Hoffman Family Gold

Ready to go.

The Hoffmans' mining is in full swing.

Trommel's turning.

But with torrential weather obstructing them

and a few disappointing cleanouts...

We're screwed.

...their 1,000-ounce goal

may be out of reach.

That's not even half of where we're supposed to be.

Now with one plant coming up short...

I'm not happy with the amount of gold

that we're getting out of the Holy Roller.

...Todd turns his focus to Hunter's operation.

Having the Black Pearl up and running

would be a huge help right now.

And he's calling the shots.

Keep comin'. Keep comin'.

- What are they doing? - They're moving the Black Pearl

without us, man.

They're just taking over.

I told you where to put your sluice in.

No, you didn't. No, you did not.

With emotions running high

between father and son...

Everybody saw you tell me to put it like this.

Don't ever call me a liar.

It literally feels like I'm here with some dude who hates me.

...will this venture be finished

before it's even started?

You don't follow through, then you quit.

This was real for me. Like, this was really hard.

So, we're running out of time.

And you know what? In gold mining,

nothing seems to go right.

We're behind.

I'm under an immense amount of pressure right now.

So we're in between a rock and a hard space.

I see some trouble's comin'

if you wanna know the truth.

It's us against the friggin' weather.

And are we gonna leave here with a loss or a win?

Are we gonna come out of here with a profit, you know?

So to be honest with you,

having the Black Pearl up and running

would be a huge help right now.

I just hope that my son and Sparky

can get this thing operational.

I'm pretty confident.

I think we're gonna kill it.

Last night, me and Sparky wrapped up

everything that we needed to do in here.

And this was the last piece to finishing this drum off.

So now we got that whole crack sealed up.

Sparky's finishing the last bit of welding on the frame.

Even getting this thing out here, logistically,

was a huge nightmare.

You know, we had to torch this entire thing into pieces

and then reassemble it out here with limited tools

and limited manpower, so...

Today's the day where we get to see the drum actually go on.

And, uh, we've been waiting weeks for this moment,

so I feel good about it.

We're gonna kill it.

Hunter's plan to mount the Black Pearl's trommel onto the frame

requires multiple steps.

First, the team needs to pull the frame around

to the other side

and line it up with the drum to properly mount it.

Once the frame is in position, they will have to build a ramp

so the loader and the excavator

will have enough height and leverage

to raise the drum and create the clearance

for the final and most crucial step,

carefully pulling the frame under the drum

with an excavator

and precisely fitting the trommel right into place.

One wrong move could damage the Black Pearl

and set the team back for weeks.

We're gonna hook the cables onto the frame here...

Oh, yeah.

...and we're gonna drag this thing to that end of the drum,

line everything up...

Okay, everybody clear?

...then give her a go.

The problem is everything is really heavy.

There you go.

I'm just barely gonna skim by here.

Start going to your right now a little bit.

Sparky, how am I looking?

Whoa!

- You like it? - Yeah, you're good.

Everything's going pretty good.

We got the whole frame drug over here.

And then we gotta build our ramp on the side.

How high did you want the ramp?

Uh, we need it about three feet high.

So we got the frame in place.

We built a ramp on this far side.

We got the loader and excavator going in there.

So we're gonna get all of our chains on here...

cables, rig everything up

and see if we can lift it high enough

to actually get it on the frame.

I think this whole thing put together is like 80,000 pounds.

Uh, it's heavier than it looks.

It's heavier than we thought it was gonna be.

When we took this thing off the truck,

it took three excavators.

So we're gonna see if this loader's got enough juice

to pick up the heavy end, 490 on that end,

and we have to get it

at least seven, eight feet off the ground.

So we'll see if we can do it.

- We're gonna do itself, right? - Right here.

I'm feeling vertically challenged, dude.

You're gonna make me laugh, dude.

There.

- How are you that short? - You probably have frickin' longneck arms, dude.

I had no clue that you were that tiny.

You know, we've been working on this for weeks, me and Hunter.

We've been frickin' nailing it this whole time.

and now it's time to hammer this frickin' drum in.

Moment of truth.

Okay, right there. That's good.

Are we good?

Yeah, we're clear.

Just go up slow with it and see how she looks.

Okay, keep going. I wanna see how much height we can get out of it.

Not a problem.

Oh, .

Okay, hold right there, Rob.

As Tater reaches maximum lift

with the excavator...

I think, uh, that's just gonna do it.

That's gonna give us literally within six inches of what we need.

Hopefully.

...Hunter is ready after weeks of welding

to reattach the largest piece of the Black Pearl.

Okay, we're ready to grab the frame on.

The hard work's comin' in, baby.

Now it's comin' to the truth.

We're gonna put this drum on, baby.

We're behind on gold.

You know, we're trying to get to that mother lode,

trying to get that four or five ounces/100.

We're still stuck at an ounce, ounce-and-a-quarter/100.

The Black Pearl is actually needed right now.

If the Holy Roller has a catastrophic failure,

all we have left is the Black Pearl

to actually get to our goals.

I'm very happy for the Black Pearl right now.

Well, we'll see what happens.

All right, you guys ready to go?

With the Black Pearl's trommel

suspended eight feet in the air...

Yeah, I'm good.

...Hunter's crew will now drag

the frame underneath it.

Locked in.

But with the trommel weighing

over 50,000 pounds

and the frame nearly 30,000 pounds...

It's going pretty good, Hunter.

...this maneuver will push all three machines

to their limit.

If anything bends or breaks...

Okay, back.

...it could jeopardize the entire season.

Hold that, hold that. Nice and easy.

We got the faucet we gotta get by here.

This is very tight.

We don't have a lot of room to work with here.

And we got about 50,000 pounds hanging in the air.

I got maybe an inch.

What was that?

Did that just slip? Or did that break something?

The cable slipped on that edge there.

It should be good now if you just stick in.

This is a little nerve-racking.

Hold that.

It's really close.

I got... three quarters of an inch.

I'm gonna have to have you come forward like two inches.

Yeah, right there, right there. Good.

Whoa.

What's going on?

Does that look okay?

I look good over here.

It was a little bounce.

She was trying to bounce off.

All right, let's go a little more easy.

We're doing, like, intricate open-heart surgery

with giant machines.

Coming.

We got two chains, a couple cables.

We're literally moving half an inch

with huge, heavy machinery.

- Stop right there. - Whoa, whoa.

I don't know anybody else doing this.

Right now, as Silver Jack would say,