On tonight’s Gold Rush on Discovery, the Beets crew is updating some equipment — to the tune of $350,000!
Kevin Beets has wanted new buckets to replace the worn-out old ones for a long time, and 18 months ago Tony gave him his wish and ponied up the money for 72 new ones.
In our exclusive clip, we see Tony overseeing their installation carefully, with his kids Kevin and Monica at the wheels of their respective excavators.
He says: “Well, I guess Kevin’s finally fed up enough with them f****** buckets coming of that dredge. So I guess I have no choice, I got my 50 cents out of it, they were wore out I suppose, so put the new ones on.”
The rationale to spend the large sum of money is to recover even more lucrative paydirt by being extra efficient with the newer equipment.
Tony adds: “Just by them [buckets] not having any breakdowns, by them taking bigger scoops, I don’t think it’s gonna take very long to pay for itself.”
Always to the point, Monica Beets chimes in as she is working the site too, saying: “Gotta get that gold.”
Kevin lines up the dredge as Tony orchestrates the mechanics of the new bucket line being attached to the old line.
The process is revealed to be a seemingly simple one. With a pair of excavators, they lift the end of the old line after disengaging the cog that holds it all together in a loop.
By running the drive cog on the dredge, Tony’s crew will pull the new buckets up and around the bucket ladder. Finally, they will remove the old buckets and join the two ends of the new line with a new cog.
With 50 tons of bucket line in play, nothing can go wrong, right?
Gold Rush airs Fridays at 9/8c on Discovery.