Black sand magnet

[2020hindsite]

There are tons of black sand magnets available online from every manufacturer out there.
Are any of them neodymium or are all of them?
Is a regular prefered over neodymium?
I know a regular will pick up magnetite and a rare earth will pick up hematite as well.
I was looking at a Jobe, any good?

 

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[B H Prospector]

Magnet is a matter of personal preferance. there is no right or wrong. Jobe is a pretty good sluice. I use a Keene A52 most of the time. I have others for different situations.

Good Luck!

BH Prospector

 

[russau]

for a cheap B.S. magnet. get a magnet and put it into a medicine bottel with a cap and use it. have the magnet down to pickup the B.S. and tip it up to have the B.S. drop off! pretty simple!

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

 

[DesertNuggets]

I'm not sure if mine is neodymium but it surely isn't a regular magnet. You'll be happy with a Jobe. I use a cheap one I bought on eBay for like $10.

 

[AZADAM]

This is an indisputable fact.......You WILL lose gold if you are using a magnet to remove magnetite from your concentrates.

 

[KevinInColorado]

This is an indisputable fact.......You WILL lose gold if you are using a magnet to remove magnetite from your concentrates.

Well that would be true if you threw out said material but why would you do that since there's gold in there?! Separation and classification however are key to final processing'

 

[AZADAM]

Kevin,
Trust me, I have done the magnet thing under water above water and poured cons by a magnet. No method worked without the magnetite locking up a piece of gold during the transfer to the magnet.. Eventually you have to trust that there is no gold left and toss the remainder. I don't re run my cons over and over, just don't have time for it. I know its a pain but if you just take the time to pan down the cons proper, then you will be confident in your recovery method. Using a magnet will instill concern.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Kevin,
Trust me, I have done the magnet thing under water above water and poured cons by a magnet. No method worked without the magnetite locking up a piece of gold during the transfer to the magnet.. Eventually you have to trust that there is no gold left and toss the remainder. I don't re run my cons over and over, just don't have time for it. I know its a pain but if you just take the time to pan down the cons proper, then you will be confident in your recovery method. Using a magnet will instill concern.

Well sort of but not what I meant. You pan the magnetite separately, speeding the panning of the non-mag heavies. Overall it's faster but you still process all of it, just as you do

 

[2020hindsite]

So I found a Jobe black sand magnet on EBay for 8 bucks so why not.
I got it today and separated the magnetic sand out and found that you are all absolutely correct.
Just as AZADAM said it did suck up gold even after banging it all around and repeatedly picking up and dropping the sands.
BUT Kevin was absolutely correct that it made panning much faster and easier when you pan the magnetite separately.
I found gold I missed in both the lights and the magnetite.

I am still keeping ALL the material And had no plans to discard it.

Thanks everyone

 

[KevinInColorado]

So I found a Jobe black sand magnet on EBay for 8 bucks so why not.
I got it today and separated the magnetic sand out and found that you are all absolutely correct.
Just as AZADAM said it did suck up gold even after banging it all around and repeatedly picking up and dropping the sands.
BUT Kevin was absolutely correct that it made panning much faster and easier when you pan the magnetite separately.
I found gold I missed in both the lights and the magnetite.

I am still keeping ALL the material And had no plans to discard it.

Thanks everyone

Great to hear...together we all help each other!

 

[goldenIrishman]

And don't forget to "Shake and Bake" all your black sands as well! This includes the magnetic ones as well! I've cooked up sands that I KNEW I had gotten all the gold out of only to find more. I mean if you're going to go for ALL the gold, then this is a viable step in that process.

 

[Sobo]

And don't forget to "Shake and Bake" all your black sands as well! This includes the magnetic ones as well! I've cooked up sands that I KNEW I had gotten all the gold out of only to find more. I mean if you're going to go for ALL the gold, then this is a viable step in that process.

How do I shake and bake my black sands?

 

[2cmorau]

bake heat cook what ever do with flame, do outside
forgo the magnet if not, us one that will not charge your black sands clumping
impact mill, shaker table or pooptube
penny wish pound foolish

 

[DizzyDigger]

I've had a Keene Gold Magnet for about 30 years now, but
haven't used it for many years. Every time I did I'd find small
gold in the magnetic black sand, and it was too much of a PITA
to try and get it out.

Once the Miller table's done that will no longer be an issue..

 

[Goldwasher]

Hold the magnet right on the verge of attraction....agitate your pan while you lower and raise the magnet into the zone where it starts to lift the B.S. in grains. You will have to get closer and closer and will eventually need to almost make contact sands. This is the best way I have found to trap the smallest amount of gold as well. I would definitely avoid contact with the sands. Kevin is right though it will speed up your process. A blue bowl or spiral wheel will do the same faster. Don't relate watching the guys remove sands from their large cleanups on T.V.......when your Gold amount is soooo much more than your B.S. amount the trapping of tiny grains of gold is not gonna keep you up at night.

 

[goldenIrishman]

How do I shake and bake my black sands?

Doing the "Shake and Bake" is not hard at all and only requires a couple of things. First is a cast iron skillet and the other item is a small bucket that you can fill with ice water. First you need to pan down your cons and do your regular cleanup. Once you're "sure" you've gotten all the gold out take a couple of tablespoons worth of the left over black sands and place them in an old cast iron skillet. (I say old so your better half don't kill ya for using her good one!) Heat the sands up as hot as you can get them using a stove. I use a camping stove so I can do this process outdoors and again keep peace in the family. Starting with damp sands seems to speed up the process as the water boiling off will heat the sands at the same time. Once you have the sands as hot as you can possibly get them, grab the skillet handle with a rag or an oven mitt and quickly dump the sands into the ice water. The heating will cause the materials to expand and the rapid cooling will cause them to shatter. This will often remove any "desert varnish" that has built up on gold so you can see it for removal. If you've gotten the sands hot enough, they should sound like hot steel from a forge being dunk cooled when they hit the ice water. I specify using ice water because the greater the temp difference between the hot sand and the water the better this will work.

If you're in an area where the gold often has a coating of mineral "varnish" on it, like the desert areas, this is a very good way of cleaning that junk off the gold. I was surprised at how much more gold I found after doing this extra step. I know that there is still more gold in the sands I've saved up. Mostly in the form of "Micron" gold. This I plan on removing through amalgamation once I get a proper retort to recover the mercury in a safe manner without letting any of it out into the environment.

EDIT: I know I SHOULDN'T have to say this but don't forget to wear your safety glasses while doing this! No amount of gold is worth loosing your eyesight! Also try to keep everything at arms length when you pour the hot sands into the water for an extra safety margin.

 

[jpdriver1]

I obtained a defibulator disrupting magnet via work, put it in a peanut butter jar -- just shake it off.

 

[goldenIrishman]

As that I am currently out of materials to run (thanks to the holidays keeping me to busy to go get more) I decided to do some experiments to keep me from going nuts due to lack of new gold to get.....

Experiment 1: For this one I took some of the black sands that had already been "Shake and Baked" and re did them using a different pan. I had an old steel gold pan that over the years had gotten so beat up that I don't use it for panning any longer. It's much thinner than the old cast iron skillet I've been using to do this process. What I found was it seems to get the sands hot much quicker as well as gets them hotter. When I looked at the sands after quenching them I saw a lot more flour gold than had been in them before the processing. Perhaps the extra heat or the second running on the sands (or both) released more of the varnish off the gold.

Experiment 2: Not having a rock crusher here at the house I wanted to crush up some of the black sands I had already shake and baked to see what would happen. I had a couple of electric coffee grinders down in the shop and figured I'd give one of them a try. Well wadda ya know? It WORKED! I placed a couple of tablespoons worth of the sands into the grinder and hit the button. After less than a minute I shut it off and popped the lid and found that most of the sand I had put in now looked like black talcum powder! I still have to do the shake and bake on them, but I want to grind up a enough to make it worth my time.

So what did I learn from these experiments? Well first off that the hotter you get the sands the better, secondly that baking them a couple times will release more of the varnish from the gold and last but not least is the fact the kitchen appliances will be disappearing so they can be put to use processing gold instead of my morning caffeine fix. (Not to worry guys. Robi don't drink coffee and I had a spare grinder so I'm not going to get into trouble)

 

[KevinInColorado]

^^^great info!^^^

Thanks for sharing. Sound like fun for me this winter too (even tho I do get out lots on cold sunny days as ya know)

...and I'm going to keep my eyes open for a coffee grinder at a garage sale as I only have one and I do use it for coffee now and then.

PS you may be interested to know that a friend and I ran three fire assays on our non-magnetic -50 cons after removing all the visible gold. It came out at 3oz Au per ton! Now if only I had tons of it LoL...the real point was to get a sense of how much gold we were chasing with techniques like bake n break. It is enough to be worth chasing with Denver cons...when you can't dig at least.