Simple solution to fine gold recovery

[johnedoe]

This was developed by Randy Clarkson, an expert in gold recovery designs.

A simple gizmo to help miners snag lost gold..... New gizmo could help placer miners snag lost gold | Yukon News

Also this by Randy Clarkson on fine gold recovery which is somewhat misleading in that this is mostly about commercial ops and 1" minus classification is considered fine....... The Clarkson Study Fine Gold Recovery

Here is a PDF presentation of the process....... http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/pdf/141114_Nov1014_Grinding_for_Gold_Presentation.pdf ....... Thank you arizau for finding that PDF

Enjoy the learning.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Minelab PRO-FIND 35 Waterproof Pinpointer Metal Detector for Experts with Tone ID & Adjustable Sensitivity - Grab it through Amazon!

[GoldpannerDave]

Finally finished up the run and the results are in.

Quick recap:

The test run was 11 lbs of -20 +50 sands. About 3 inches on a 5g bucket. Ran through my tiny DIY rod mill. It can only hold 45 grams per run about a tablespoon and a half.

...110 separate 15 minute runs AND cleanups later and I'm finally done.

I'm pretty happy with the results. Lots of gold that was not visible prior to milling, which we all ready knew based on the Clarkson presentation. But what I'm really happy about is all the components held up way better then I ever imagined. The drill motor seems just fine. The ABS barrell is in excellent shape and even those rubber end caps never failed. Didn't even half to bust out the clamps. I figured they would give out quickly but no, they work perfect. 110 runs!!!

Now it took everything I had to not upgrade to a bigger mill. But I really wanted the controlled test results so I can compare later. That being said I don't think that 2 Inch will be used much in the future. I'm gonna go with a 3 Inch next and either 6 or 8 inch long haven't decided yet.

Anyways.... long awaited results. Gold from nowhere... TAH-DAH!

Very nice results!! I think you are showing that the method works and everyone needs to tailor it to their own equipment. This is what KevinInColorado, Ducky, myself and others were attempting to do. Some of us got side-tracked by family health issues (Ducky and myself), job issues (Ducky, KIC--now no job issues as he is retired--and myself to some extend) and other stuff (house buying--me) that just sucks time away from this project and gold in general.

Thanks for such an encouraging report!! I hope it gives focus to the rest of us to push ahead also.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[mytimetoshine]

With the work bench complete, it only took 4 hrs to cut and file the rods instead of 4 days.. lol amazing the difference a proper vice makes.

I've still got to do some work with the rollers and base to accommodate the larger mill.

I decided to go 3 inch diameter and 8 inches long. I hope the drill can handle it cause it's HEAVY.... I didn't expect it to be 4 times heavier...

Should be up and running by end of day tomorrow..

 

[mytimetoshine]

So I got it running but I fear the drill motor has reached its limitations. It has the power, easily but I found it very difficult to get the throttle where it needed to be. It either didn't want to turn or went way too fast. I was able to get it at a good rpm but it took some time and the drill did get much hotter then it would normally get in one run. Probably would have handled a 3x6 barrel no problem and I guess i could always cut it down 2 inches if need be but I think it's gonna work just may not last under that kind of load.

Man it was pretty cool though. That thing was thumping along, the weight was shaking the floor. Good thing I don't have a downstairs neighbor right now ��

I loaded it with 5 tablespoons of -50 +70 material. Still did not crush completely.......I now think the reason for the incomplete crush is my material is not classified tightly enough. I originally classified all the material at once, dry and was really overloading the classifiers.I think I'm going to fill in the gaps in my classifier set and then reclassify more carefully and wet.

Oh yea...and that smaller sand has just as much if not more gold in it! Smaller yes but I probably got a dozens pieces out of those 5 tablespoons. Should have snapped a pick...sorry.

So the problem I see is cleaning the gold after it's been made visible.. If we are going to up production we need to be able to clean it quicker so that complete crush is going to be necessary so the gold can just be sieved out. For the time being I'm gonna try to wet classify the material after the run and try it in my new recirculating clean up sluice (pending delivery)�� I have a feeling that this material could just be sluiced on v mat ...if so that's a game changer!

....or gold cube it.hmmm...gold cube...lol

 

[arizau]

So I got it running but I fear the drill motor has reached its limitations. It has the power, easily but I found it very difficult to get the throttle where it needed to be. It either didn't want to turn or went way too fast. I was able to get it at a good rpm but it took some time and the drill did get much hotter then it would normally get in one run. Probably would have handled a 3x6 barrel no problem and I guess i could always cut it down 2 inches if need be but I think it's gonna work just may not last under that kind of load.

Man it was pretty cool though. That thing was thumping along, the weight was shaking the floor. Good thing I don't have a downstairs neighbor right now ��

I loaded it with 5 tablespoons of -50 +70 material. Still did not crush completely.......I now think the reason for the incomplete crush is my material is not classified tightly enough. I originally classified all the material at once, dry and was really overloading the classifiers.I think I'm going to fill in the gaps in my classifier set and then reclassify more carefully and wet.

Oh yea...and that smaller sand has just as much if not more gold in it! Smaller yes but I probably got a dozens pieces out of those 5 tablespoons. Should have snapped a pick...sorry.

So the problem I see is cleaning the gold after it's been made visible.. If we are going to up production we need to be able to clean it quicker so that complete crush is going to be necessary so the gold can just be sieved out. For the time being I'm gonna try to wet classify the material after the run and try it in my new recirculating clean up sluice (pending delivery)�� I have a feeling that this material could just be sluiced on v mat ...if so that's a game changer!

....or gold cube it.hmmm...gold cube...lol

Are you rolling your material dry? While that does work adding water will give better particle reduction because of the way solids move in a slurry vs in a dry state. If you are running wet then the addition or reduction of water in your charged material may give you your desired results.

Keep the reports coming.

 

[mytimetoshine]

Are you rolling your material dry? While that does work adding water will give better particle reduction because of the way solids move in a slurry vs in a dry state. If you are running wet then the addition or reduction of water in your charged material may give you your desired results.

Keep the reports coming.

Read previous posts.. I've been running it wet everytime..

 

[arizau]

Read previous posts.. I've been running it wet everytime..

Sorry you seem to take offense. Been reading all along but did not review before last post. Note that the suggestion was to maybe experiment with water proportionality to see if it yields different results.

 

[mytimetoshine]

Sorry you seem to take offense. Been reading all along but did not review before last post. Note that the suggestion was to maybe experiment with water proportionality to see if it yields different results.

No offense taken. but your making suggestions when your not reviewing the previos posts carefully enough and to my knowledge have zero experience with a rod mill. I don't mind suggestions but I don't want the thread clogged up with reposts and cornstarch recovery techniques..

 

[arizau]

No offense taken. but your making suggestions when your not reviewing the previos posts carefully enough and to my knowledge have zero experience with a rod mill. I don't mind suggestions but I don't want the thread clogged up with reposts and cornstarch recovery techniques..

Believe what you believe. Nuff said.

 

[roadrunner]

I looked through all the posts and I did not catch what the angle of the mill is to be set at.
Or just level from side to side like a sluice.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Level is best.

 

[kcm]

Wow, 21 pages of posts is an awful lot to review just to blurt out a quick thought. ...Over 300 posts. If that were my quick thought being blurted out, I'd have done the same thing. I don't think anybody means any offense when this inevitably happens.

my 2¢ worth

 

[mytimetoshine]

Update:

Ok, so I've been running the 2nd of 4 classified batches of black sand. This batch was the -50 +70 about 8 lbs worth dry.

The larger mill worked great. It Was a little harder to dial In but turned out fine. 3×8 barrell. I decided on 6 tablespoon and 5 tablespoons of water.

The new rod mill actually ran threw the material very fast. But troubles ensued when trying to recover the gold. I abandoned the sieve recovery because it wasn't working so I've been panning and sluice ing to recover. As stated before I think the key to recovery by sieving all begins with how tightly you classify in the beginning. I had the usual setup. 20,50,70,100. Turn out this is nowhere near good enough. You need every 10 mesh at least.

Took me forever to separate this -50. I've panned it and I've sliced it on black vrib and I'm convinced half the gold is still in the sand..... this isn't working and I've still got the -70 and -100

I recently purchased some quicksilver...

Sorry do disappoint but once you have the knowledge the choice is clear for fine recovery.

I'm happy I took it as far as I did. I proved the theory except for the clean gold sieving of ran material
I actually think my 3x8 drill motor mill is capable of running a lot of sand. As much as most of us weekend Warriors could ever hope to process.
I'd like to see some one classifier the material tighter and get better results. Hopefully my trails will be of use.

https://youtu.be/i92AbkPJ6cY

 

[Goldwasher]

THIS IS NOT A KNOCK ON ANYTHING YOUR DOING OR YOUR PROJECT.....DISCLAIMER!!!!

If your black sands have value in them you had good "recovery" at the diggins!

Now you have concentarates. I concentrate further by screening cons starting at panning +30.

Then use some sort of finishing device (Blue bowl for me) and run in batches -30 -50 -100

That gets all the visable gold. There may be the occasional wayward non conformist bit of color lost per batch. I used to rerun everything the same way. Just to try and get some more out of it.

As you know the gold left has to be liberated via heat and quench. OR crushing There is going to be a certain amount of - 100 that any simple wet processing device will have issues holding. Tables recover down to 500 mesh. If your sniping you don't get much -100 color because the cracks you snipe are too small to really concentrate values of -50 color.

If I was running a wash plant or a +4 inch dredge I would maybe consider looking into such detailed fine gold concentrating . Because the material dug would be lower grade than you get sniping or sluicing therefore there may be larger quantities of -50 to eek out of your sands.

I would bet 20 bucks that after a year of sniping and sluicing and running say a blue bowl or small miller table you have like seven maybe 20 bucks worth of "missed " value in your tailings.

That's why I just do a finishing run an do hold onto my black sand. I know it has some values in it but also realize that if I came home with a penny weight snuffer..I maybe missed a nickel as I cleaned up.
There are twenty nickles in a dollar. That's twenty suffers a buck.

If you run a yard by yourself sluicing in a day (most dont) you have to consider what that yard got you. If your running twenty dollar a yard material you might get a nickels worth of invisible gold. MAYBE.

I don't think running a batch at every increment of mesh from 150 to 30 will increase your take by much at all. Unless you were running say a quarter ton batch of black sands.

Like I said not a knock. Just my opinion based on my experience. I keep my black sand for a reason. I just don't feel like I'm losing out by not fully processing it yet.

Cool project I've been watching the whole time. I'm glad it had basically worked out like you figured it would. I hope you find a flood layer that justifies running two of your set ups

 

[gold tramp]

looks to me like you built your self an amalgamator,
i was wondering what was being built here.

good job.

Gt.............

 

[mytimetoshine]

THIS IS NOT A KNOCK ON ANYTHING YOUR DOING OR YOUR PROJECT.....DISCLAIMER!!!!

If your black sands have value in them you had good "recovery" at the diggins!

Now you have concentarates. I concentrate further by screening cons starting at panning +30.

Then use some sort of finishing device (Blue bowl for me) and run in batches -30 -50 -100

That gets all the visable gold. There may be the occasional wayward non conformist bit of color lost per batch. I used to rerun everything the same way. Just to try and get some more out of it.

As you know the gold left has to be liberated via heat and quench. OR crushing There is going to be a certain amount of - 100 that any simple wet processing device will have issues holding. Tables recover down to 500 mesh. If your sniping you don't get much -100 color because the cracks you snipe are too small to really concentrate values of -50 color.

If I was running a wash plant or a +4 inch dredge I would maybe consider looking into such detailed fine gold concentrating . Because the material dug would be lower grade than you get sniping or sluicing therefore there may be larger quantities of -50 to eek out of your sands.

I would bet 20 bucks that after a year of sniping and sluicing and running say a blue bowl or small miller table you have like seven maybe 20 bucks worth of "missed " value in your tailings.

That's why I just do a finishing run an do hold onto my black sand. I know it has some values in it but also realize that if I came home with a penny weight snuffer..I maybe missed a nickel as I cleaned up.
There are twenty nickles in a dollar. That's twenty suffers a buck.

If you run a yard by yourself sluicing in a day (most dont) you have to consider what that yard got you. If your running twenty dollar a yard material you might get a nickels worth of invisible gold. MAYBE.

I don't think running a batch at every increment of mesh from 150 to 30 will increase your take by much at all. Unless you were running say a quarter ton batch of black sands.

Like I said not a knock. Just my opinion based on my experience. I keep my black sand for a reason. I just don't feel like I'm losing out by not fully processing it yet.

Cool project I've been watching the whole time. I'm glad it had basically worked out like you figured it would. I hope you find a flood layer that justifies running two of your set ups

The issue of wether or not its "worth it" to try to recover this small amount of gold,was never the subject of this thread. But hey, thanks for chiming in.