Creek, things are far more different, with only 7.34 ounces worth less than $12,000. Todd has pulled the plug on his hightech trommel, and investor Jason is about to shown up at Quartz Creek, where Todd Hoffman is way short of his 350 ounce promise to Jason. Todd breaks the bad news about the shutdown of the trommel to Jason. Jason is not happy for Todd to miss his promise and pulls Todd over to the side. Jason suggests that Todd lets go of some people, if he can't keep production up and costs down. Todd doesn't want to send anybody home as the blame for the failure of Quartz Creek falls on him.



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