Ball mill (well sort of)

[tyeechinook]

Hello I found someone selling 6 pounds of chromed steel bb's. 3/4 inch diameter for$20. I was interested in what everyone thinks about a rock tumbler with the chromed steel bb's for crushing my already processed black sands for further chemical free gold extraction. Has anyone tried this and if you have, how did it work? Am I dreaming?
Thanks
Tyee


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[mytimetoshine]

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=456622

 

[Bonaro]

Works great!

 

[russau]

Years back I made my own tumbler out of some 6 inch stainless steel tubeing. I cut off a piece and made a S.S. blank to cover one end and T.I.G.welded it closed. the other end I used a sewer plug to be able to access it and to close it up for running. It was mounted on a angle to keep it all towards the rear of it while running. I had a bunch of bearings with 90 degree threaded studs that mounted to my brackets and used a Love-Joy coupleing to my right angled gear reduced motor. and for the balls in the tumbler I got a bunch of very large used (bad) bearings while at work. I got the S.S. balls from those discarded bearings and washed them free of all grease. It worked great until I (accidentally ) spilled some of the magnetic dust onto the motor and COOKED IT! now im thinking of using a windshield wiper more to do this!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Bearings will work well for crushing but will work better if you have a few that are a different size in there as well. Cold rolled steel rods that you can get from Home Despot or Lowes for a few bucks each seem to work faster in my tumbler. I can put a cup of water and a cup of 50 mesh in the tumbler, run it for 24 hours and pull out talcum powder fine materials.

One thing that you're going to find is that the grinding process is going to release a ton of iron into the mix and make everything rusty looking. Be careful when rinsing all that crud out that you don't wash out your super fine gold as well. I also wouldn't suggest that you do your rinsing in the kitchen sink! Makes the resident cook VERY unhappy if you know what I mean.....

 

[Bonaro]

resident cook..... LOL
if you are lucky she is too busy with the casserole to read this

 

[arizau]

Hello I found someone selling 6 pounds of chromed steel bb's. 3/4 inch diameter for$20. I was interested in what everyone thinks about a rock tumbler with the chromed steel bb's for crushing my already processed black sands for further chemical free gold extraction. Has anyone tried this and if you have, how did it work? Am I dreaming?
Thanks
Tyee


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If you have read the other posts on this thread then you may now be aware that using rods rather than balls is a better option. Why? The point of contact when using balls is a pinpoint that could and does in many instances sever and reduce the size of the gold thus making final panning a bit harder. The point of contact when using rods is spread over the entire width of the gold and usually results in liberation of gold from the host material without further reducing the size of the gold. In fact it usually flattens that gold as well as other free gold in the concentrate and, with further classification, the cons are now easier to pan.

Good luck.

 

[tyeechinook]

Wow great info everyone thank you! I really appreciate it! I'll be doing the rod setup when I get everything else in place!


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[goldenIrishman]

resident cook..... LOL
if you are lucky she is too busy with the casserole to read this

LOl.... Well in my case I am that cook! Unlike my significant other, I can see what I'm doing while cooking, I have more experience in the kitchen and have a couple of master chefs in the family. The best part of this arrangement is that I don't ever have to do the dishes!!!!!

My comment was directed more towards those with a more "traditional" living arrangement...(whatever is "traditional" now days)

 

[russau]

One being a rod mill and the other being a ball mill both basically doing the same thing a little differently. they both crush the BS but the rod mill flattens out the fine gold.

 

[solarsmith]

I have retro fited my sag/ballmill so i can feed it at a rate of 300 lbs an hr and the fine smooth as silk slurry washes out the low end at about 3 gallons a min.
the high end (half of the mill) is about 1/3 full of 1 lb iron balls from a wrought iron fence supply house ( fence post tops) . then the slurry passes through the mid way baffel and goes into the low end of the sag/ball mill about 1/3 full of 1'' and smaller ball bearings. on one of my first assays the assayer asked where all the chromium came from.
Im getting 80% passing -200
Bryan in Denver Colorado

 

[Mad Machinist]

Years ago, I stuffed a bunch of black sands with some nuts and bolts in a rock tumbler and it worked fine. A little slow, but it worked. The 3/4" "b-b's" would work the same but just as slow.

A rod mill would work better. If your short on cash, hit the local pick and pull on a sale day and just pull a bunch of axle shafts. They would work just the same as "store bought" rods.