I had thought a chain bucket on a narrow barge would be good for channel deepening work.
If I hit the lotto I might build it.
Prolly cheaper to RE-build an idled one or buy new?
They got a lot smaller, more nimble, and flatbed transportable - ultimately one-man BACKPACK transportable.. than they started out as "back in the day".
Gold dredge - Wikipedia
A more useful book than "Catcher in the Rye" was "Too Much Sun" (Lee Olds)
https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Sun-Lee-Olds/dp/B0006AWIO0
It is PAINFUL to read, what with the protagonist so VERY unimpressive... as a teener "came of age" as a hand on an Alaskan hydraulic mining dredge! With the assistance of a native American woman. Of "a certain age!"
But that's what that age could BE like! Circling the possible drain.. whilst FAILING to "come of age!"
Too many people I already knew lived in those pages. More followed.
Avoiding that pattern was where the value was to be found!
Especially as I wasn't yet as old as HE was at the time!
Mind... not the best choice if a mere 200-odd pages takes yah more than an hour. Faster is better.
Now and then, out of the blue, yah DID hit something downright cawfee-spewer funny, though!
