Crushing black sands- What I've tried and a question.

[FiresEye]

I've read tons of threads here about crushing black sand, but I need new advice.

So, I ran about 1/2 gallon of black sand that I know contains micro gold through a coffee grinder(dry) and it wore the stainless steel blade down FAST. I mean the blade like slowly melted away.

But then I ran that bucket through a cleanup sluice and WOW- the micro gold was amazing. Like 100+ pieces of it. Maybe like 400-500 mesh. The stuff that starts to be so small you can't see. ( sorry no pictures)




My question is, I've heard some of y'all use a cast iron mortal and pestle. Amazon sells all sorts of types. Even stainless steel ones.

I can't get a ball mill/tumbler with steel balls because it's too expensive, but some of these cast iron mortars are like $30.


Which one do you guys use? What is the cheapest way to grind black sand? I love the coffee grinder because it gets it down to dust. But the blade just wears out too fast to be cost effective.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

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[KevinInColorado]

I've read tons of threads here about crushing black sand, but I need new advice.

So, I ran about 1/2 gallon of black sand that I know contains micro gold through a coffee grinder(dry) and it wore the stainless steel blade down FAST. I mean the blade like slowly melted away.

But then I ran that bucket through a cleanup sluice and WOW- the micro gold was amazing. Like 100+ pieces of it. Maybe like 400-500 mesh. The stuff that starts to be so small you can't see. ( sorry no pictures)




My question is, I've heard some of y'all use a cast iron mortal and pestle. Amazon sells all sorts of types. Even stainless steel ones.

I can't get a ball mill/tumbler with steel balls because it's too expensive, but some of these cast iron mortars are like $30.


Which one do you guys use? What is the cheapest way to grind black sand? I love the coffee grinder because it gets it down to dust. But the blade just wears out too fast to be cost effective.

Any help is much appreciated.

There’s some threads here from 5-7 years ago where we discuss bench-top rod mills in detail. I built one- works great!

 

[arizau]

There’s some threads here from 5-7 years ago where we discuss bench-top rod mills in detail. I built one- works great!

The thread mentioned above is titled "simple solution to fine gold recovery".
Get a set of progressively smaller screen mesh sieves and pan the batches separately...gold weighs 3 to 5 times as much as other equally sized particles so panning efforts are maximized if you pan the batches sepatately.
Any mortar pestle set should work to crush and grind.

Good luck

 

[KevinInColorado]

Here’s my usual method of cons processing https://findinggoldincolorado.com/finish-processing-your-concentrates-after-a-day-of-digging/
...which doesn’t include crushing

 

[N-Lionberger]

Rod mills are easy, find an old rock tumbler and use chunks of steel rod as a grinding media. The cast iron mortar and pestle I use was around the tune of 120 bucks, got it from Lunds in Mound House NV. Its about the biggest you can get. I have a small one I carry in the truck for sampling hard rock ores. Have you tried heating and quenching your sands?