Advice

[boblemon]

I'm considering getting a rock crusher and crushing rock for gold. Theres a couple things i need to know. Where i can purchase high grade ore, I'm in Kansas so Colorado is going to be the closest i can get to a mine. Would it even be profitable for me to try. I'm retired so i can travel if need be. Basically i'm looking for a small scale hobby to offset daily expenses. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm a newbie to this and more educated with metal detecting but i just love smashing stuff. lol Thanks everyone

 

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[kcm]

Are you looking at continuously having ore shipped to your location? I believe that would most likely cost more than what you could get back out of it. Probably the best idea would be to do some research on old mines, sample around until you find one that has some decent ores, then make outing trips. This shouldn't be too difficult as you are retired. Could always stay in a nearby motel. Could haul your equipment in on the trailer, crush and run the bulk of material on site, then haul home your equipment and concentrates.

Another thought might be to consider getting into placer mining, as there is a lower startup cost and less work to get the gold. No matter what you hear, there's still a LOT of gold out there to be found. With placer, is best to look where placer gold has been found in the past. For lode gold, need to figure out just how involved you want to get - getting leftover ores from an old mine, starting up your own mine, or maybe checking around and finding someone you trust to be partners with.

...Curious, why do you mention about crushing ore?

 

[rockbar]

good points there kcm.

With the growing trend of over-regulation of placer mining (misguided dredging bans), I can see how going small scale hard rock scrounging and processing would make sense. Small scale placer and hard rock are both a hoot, but from my experience, unless you have a known hard rock source with very good values, it can be a challenge to accumulate and process enough ore to make the ounces to pay for the crushing and recovery equipment. I would shoot for free-milling ore of at least 2 opt that can be gravity separated.
Colorado is hard rock gold ore heaven. I would suggest you research the COMB in Colorado. I especially like the San Juans for exploring, rockhounding and scrounging ore, but as you will learn, there are other great areas to concentrate on.
Some books…
Gold Occurrences of Colorado by Mark Davis and Randall Streufert
Mines, Mountain Roads, and Rocks by George Moore
Gold Placers and Placering by Ben Parker

Take the time to go to the Denver museum of Natural History, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in Leadville for their displays of rich gold ore specimens and nuggets. Take your camera and be prepared for the onset of a certain fever.

A nice little mortar and pestle for crushing ore samples is a great tool for sampling in the field. Your elbows won't like it, however.
You will need to develop your fine gold panning skills in order to pan 100 mesh and smaller gold from powdered ore. If you're not careful, you won't see the gold in the ore you just crushed. Get a large 10X loupe or magnifier to examine ore specimens for visible gold. Look at enough gold ore in enough places and you will start seeing visible gold. Chalcopyrite can fool you, so keep that in mind. Learn to look for sort piles outside the portal and most importantly, what the high grade ore looks like.

There are a number of small impact mills now available that can do some small batch crushing for you. Careful sluicing can recover the majority of the free-milling values. I have brought buckets of ore with known values home to mill and process. You and your neighbors might prefer that you do the crushing in the field.
Hope your first button is a beauty!

 

[boblemon]

crisson has a nice crusher for 1250.00 with a sluice under it . Looked like a nice set up. I've been keeping my eyes open for a lode mine with a lot of high grade tailings if anyone knows of one for a reasonable amount i'm interested

 

[kcm]

I'm afraid your idea of "high grade" will most likely have to be, in older times, "fair to midlin grade". There weren't a lot of mines that left high grade ores just laying out for anyone to find. There were sometimes ores that were set aside and forgotten, and ore that fell out onto the ground. There was a lot more cost associated with milling ores back then, so there lower-grade ores can still be quite valuable nowdays.

As for your equipment, I'd look carefully and do lots of research. That unit you mentioned that has a crusher with a sluice, what kind/brand of sluice do they use, and why? Is it better? Or is it just more equipment that they can package in for making more money?

I was thinking the same way some time back. For years I had thought about different ideas in placer mining. Then as I kept hearing horror stories about all the regulations and eco-terrorists, I thought about going hard rock. Signed up with GPEX forum (FANTASTIC group of people!!) and have learned tons. Have met some folks that, for some unknown reason, have taken a liking to me and have offered to help me get started. So, back to the studying. Then, in trying to learn probably more than I should, I stumble across another idea that catches my interest. With this idea, there may not be any competition NOR many customers, but I wouldn't need many customers. So then while planning all that out, I tried to figure a way to handle/dispose/use my waste. That led to yet another idea - the one I'm really trying for!! Will start with the first unexpected idea, as the startup costs are lower. Then will grow into the other - which I expect to take off like a shot! ...But time will tell. So until then, I just keep thinking and studying and planning, plus I keep trying to help out here as much as I can - helps keep my mind active and learning lots of new things.

It's a never-ending process for me. Still want to try my hand at both placer and hard rock some day, but more as a hobby by then, I hope.

 

[bobw53]

My 2 cents... Buying ore to extract the gold and make a profit is much like buying pay dirt and trying to make a profit.

Crushing rocks to get gold... You might make a profit.. BUYING rocks to get gold... I don't think that is the best business model going.

Gold bearing rocks do show up in some weird places though... The other day there was a thread where a guy found some gold bearing
rocks in a pile of rocks near some rail road tracks... I've found gold in rocks in a flowerbed at a hotel.. (not a lot, but it was there)...

If you want to play, a simple low volume rock crusher is pretty darn easy to put together down at the hardware store.. This is my first crusher,
just junk I had laying around.. A rod, A pipe and A plate... Its slow, but I still use it for smashing up small stuff.

 

[kcm]

The other day there was a thread where a guy found some gold bearing
rocks in a pile of rocks near some rail road tracks...

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/496592-railroad-rock.html

 

[rockbar]

Yes…. learning! Probably the best part of getting into small scale mining.
Hope my post didn't somehow imply that making gold is in any way easy. The only easy way to acquire gold is to go buy it.

I am more of a small scale placer miner and have made far more ounces that way than with my form of "scrounge and process" of hard rock ore. I'm not a geologist, nor a hard rock miner of any sort, but learned to recognize gold ore that can yield some amount of gold. Therefore, anyone can.
As far as surface collecting, it can be difficult sometimes to find enough in any one location to fill a bucket. Old mill sites are another good spot to scrounge.

Yeah, there's a lot more 1/2 opt ore out there than multi-ounce stuff. Generally, high grade won't be just laying about. However, special circumstances in the past might just make it so. I have stumbled upon bonanza grade ore in the high rockies that has been sitting there for over a hundred years. It took a loupe and a trained eye to recognize it. I remember crushing a small amount of it -just over 2 lbs… and panning out over 7 grams of gold. I'll likely never find something like that again, but it doesn't mean I won't be looking.

 

[kcm]

Yep, the hardest part about the idea of checking old mine sites is, others have usually beat us there in years past. However, things get easier for us, equipment gets better, transportation gets more reliable, info is MUCH more available. But if you live far away from those places (like me!), it doesn't do much good other than to dream.

I have some ideas for mining/prospecting equipment that I'll hopefully get to test later this year, but probably next year. Otherwise, I'm going to try this other route as there is no competition. In this case, no competition is a good thing, as the equipment has never yet been developed. Therefore, a wide-open field!

There are still LOTS of places that have great amounts of placer gold. Most, it seems, are in Canada and Alaska. But there's still much to be had in the lower 48!! Trick is, being the smart (and patient) one who samples around, then processes their material using the newest methods and equipment out there. Old-style riffles? They're all but ancient history. Seems things like the Bazooka sluices and Gold Hog's matting are taking us into the 21st century.

 

[Mad Machinist]

I'm considering getting a rock crusher and crushing rock for gold. Theres a couple things i need to know. Where i can purchase high grade ore, I'm in Kansas so Colorado is going to be the closest i can get to a mine. Would it even be profitable for me to try. I'm retired so i can travel if need be. Basically i'm looking for a small scale hobby to offset daily expenses. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm a newbie to this and more educated with metal detecting but i just love smashing stuff. lol Thanks everyone

boblemon,

I don't want to burst your bubble or crush your dreams here, but I will give you a dose of reality. The odds of you being able to "buy" enough high grade ore to "offset daily expenses" are less than winning the next $500 million dollar Powerball. You might be able to find and crush enough to pay for your outings to find the ore and maybe have enough left over for some "fun money".

Hard rock is neither cheap nor easy. And going hard rock alone tends to be a very bad idea. Bad things can happen rather quickly.

That being said, if you close enough to get to Colorado, then you close enough to get into New Mexico and parts of Arizona. All the "known mining districts" tend to be claimed up and have so many claims filed over top of the original claims that your odds of getting one is less than a snowballs chance in Hades.

Your going to have to range out from the known mining districts to explore on your own. Many areas outside the known mining districts have yet to be explored with modern methods so who really knows what is out there.

But exploring is good exercise.

 

[solarsmith]

since blm has not been converting unpatented claims to patented (private) 90% of the claims are now open to new owners to file on. the old owners were hopeing to get free mt property via a mining claim. now that the blm has stopped converting mining claims they are being abandoned at a very hi rate a lot of them are in good spots. call the blm for info on this. if you need some ore to play with, that has a 1/2 oz per ton assay drop me a line I can run some of mine through the crusher and ball mill and load up a trash can full for you if you dont mind waiting the 2 hs it will take to fill a trashcan or small barrel. Bryan in Denver Colorado

 

[kcm]

Yep, they stopped patenting land many, many years ago. My guess for the reason that so many claims are being let go is due in large part to the eco-terrorists and federal gov't stranglement (over-regulation).

Yes, Montana still has a nice amount of hard rock lodes yet to find. That's where I had planned on going before my plans changed.

 

[dave wiseman]

Most of what people see by old mining operations are waste rock piles,not stock piled ore.Howver in out of the way areas one may come across some lower grade ore which back in the day was not profitable to mill at $ 20- 35 dollars an ounce.In the California motherlode area much of the waste piles and so called low grade ore was used as road base by the state,counties and private contractors for road subdivisions.