Keene Engineering

What Keene Engineering builds

Showroom, offices and manufacturing facility in Chatsworth, California.

Also builds: Dredges up to 8 inches, including the 6-inch Super Max · Hookah air compressors and dredge diving gear · Rock crushers: G-Force, gas and electric · Gold pans and classifying sieves from 2 to 100 mesh · Scales, books and videos.

About Keene Engineering

Keene Engineering is a family business that has built portable mining equipment since the early 1950s, and its showroom, offices and factory share one building on Bahama Street in Chatsworth, in the western San Fernando Valley. Gold Prospectors Magazine traced the story in 2017: Ernie Keene, a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, built his first dredges in North Hollywood out of galvanized sheet metal meant for heating ducts; his son Jerry took over in 1962; the business moved to Northridge in 1972, and the machine shop on Bahama Street went up in 1980. Jerry Keene died in 2017, and his sons Mark and Pat lead the company, Mark on engineering, production and manufacturing and Pat on engineering and sales at home and abroad.

Dredges are still the core. The online store sells small dredges such as a 2.5-inch, 4 hp Ultra Dredge with a power jet. The SuperMax, developed in 2016, adds a sump under the sluice that pumps the finest material into side boxes lined with Miracle Mat, aimed at micro-fine gold. The eight-inch dredges for gold and diamonds run on twin engines or Kubota and Deutz diesels, and the site shows diamonds from a Liberian operation that used one. Keene also builds reclamation systems for ponds, marinas and dams to the customer's needs, and on its Facebook page shows one-off work such as a six-inch booster jet for a system made to uncover aircraft and boats lost in past wars.

For the desert there are three drywashers. The Model 190 converts to a highbanker and dredge, carries six patents and what Keene calls Soft Bed Technology, 7 milliamps of constant current to build a static charge, plus a blast gate to set vibration and air. The DW3 12 Max weighs 28 pounds, runs on 12 volts at 1 amp and folds flat, and the 140S Vibrostatic weighs 20 pounds, runs off a leaf blower or Keene's Vac Pack and handles up to three-quarters of a cubic yard an hour. On the creek, the A52S Super Sluice takes unclassified gravel through a screen of grizzly bars, punch plate and woven wire over carpet, expanded metal, Hungarian riffles and Miracle Mat. The KT10 trommel breaks up clay, roots and compacted gravel at up to a yard an hour and runs about six hours on a 12-volt battery, the MiniMax power sluice doubles as a cleanup machine, and the Super Concentrator is built from materials made in the USA, pump included. The stainless crevice claw is made in the same factory.

You can buy from the online store, by phone or in the showroom on weekdays, with Saturdays by appointment; Keene warns of shipping delays on certain items and asks buyers to call for lead times, and its full-color catalog covers things not sold online. The company says each authorized dealer carries a full range of Keene products; in California, Eureka lists five of them, from Redding to Pine Grove. Suction dredging is currently prohibited throughout California, and the 2016 law stretches that to every motorized or mechanized setup used to run streambed or stream-bank gravel for minerals, so read the state rules before buying a dredge or power sluice for use here.

Clubs and places nearby

• Del Air Rockhounds ClubClub · 2 mi
• Woodland Hills Rock ChippersClub · 4 mi
• Sierra Pelona Rock ClubClub · 13 mi
• Culver City Rock & Mineral ClubClub · 18 mi
• Conejo Gem & Mineral ClubClub · 18 mi
• Southern California Paleontological SocietyClub · 22 mi

Other shops and gear makers nearby

• Barranca Diamond (MK Diamond Products)Online shop · 30 mi
• Daisy's Rocks & ThingsOnline shop · 41 mi
• Burton's Gems and OpalsShop · 44 mi
• Johnson Brothers LapidaryShop · 50 mi

Access

Showroom at the factory, 20201 Bahama Street, Chatsworth; Saturdays by appointment. Online store and phone orders.

Sources

• Keene Engineering
• Keene Engineering: Contact
• Keene Engineering: Authorized dealers
• Keene Engineering: SuperMax
• Keene Engineering: 8-inch diamond and gold dredges
• Keene Engineering: Reclamation dredge systems
• Keene store: Model 190 drywasher
• Keene store: A52S Super Sluice
• Keene store: KT10 trommel
• Gold Prospectors Magazine: Loss of a Legend, Jerry Keene tribute (2017)
• California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Suction dredge permits