u/AussieArch

Right next to the old timers dry blowing. So close, yet so far mate.

Aight before anyone says anything- I’m in a tree to get reception 😂

Also, cosplaying as a drop bear 🤫🐻

Out detecting with a kiwi mate. Nice bit around a gram.

Gotta keep hunting for the big mumma 😀

Another couple months since the last update. Haven’t spent as much time at the project as I’d like - unfortunately life gets in the way.

The boys and I have been getting the plant setup, it’s 90% there now - just need to get the jaw crusher into the circuit (currently just impact crusher into ball mill). We’ve run maybe 10t or so of low grade material through to test the circuit and fix all the teething issues (there’s been a few as normal).

We did a test run on some of the equipment too by digging out a section of vein. We should get around 15 ounces from the test pit. This is going to be stockpiled until we do a full scale run.

The good:

Grind size is great. Though this may get impacted as we work on increasing the throughput of the plant.

We’re getting gold! Recovered a bit of gold during the teething phase which feels nice. This part of the process isn’t about making money, but it’s nice to see some colour.

The bad:
Lots of heavies in the concentrates. Looking like there’s a bit of wear from inside the ball mill which is clogging up the mats and likely contributing to lower gold recovery.

Throughput isn’t what we expected, but we’re adjusting the gearing on the ball mill to increase this as we as adjusting the feed rate on the conveyors. Hoping to increase from 5t/hr to 8-10t/hr.

What we’re planning next:

Looking into adding a centrifugal recovery system into the circuit to compliment the sluice

Adding magnets to pickup steel making its way through the system and catching it before clogging up the sluice.

Changing some of the matting on the sluice and adjusting the water flow to ensure even wash down the sluice.

Saved this old girl from the scrappers a couple years ago. As thanks, she’s never let me down - I often take her very remote. No towns, no roads, no people. All for the search of gold.

So it’s been a couple months since the last update. Been busy drilling, sampling and getting all permits up to scratch etc.

Firstly, drilling. It’s not the consistent motherlode we wanted but boy are there some high grades mixed in with the waste. One sample over a metre ran 50oz/t. It’s patchy mineralisation, but I’ve got a couple ideas on what’s happening and where to put the next holes.

We’re going to work on a few outstanding safety aspects of the mine and a couple regulatory requirements before moving into processing some of the historical ore stockpiles - though I hope that’ll be in the next few months as I’d love to see some cash roll in.

If there’s interest I’ll take a short video next time I’m at the mine to show the general layout and upcoming plans.

Got to be in it to win it. Beats working for the man 😎