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Recent content by firebird_ak

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    Alaska Gold Blues

    25 ounces. Not enough to get a decent excavator, but we paid the backhoe payments for the winter and the tool and food bills for next year. The ground is pretty consistent, but there should be a couple small pockets hiding in there with some really good gold. There's probably between 200 and...
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    420D Tire Change for Winter Conditions

    A local machine shop would be awesome if I had the rig here, but it's out in the bush. I tried to get a picture of the spacers, but Cat didn't have one on the computer, just a diagram. If it is just a flat plate, then wouldn't the bolts be taking all the stress instead of the wheel fitting to...
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    420D Tire Change for Winter Conditions

    CAT just quoted me 2000 bucks for a set of spacers for a 416D! It looks like the spacers are only a flat piece of 1.3 inch plate with holes drilled through. That price was including bolts and washers (800 bucks worth)
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    Hi everybody We ended up getting a 2005 416D with only 1200 hours on it. It really seemed like the best machine available at the time. I was impressed with what we were able to do with it. One of the biggest problems we was the lack of traction. The chains we bought for the rear tires...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    After meeting with a potential investor, the above is still an option. There is also another option, a new crawler loader. We can get a brand new John Deere 655c for somewhere around $180,000. This is from the dealer with a full warranty and they even have their own airplane for warranty...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    I like the 710 route! They are quite a bit more expensive and harder to find, but have a 2.5 yard loader with 15,ooo lbs breakout! Maybe a backhoe to start making some gold right away, then add an excavator and dump truck hopefully the following year. One guy can use the excavator and dump...
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    looking for an exciter component from an old plate compactor or similar tamper

    not sure how it will work, but id like to try to use the exciter out of a plate compactor to get my grizzly/gravel feed hopper to vibrate by bolting it to the side of the 5/8-in steel hopper and using a gas motor and belt to turn it. anybody have an old compactor laying around and want to get...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    We are still considering the backhoe for the first year followed by a second piece next year because of the price compared to a loader or crawler. The jd350 didn't have a problem scooping pay right out of the bank and a 3 year old cat 420 has to be able to do with its loader bucket what the '67...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    Wow, thanks Stumpjumper. One side of the jd350 just doesn't have power at all. It seemed to happen all at once, one day after being stuck pretty good in the mud. We still managed to spin circles and run much of that pay pile shown in 2 of the above photos. Any guesses on how many cubic yards...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    The reason I posted in the backhoe forum is because I was looking for specific advise about a backhoe as an asset under specific conditions. Then when I considered a hoe i posted in the excavator forum. I didn't post in the mining forum because ours is hardly the scale of operation I would...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    Alaska Gold Blues part 2 I posted a thread with the same name in the backhoe forum and thought I had better post here as well. My dad and I have a small remote placer operation that we prospected by hand and now would like to get a little more serious about mining it. We lack well rounded...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    Thank you for all the replies! There is about a half pennyweight per yard of gold in all of the stream gravel with some pockets having the majority of the ounces. The jd350 has done a lot of work for us in the short amount of time we have kept it together, but right now it spins in circles. I...
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    Alaska Gold Blues

    Dad and I have a small gold mine at a remote location. We are excavating a buried stream channel around 75 to 100 feet wide. There is anywhere from 1 to 12 ft of black dirt overburden covered by 2 to 5 in trees. We have done a lot of work using an old jd350 but it keeps falling apart. It's...
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