NEW PICK - CCPICKS PROSPECTOR

some new bloke started making picks recently, has a webpage, saw it in ggt or somewhere, any one know the name and the web address?

hi , i got one, they are a good thing ,, bit overpriced though,,,

http://www.ccpicks.com.au/

thanks...

Yes nice pick but as spidertice said a little pricey.

By no means am I an expert on the art of Prospecting.. I used my new CCPick Prospector on the weekend and its light and like a fine strong surgical instrument.

Insert a rare earth magnet in the handle end and you are set.

Plus its made in Oz.....

I bought one last week to replace my tired and too small (middle size)Walco. Very pricey at $190 and normally wouldnt have paid that much but I had a gift voucher for most of it.
It's basically the same design as the old eze-dig, aparently the maker purchaced the design rights off the widow of the eze-dig maker, the difference these being a one piece pressed design rather than a two piece welded one.

Used it this weekend for the first time.
Nice size and weight and a very angry bite for ridding that first top inch.
The winged end I feel could be a bit longer as well as the pointy end which would make hanging it from your shoulder a bit easier and more comfortable.

A bit of flex in the pointy end when levering out rocks, but held up well. Looks like it may need regular sharpening, which isn't realy a concern. A 5 year warrenty is not to be sneezed at either as I've never had a pick last more than about 3.

All in all I'm happy with it, though I cant for the life of me see $190.00 worth.

madtuna wrote:

All in all I'm happy with it, though I cant for the life of me see $190.00 worth.

madtune, when it comes to the price of things, it's not relative to the cost to manufacture, but is all based on what a consumer is prepared to pay.
Classic example, airline fares, at the moment the airline business is depressed so guess what, the price of tickets - particularly for o/seas travel have dropped considerably.
Demand for ANY gold prospecting/fossicking equipment is high so no one in their right mind is going to reduce prices or profit just because it's a nice thing to do. There are plenty of suckers out there only too willing to part with their cash. It's all legal too !!

sko12345,

All in all I'm happy with it, though I cant for the life of me see $190.00 worth plus if it wasn't for a gift voucher for most of it I wouldn't be prepared to pay $190.00 for it.

that better?

ps..I disagree somewhat that... "Demand for ANY gold prospecting/fossicking equipment is high so no one in their right mind is going to reduce prices or profit just because it's a nice thing to do. There are plenty of suckers out there only too willing to part with their cash. It's all legal too !!"
It's a pick not an airfare, yes demand may be high at the moment for a few item like the 4500, but in general, prospecting supplies target a very small market. Demand is not that high for picks, there's no 3mth waiting list, no Ebay pick scams, no Sudanese pick buyers and no secondhand picks selling way above reccomended retail price

pss... I'm not a sucker!

psss... Thanks for letting me know it's legal, I've been hiding my pick everytime I hear a Police siren and now I don't have to detect under the cover of darkness!

Bit of an aside...but if you can weld or a mate can, its easy to make a batch of picks by cutting the point and blade as one piece out of a dished 4mm thick plough disc ($40-$50 new). Buy about 6 thin angle grinder cutting discs if you have a small angle grinder. (Use safety equipment/eye protection when cutting please and do not put side pressure on the discs).

The dished pick head you will cut out is an ideal shape for a pick. Weld it (maybe with extra steel braces) to a 2 inch length of slightly deformed steel pipe matched to a near round plastic handle used in block busters (cut down slightly on the bottom end) from Bunnings or similar. Use two bolts to a fix handle and resin it in if you wish. Harden the point tip or put wings on the scaping blade if your welding is good enough.

Tributer

Just a heads up on the picks, take the said pick down to your local welders....get him/her to hard face it .

May cost $20 to $30 but it will last like you would not believe. All relative to the hard facing rods used of course, something you should discuss with the welder.

There is a reason why ripper tips and excavator tips are hard faced

After using this pick for 4 or so months now, MYopinion is don't waste your money.

For $190.00 you'd expect the head to stay attached firmly to the handle not wobble about like a kite in a wind tunnel.
I've done nothing different than what I did with my previous picks who's heads are still as tight on thier handles as they were the day I bought them.
This was the 2nd CC Pick I saw this weekend with the same sloppy pick head problem.

For my money, pop into Nuggets Down Under in Mudgee or ring them and look at thier line of picks made by a prospector who's on these forums.
Better made and much much cheaper

Hi u308,
You can buy high tensile electrodes from your welding suppliers. they come in different grades. All I do is weld a face with normal rods and give it a spay with wd40 after to make it that little harder.
cheers

Thanks for the 'heads up' on the CC pick Steve. My old Walco has nearly worn out and I was considering parting with $190 for a CC pick however will do some more research. Do you happen to know if those picks you mentioned (sold by the Mudgee store) are available anywhere else, in particular WA?

Thanks.

Hi B.O.B.
not sure, this is thier webpage http://www.nuggetsfromdownunder.com.au/ with email, phone numbers etc..
drop them an email no doubt they could probably supply details and they do mail order.
I've used one of these picks before, very impressive!
Hardened tip and big broad blade.
cheers!

Undertaker wrote:Hi u308,
You can buy high tensile electrodes from your welding suppliers. they come in different grades. All I do is weld a face with normal rods and give it a spay with wd40 after to make it that little harder.
cheers

Don't breath the fumes, when spraying WD40 on hot metal the fumes turn into (phosgene) a deadly nerve gas, do this enough and you will need your "namesake"

cheers dave

Hi Davsgold,

Thanks for the advise. I was wondering why one of my eyes wont stop blinking

Gday


Back of Beyond, the cc picks are available from Reeds prospecting supplies, I bought one from them a couple of weeks ago but have not used it as yet, it certainly looks the part so hopefully it will be a good thing as I wear the walco ones out pretty quickly.

I got the "Prospector" model as I wanted something with some weight and real bight, as the last few trips I have been digging some deep holes and using the walco has made the job harder than it should be, in some spots the walco just wants to bounce off the ground, I might shorten the handle on the cc pick a little though as I feel it is a bit on the long side, I think the added weight will be enough to do the job.

Dont have an issue with spending a couple of hundred bucks on a good pick if it will do the job and make the retrieval of a nugget more like fun and not work.



cheers

stayyerAU

Gday


I got to give the cc pick a work out the other day, as i said before I bought the "prospector" model as I wanted something serious as the walco picks I have been using are a bit on the light side.

The prospector pick is a big heavy pick and does the job well, but it does get heavier as the day goes on, so my advice for general use would be to get the next model down, unless you want to end up with arms like popeye.

There are a couple of things that I have found with it that you have to watch, one is that because it has a heavy wide scraping blade it will spin in your hand if you are carrying it by your side so that the blade faces down and the pointy bit faces up, it occured to me that if you slipped and fell forward you could very easily impale yourself on it, the pointy end is very sharp and 20 odd cms long so it could be lethal.

Also due to this same balance issue its harder to dig one handed as you have to grip it really tightly to stop it from turning and that is a bit tiring and hard on the wrists, so its best used with both hands.

After a day of bashing and scraping I managed to remove some paint and put a few dents in the sraping blade face but thats about it, another thing to watch is that it is a very hard pick so it has a tendancy to bounce sharply off rocks with the point and if you are not careful it could come back and bite you.

As I said its best used two handed to keep it under control.

cheers

stayyerAU

Thanks to a recommendation by Madtuna (Steve), I bought a pick from 'NuggetsfromDownunder' (not a CC pick) and am very pleased with it. I had worn out my old Walco pick and this has filled the gap nicely. It is well made and very reasonably priced. Thanks again Steve.

no probs B.O.B.
I lost my CC pick last week when the tail gate of my ute fell open...not sad at all as I was not happy with it. Worst and sloppiest handle I've ever had on a pick.

Gave me a good excuse to get a Malleeboy (Mike) pick which I prefered in the first place. Nearly 1/2 the price and in my opinion, a better pick, larger blade and angrier bite.
The good folk at Nuggetsfromdownunder kindly sent me one to try before I bought, and yep I'm buying it...very happy with it and cant fault NFDU's service.

Cheers!

I have been using the pick mentioned above from the shop in Mudgee for over two years now, both me and the other half have them.
Have known this gent personally for a few years now and sometimes curse him for my involvement into metal detecting.
We were lucky enough to get them strait from him because he is a real mate, you might-en be so lucky so !

What I can tell you is I whaled the arse out of bedrock in Victoria with this pick for hours on end over 2 days to get small bits of gold, and having warn off the hard casing some time ago there is no damage to the pick from my timid and dainty acts on the ground that wont give up my gold.

I don't abuse my pick like some, I use it to lever rocks out of creeks that are to heavy to move by hand that maybe hiding my gold. Use it to smash rocks in half if to big to lever. I use it on my tow-bar to straiten bent tent pegs and much more than I care to mention here in case he tells me to get STUFFED if he thinks I'm abusing his workmanship.
Its a pick, not a walking stick, if I break it I'll just get him to make me another one while I chew his ear off over the fact it broke, and shouldn't have broken while in my care.


This is not a plug for him regardless of how it reads, if it was a sh!thouse pick I wouldn't comment.

CC Pick yootoob highlighting thier problems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtI_fAeMCFk

Hi guys,
I've got the same pick and had the same problem. Infact, the head came off while digging a target 12" deep. I was in shock. The screw had broken and disslodged a chunk of wood. Lucky I had a spare pick and my trip was'nt ruined.
I've just finished repairing it. I've put a wedge in the head sleeve (where the handle enters the head) to take up the slack. ($2-3) from Bunnings.
Not good enough, as mentioned on the video by madtuna...
cheers goldenbrow...

I scrounged a leaf spring off an old wrecked car, got a friend to weld a short length of pipe in the centre ( attached a wooden handle to it), cut a triangle point one side and 'blade' the other side. This works a treat, been using it for years, I do sharpen the blade from time to time, only thing is the blade is only as wide as the 'spring' width. Still a good digging tool though.

Scott.

Hi Scott,
Well done mate. It's re-freshing to here a simple down to earth idea that works. K.I.S.S theory...

scott, thanks for the idea,

I am going to try and make one tomorrow.

I had two CC picks with loose heads, but it was pretty simple to pour Araldite down the head and put the screw back in place. No problem since. He should do this at the factory before he sells them.

I Googled Mallee Boy picks and all I got was John Williamson "stuff" about some song. Where do You get info on the picks ( sizes, cost etc) ?

Thanks,

Jigalong

Jigalong wrote:I had two CC picks with loose heads, but it was pretty simple to pour Araldite down the head and put the screw back in place. No problem since. He should do this at the factory before he sells them.

Jigalong

Shouldn't have to do that for the price, they should supply the araldite and instructions on how to mix it, along with gloves safety goggle ect. ( sorry just being silly)

Heres the website address copied from above http://www.nuggetsfromdownunder.com.au/
I think I might be lining up for one these too

Cheers