If the material drops down out of the hopper too fast, it can overwhelm the riffles and you can blow the gold right out. If it runs too slowly, the riffles can clog up and the process is too slow.

It rained over four inches that night and the creek flooded both my backyard and my workshop. When I opened the door to my workshop Christmas morning, an unwelcome sight greeted me.

The metal is expensive, not because it is rare but because of the expense to produce and work it. The minerals mined for titanium are all oxides, unlike many base metals that are mostly mined as sulfide minerals.

Once I started dredging with heated water pumped into my wetsuit, I never went back to not having heat except late in the summer when the water is very warm.