Proline versus Keene

[fudnz]

Hi all, Rob if this is okay with you I will explain a coming venture I am interested in pursuing. In September I will be coming back via the USA from my trip to Britain. While I am in the USA I will be visiting with Jeff Kuykendall the CEO of pro-line dredges. I was last year negotiating with Keene dredges for some of their product to on sell it here in New Zealand. It appears that they are covered for their dredge equipment here in this area and I was not at the time informed of this by Keenes.

As a few of you will already know I have been a user of Keene product for some years now, having first started with one of their 5" triple sluices. I decided to go from the 5 inch dredge up to a new model 3 in one 6" inch dredge a few years back and tossed and turned between Pro-line and Keene’s at the time. The price and the new type table was probably the clinching factor in my buying the Keene at this time. I think I talked to Rob about buying the Keene as against the pro-line and I am pretty sure he said the pro-line would be the better dredge.

One year down the track with the new 6 inch over and under and I was a little bit disappointed with the quality and the performance. The rivets around the front of the box had all given in and I had to replace these with gutter bolts. The 6 inch suction hose had also split in quite a few places, the power jet had also worn out around the welds, both pump seals had also started to leak quite badly. There were a few other problems, I was having trouble with the underneath table clogging up with fines. I contacted Keenes about all of these problems and they came to the party by replacing the hose, power jet and the pump seals – well I got the hose and jet at a ‘good price’ and had to pay full for the seals. The main prob; with this was that the price for freight outweighed any good in the replacement bits. I asked for all bits to be sea freight – but this must have fallen on deaf airs as I was later contacted by DHL to say that I had a large parcel waiting for me at Harewood airport. Soooo by the time importation fees ( I asked Mark to put these down as replacement under warranty - no charge but this did not happen and the real prices were on the invoice) then the GST was added it turned out not too cheap a sort of a deal. Also included in this parcel was a new classifier….. a new abridged version to allow greater water flow and ease the bottom table clogging problem. Problem?? well I rang Mark Keene about this ‘classifier’ as I could not quite figure out how the hell I was supposed to fit a plastic classifier built for their 15” plastic gold pans to my gold dredge….. I felt that he was a tad embarrassed at this.
Such has been my contacts with Keenes as anyone of you will know if you have dealt with them. Try buying something off their web site and then try to arrange sea freight for the Item if it is a bit large for air freight – once you have put your details in for your bankcard – well – too late.

But – apart from all of this the dredge has performed and it has separated a few ounces from the gravels – it has just needed a ‘little’ bit of TLC along the way..

Jeff Kuykendall the CEO of Pro-line has been more than helpful in the mails that we have exchanged so far and I am hoping that something positive may well come from this. He is more than happy to have someone here in NZ as an on seller of their product and promises to give full back up on their dredges and equipment. Proline traditionally is dearer than Keenes gear, but as you have said in the past Rob, it is far better in quality than that of Keenes.

Ahhh enough griping, if anyone on the forum has any questions concerning the Pro-Line range of product let me know and I will ask Jeff about this when I am there.
Cheers all – Fud

D:\Main Photo file\gold\Gold dredging Taieri launching pad[/img]

[RKC]

G'day Alan,

I don't have any first hand experience with Proline dredging gear. What I most likely mentioned in my email to you about Keene vs Proline equipment is that Proline were 'probably' of a better quality ... really only meaning that Keene dredges are of such poor quality that other dredges must be of a better quality of build. The professional dredgers long ago realized from bitter experience that Keene dredges are such a poor built that they are not suitable for production dredging. They are specifically a recreational dredge, made for a recreational market that will never use them for the lengths of time that a professional dredger would. And what occurred over recent years in PNG with Keene dredges is the classic example. In PNG dredges are subject to operating conditions that would be as extreme as anywhere in the world and Keene dredges just have not, and don't, last any length of time there . But ... if used somewhere like the Kalamath river in California, a Keene dredge owner would probably be satisfied with the performance of a his dredge as it would not get anywhere near the use it would in countries like PNG, and the construction faults would never show up. And if a dredge part does become faulty in a California river, its just a simple mater of buying a new part from a store that is not far away.

The Proline dredges seem to be universally praised on the Recreational Internet forums ... but, again, what is talked about on these forums is exclusively recreational dredging and a recreational dredger will never have anywhere near the experience using dredges a professional will. The big advantage dredge companies like Proline and Dahlke have over Keene is that their dredges are not being mass produced on an assembly line by an unskilled workforce. Its probably going too far to say that the Proline and Dahlke dredges are individually hand built, but its obvious there is more care put into each dredge. But then on the other hand there are the disadvantages buying from a small company, such as the extremely long waiting period to purchase a Dahlke dredge, for instance. And the dredges from these two small companies are more expensive than Keene dredges ... well in North America anyhow (maybe not in New Zealand and Australia)

Proline dredges have been sold in PNG and it would be interesting to know how they preformed there. There was one offered for sale some time ago
www.pngbd.com/forum/showthread.php?p=82138&highlight=proline#post82138


Something else to seriously consider is that any dredges less than 5 inch in size, of any manufacturer, are virtually useless for serious dredging ... especially in New Zealand! The recreational and mug-punter market in North American buy many dredges smaller than 5 inch in size and most dredges sold there are probably less than 5 inch, but the fact that they will never get good gold with these dredges is of no real consequence to the buyers. In North America the dredging they are doing is not so much about getting payable gold as it is about numerous other things like getting out into river and having a bit of fun in the water between doing other fun things such as sitting on the river bank and talking about dredging. I would like to think that dredging in New Zealand is more than recreational for most Kiwi dredgers and is actually about getting good gold in quantity ... and to get gold in quantity, the bigger the dredge the better, with a 5 inch dredge the smallest size that should ever be used.

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[roscoe]

What`s Dave Mac`s stuff like if he is still selling it? He talks of world-wide experience, so you would imagine he would in-build any pro lessons learnt.

Can`t give any advice on proprietary brands as we always 'rolled our own'. While every weekend and holidays over the years mightn`t qualify as 'pro' dredging, you still give plant a hammering. So we overpowered with engine/pump combos, built frames of steel, not ally, and bought quality hoses, not cheapos. Riffle ladders and lockdowns were heavy-duty steel, and carpet was 3M. Floats were Marlex. IOW, all the factors you would need for pro dredging. We built subbies, under/overs and triples.
Constant checking of tails gave us confidence that our gear racked up with the manufacturers.
We ran up to 6 inch and the eight was half-built when the boom descended. Even an eight subbie for overburden.

[RKC]

G'day Roscoe,

I'm fairly sure Dave McCracken no longer manufactures the range of dredges he used to sell under the name Promack. A single 2-inch Promack dredge got to New Zealand back in the early 90s which I once saw in the Arrow. A Kiwi must have imported it himself and the poor guy would have spent a small fortune getting it into New Zealand back then. And when I saw him he was using it to dredge into some ground that I had already been through with a 5-inch dredge. I knew the overburden was very shallow in that spot and it would have been the only spot in the river where a small dredge might at least have some chance of getting to bedrock. On what was probably his first ever day dredging, he dredged most of the day sinking a single hole and when I came back the following day to see what he had done there was a small hole that looked as if it had not even got to bedrock ... even though the bedrock would have been no more then a few feet deep. My guess would be that the poor guy was probably put off dredging altogether after hours of work getting nowhere (and he would not have got any gold as I had been there before him with a dredge that could at least get through some ground in a day).

Back in the late 80s (or maybe the early 90s) McCracken designed an 8-inch triple sluice dredge that was a brilliant design for fine gold recovery which I think Keene sold under their own brand and which was a massive design improvement over the previous triples sold by Keene. But the dredge was an enormous size (relatively speaking) and its size alone would have meant it would not have been suitable for most miners in North America who are recreational. A short time later McCracken started selling the range of dredges called the Promac from Happy Camp and separated from a business partnership with Keene. Then, when the Promack dredges started selling in direct competition with Keene there was an exchange of harsh words between Keene and McCracken in McCrackens magazine about the merits of each brand of dredge (they looked nearly identical to me). Keene had no serious competition before the Promack dredges and producing dredges back then must have been a licence to print money for Keene ... and Keene had probably got lazy because of their virtual monopoly. One of the dredges Keene came up with back then was a near exact copy of the 8 inch Precision dredge and is a dredge which continues to be sold today ... while Precision have virtually disappeared. Such is the business of dredge building!

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,

At the link below is some information on the McCracken designed triple


img.photobucket.com/albums/v172/Coochee/Eductor%20dredges%20and%20equipment/promackdredge.jpg?t=1242167034

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[roscoe]

Talking about blackhead removers.................
We were hitting Billy May`s Point at Tooloom with a 4 and a 5, when this guy rolls up. He was wearing (I kid you not) a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase/attache case.

We thought we were about to get booked (yeah, guilty conscience ;D) when he unzipped (the case, I mean), and laid it on the ground. Neatly stacked inside was a sluice box about the size of a fridge ice-cube tray. a dinky little two-stroke and about 3/4 to one inch suction hose. Couldn`t get the brand, but it was manufactured--nice shiny cad finish and all. He asked if he could pop it between us, but we were nearly drowning laughing, so could only nod. Think bedrock was about five feet down, so our budding dredger went away empty-handed.

[Dredger89]

Hi Fud,
When you get to proline could you ask Jeff, if they have any intention on improving their appalling customer service?
A little while ago i sent emails inquiring about their products, they seemed interested in sending equipment to me. I tried to order equipment even told them i knew freight charges were quite high to NZ and Aus. They never got back to me? They ignore emails?
It seems soon gold dredging may be banned in the USA, you would think they would be interested in new business from outside USA. I have found this to be common when dealing with companies in the USA. No wonder their economy is struggling!
It would have been common courtesy to say they did not want to send items to me?

[roscoe]

Anyone have any dealings with Action Mining?