Here we go!  First test of the trommel.  As usual, there were some hiccups.  First off the water pump it came with would start, but would not stay running.  Maybe it got some dirt in a fuel line on the journey up here.  No big deal, one thing we have a lot of is pumps.  Flange up another 2 inch pump, and off she goes.  So there are also a few welds that were leaking and a hole in a hose or so, but not enough to stop us from trying a load.

The videos:

We ran a bit of dirt from where the grizzly used to sit last year.  Here’s what we learned.  Although there is a grizzly on this trommel, we still need the larger grizzly as a first stage, we had a large rock make it through the bars sideways and get jammed in the trommel.  We bent the spray bar in the barrel, it still works.  Also, we lost a little gold where the sluice meets up to the chute on the trommel, we have to put a stop in there.  We also had to play with the angles and the water pressures.  But we did get a little gold out of our test.  Overall we were very happy with our new rig, we just have to tune it in a little better.