***Debateful topic , Can Comm Drywash be profitable in AZ

[keepmehumblelord]

So here is the debate. Please provide proof or statistics or evidence of why it is to your answer. CAN DRY WASHING COMMERCIALLY BE PROFITALLY DONE IN ARIZONA TO AVOID THE NEED FOR MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF WATER? IF SO PLEASE EXPLAIN THE LOSS COMPARED TO WET WASHING AND VARIATIONS OF SOIL AND ARE SOME SOILS NOT DRYWASHABLE. EXAMPLE THE RED DIRT IN ARIZONA. ARE THERE EFFECTIVE AND CHEAP METHODS OF DRYING YOUR DIRT OUT WITHIN A 24 HR PERIOD? IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE OR HAVE DONE THIS PLEASE EXPLAIN THE PROS AND CONS AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO MAKE IT EFFICENT ETC... THANKS!!!
BY THE WAY MANY HAVE SAID THAT COMMERCIAL DRY WASHING WAS TO DIFFICULT BECAUSE AS YOU GO UNDER A FEW FEET OF SOIL MOISTURE CONTENT IS STRONG. OTHERS SAY DRYING THE MATERIAL IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO BUT I HAVENT HEARD OF ANY EFFICIENT WAYS. OTHERS SAY WET WASHING IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?

 

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[Clay Diggins]

You really have to be prepared to do both if you want to work throughout the season Garret.

Drywash when you it's really dry and you can get good recovery rates.
Drywash when it's damp and you lose most of the gold.
Drywash in clay soils and you lose most of the gold.

My crazy friends drywash Rich Hill in the summer heat and they do pretty well - until the monsoons come in July. If they stay out past 11am in the summer they get too crazy and nobody can make sense of what they are saying for a few days. It's a delicate balance.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Now minute wait one Clay there!!!! I worked all heat in summer and not speaking funny am I!!! Stay water filled one must or part of ground you become.

I don't dry wash because the clay content in the area I work makes it futile. Now I'm sure that there are areas that don't have the clay problem like we do and given enough determination you might make a profit. I've done dry washing in the past with an old friend and though he knows what he's doing, I didn't care for it that much. Wet processing to me is the way to go if you have water to work with.

 

[keepmehumblelord]

Does anyone think that water could be ran over and over with dish soap constantly being added. I realized a certain point when the water was so dirt the dish soap would even foam up. Trying to come up with a way i can run 8 yards of dirt with 200 gallons of water

 

[goldenIrishman]

8 yards with 200 gallons is going to be really pushing it to say the least. My little portable recirc system for the field uses about 35 gallons at start up and I can get about a 1/2 yard through it before I have to thin it down with some fresh water. It's not the dirt per say that mucks it up as I use a bucket to catch the tailings. Rather it's the slit that builds up in it that floats out of the tailings bucket because it's not heavy enough to settle out.

Now at home I use the same system but add a kiddie pool so I have more water as well as a larger area for the silt to settle out of the water. I also add Jet-Dri to my water in both cases. It works just as well as dish soap and doesn't make nearly as much foam. There is also a product on the market called "Clay Gone". (No Barry, it's not for getting rid of you!) I haven't tried it yet but I've heard good things about it. With enough settling area you should be able to run a lot of dirt before you have to change out your water. One piece of equipment that it is also a good idea to have on hand is a large kitchen "Tea" strainer. I use one to skim the floating plant matter off the top of the water. If you don't do that from time to time, it will become water logged and sink. Then it can get caught up in the pump and clog it. A good trash pump shouldn't clog but I'm using 12v bilge pumps to keep things lighter and more portable.

You would stand a better chance if you could up the water capacity to at least 300 gallons split between 3 settling tanks. You may not get 8 yards through it, but it would be closer than 200 gallons but a long sot.

 

[Goldwasher]

Make friends with some locals do what they do and improve upon their system if you can.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Make friends with some locals do what they do and improve upon their system if you can.

That's about the best way to get started Garret. Learn everything you can from the local hardcore prospectors.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[TerryC]

Seek out Elmer Stapleton. He is (was?) part owner of a prominent claim south of Rich Hill. 4 years ago, he had the campsite next to me at Stanton. Up at 5am, back at camp by 11am. Ran everything through a shaker table till late afternoon. He did this for months at a time. He showed me vials and vials of color! He said he was averaging 1/2 ounce a month. He was using just one drywasher and one person helping. Profitable? I say yes but check with Elmer. TTC

 

[TerryC]

BTW, Elmer only dug down about 6 inches. Never deeper. This may be something to consider when drywashing. May have something to do with deeper/wetter soil. TTC

 

[LP13]

The best reliable statistics I have found, in general, claim around 70% recovery rate for a dry washer. If I am wrong I am sure someone will straighten me out on that. As particle size diminishes, collection does too. If you are in a good claim with good large gold, your recovery might be quite nice. Around where I live here in Arizona, most of the gold is rather small (20 to 100 mesh and smaller). I don't know where in the efficiency spectrum it would fall in relation to a dry washer though. If they would net you 70% of it or 30% of it. So if you are drywashing it would be good to find a nice claim with larger gold on it.

I use a Gold Well sluice set up for recirculation. It doesn't require as much water as most sluices to operate properly and is excellent with the fine gold recovery. The tub I use holds around 15 gallons and to stretch my water, I dig a hole large enough for a short 3 gallon bucket, and using a rake taper the ground to it and toss down a tarp. Then when I dump the sand out of my bucket from the tub on it, the water drips out of it and onto the tarp and goes into the bucket in the hole. This way I get to reclaim 95% of the water. It also filters most of the muck as the water drips through all the sand. A filtration sytem kinda. So for me, 25 gallons of water is all I usually use in a day. Another thing is that I have a really small trailer and put a 55 gallon drum on it with a spigot I put on it at the bottom. I also carry a few hundred feet of hose. It's easier for me to park the trailer near where I am working and roll out the hose to get the water to the sluice rather than carry buckets (provided I can get close enough with my jeep).

I hope this helps.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Hummmm.... That's a rather cool idea LP. I like the sand filtration idea. I'm going to have to play around with it a bit and see if I can refine it some more. My biggest problem is all the fine silt that becomes suspended in the water. After running all day my water is one step removed from mud. I've tried screen which doesn't stop the silt at all, nylons, (again no help) and have even tried to figure out how to make a porous conveyor to keep tailings out of the water tanks. The latter could be done but it would be expensive to make and it's still not going to stop the silt.

 

[keepmehumblelord]

The best reliable statistics I have found, in general, claim around 70% recovery rate for a dry washer. If I am wrong I am sure someone will straighten me out on that. As particle size diminishes, collection does too. If you are in a good claim with good large gold, your recovery might be quite nice. Around where I live here in Arizona, most of the gold is rather small (20 to 100 mesh and smaller). I don't know where in the efficiency spectrum it would fall in relation to a dry washer though. If they would net you 70% of it or 30% of it. So if you are drywashing it would be good to find a nice claim with larger gold on it.

I use a Gold Well sluice set up for recirculation. It doesn't require as much water as most sluices to operate properly and is excellent with the fine gold recovery. The tub I use holds around 15 gallons and to stretch my water, I dig a hole large enough for a short 3 gallon bucket, and using a rake taper the ground to it and toss down a tarp. Then when I dump the sand out of my bucket from the tub on it, the water drips out of it and onto the tarp and goes into the bucket in the hole. This way I get to reclaim 95% of the water. It also filters most of the muck as the water drips through all the sand. A filtration sytem kinda. So for me, 25 gallons of water is all I usually use in a day. Another thing is that I have a really small trailer and put a 55 gallon drum on it with a spigot I put on it at the bottom. I also carry a few hundred feet of hose. It's easier for me to park the trailer near where I am working and roll out the hose to get the water to the sluice rather than carry buckets (provided I can get close enough with my jeep).

I hope this helps.

Very helpful information. I have seen the gold well sluice and ive also seen the cost. I havent heard much about its recovery rates or studies done on it. Looks cool with all the wells on it. Your system is neat and efficient sounds like. I like digging part where you place the bucket in the ground and recover the water from the sand and soil. I sure know when i much out my 3 gallon buckets i loose probably a liter or 2 of water at a time. adds up.

Thanks for the info

 

[TerryC]

I have read some studies saying recovery rates are as high as 88/90% in some units. Drywashing is getting much closer to "wet systems" but I still will use water. TTC

 

[keepmehumblelord]

Hey TerryC so the way Elmer does it sounds like it would work very well. Take a say 40x40ft area take top 6 inches off and run it, save material to run the final run once you are done with the area. Take another 6 or 7 inches on the next layer the following day and run that and repeat. Sounds like a great way to dry wash. Arizona is a tough place to mine due to the water not always their. Solutions are to put tanks and catch water from run off but thats not a quick solution that requires snow or rain to happen. Kinda like the big water tank up there by rich hill. I think i will keep it small for now and add things on as i go.

 

[AzViper]

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I use 15 gallon barrels to haul water. Much easier to manage in the truck. Like LP13 said use hose, but I use the hose with a pump.

​

 

[TerryC]

Hey TerryC so the way Elmer does it sounds like it would work very well. Take a say 40x40ft area take top 6 inches off and run it, save material to run the final run once you are done with the area. Take another 6 or 7 inches on the next layer the following day and run that and repeat. Sounds like a great way to dry wash. Arizona is a tough place to mine due to the water not always their. Solutions are to put tanks and catch water from run off but thats not a quick solution that requires snow or rain to happen. Kinda like the big water tank up there by rich hill. I think i will keep it small for now and add things on as i go.

I watched him working a wash. This is what he did. He set up the drywasher (I did not know the brand) in one of the washes. Using a flat bladed shovel, he "skimmed" off the top 6 inches of the bottom material of a certain wash.... along one side.... just below the side wall. He worked up the wash, only skimming from just below the wall, working up the wash. After a few days.... week.... of processing, you can look back and see the many small mounds that he "washed". Only off one side of the wash bottom, mind you. His workings formed a "step" along the wall with intermittent hills along that level area he processed. Although his vials showed many sizable nuggets, he did not check the mounds with a metal detector. It seems he was recovering pretty good sized nuggies using the drywasher! But that did not surprise me as he is no doubt a pro, working the area for years! He gave away buckets and buckets of black sand to an outfit that processed it for some pretty good fines, he told me. His operation was "on going", He collected his concentrates daily and brought them back to the camp. Although he had 2 or three buckets ready at the shaker table on occasion, he never built up a bunch of bucketsful. TTC

 

[TerryC]

Just to clarify, Elmer did not dig 6 inches then 6 more over the same area.... only 6 inches deep along the wash.... then move to get 6 inches off the surface somewhere else.... never 6 then 6 in the same spot. TTC

 

[MadMarshall]

Donovan Having just come across your threads and reading them I have some concerns.. I too am in the midst of planning my season for 2014 though my plans are considerably more modest as I feel my money is better invested on prospecting then on setting up an operation in haste and buying stuff. For the most part 2014 will be all sampling of the 2 different claims trying to figure out if it is even practical to set up an operation. Also I rather spend the time finding the best payable areas on the claim to exploit even if I don't exploit them till 2015. I don't really know a whole lot about the rich hill area but I do know getting payable gold is not just about moving a lot of dirt.. Anyway Donovan I would consider slowing down.. Have you put any thought into the possibility of your claim not being payable. Do you have any other prospects to fall back on? I wish you the best and hope you keep in touch I have been really busy trying to get stuff wrapped up before Christmas.. Hope to be back home around the 23rd..

 

[goldenIrishman]

Those mini barrels that Keith gets are GREAT! He gave me four of them and they've made hauling water out to our dig site a LOT easier for me. I fill them up once and can run all weekend on them without having to make more water runs. Once I upgrade the equipment I'll have to get something larger (like a 325 gallon truck mounted tank) but I'll still be using them for wash water around the camp.

I have to agree and disagree with you Marshal. Moving more dirt will get you more gold. Like you said, you have to find the "Right dirt" to be moving is all. Once you find the good area(s) move as much dirt as you can!

 

[TerryC]

Mad, Irish makes a good point. Once an area known for good gold is found, it is time to MOVE DIRT. Most areas that contain gold will have a certain "yield" per ton. That is when the muscle takes over and the "bull work" begins. Then the KA CHING is determined by the amount of shovels-full moved. TTC