First Foray into Processing Crushed Rock

[southfork]

How high do you set the water from the top when using the mat inside the bowl. I watched a video of< I'm assuming, the guy who invented this mat, and he set the water very high. Of course his demonstration probably had pre classified material at a particular mesh, which I believe, made catching all the gold very easy.

I did order a mat, and hope it fits my Bowl, purchased about 15 years ago.

You need to watch how your material climbs the cone and adjust as needed. I've been running about 1"inch below the top edge seems to be about right for the concentrates I'm running. Haven't had the same results as the video but works well. I like Reed's setup also my gold is micro not like the pickers in the video lol.

 

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[Reed Lukens]

Use your detector and large coil to find paying veins that are buried.

 

[desertgolddigger]

here's a question for you hard rock experts.

While panning my take from placer mining today, I see very small dark pebbles that have a yellow patch, that when wet, shine nearly as bright as gold. To me, it's a distraction.

But I've looked at pictures of rocks with sulphides in them, and one color is yellow.

It it possible these little pebbles might have gold in them? Or am I seeing something like fools gold.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I guess I'll post this here.

I broke out my Miller Table, and tried and tried and tried to run material smaller than 75 mesh without success. I adjusted the slope and water flow, but like always, there is a threshold where the water stops flowing evenly. I definitely can say my table is warped. This is because when the water stops flowing evenly, it dries up in the middle. The middle is raised a tiny fraction of an inch, and once a mesh size falls below 75, no adjustment will allow smaller meshes.

So I got fed up, and tried again to pan things, and eventually I found out how to get a line of gold in the corner with 100-120 mesh.

I used a flat rare earth magnet in my pan to remove the black sands, swirling the magnet around the pan.

I then back panned, and alternated tapping the front edge to remove about 75 percent of the blond sands, and non-magnetic heavies (dark material).

I then back panned, very carefully, material to the back of the pan, then tapped the front edge of the pan super gently.

The tap was the key. I'd been pounding on the edge, never knowing why no gold appeared. I found today, that the smaller the mesh, the more gently that tap needs to be.

I'm still learning how to use the Suffer Bottle, especially for the super fine gold. My first attempt had the gold disappear, only to reappear. I'll eventually figure out how to use it properly.

All this mornings practice was on my dry washing super fine gold I'd been saving. I hope the ultra fine gold I'm getting from rock crushing will also pan like this morning.

EDITED: I just finished Mesh 200+. There wasn't much, but it went as well as my 100-119 mesh trial. Everything is in the Snuffer Bottle, though some dark and blonde material still got in also. But I imagine that the gold is clean enough for whenever I nave enough to smelt it.

Now I need to talk to Royal Manufacturing about the Miller Table they sold me. It was supposed to be perfectly flat, and its not.

 

[southfork]

I guess I'll post this here.

I broke out my Miller Table, and tried and tried and tried to run material smaller than 75 mesh without success. I adjusted the slope and water flow, but like always, there is a threshold where the water stops flowing evenly. I definitely can say my table is warped. This is because when the water stops flowing evenly, it dries up in the middle. The middle is raised a tiny fraction of an inch, and once a mesh size falls below 75, no adjustment will allow smaller meshes.

So I got fed up, and tried again to pan things, and eventually I found out how to get a line of gold in the corner with 100-120 mesh.

I used a flat rare earth magnet in my pan to remove the black sands, swirling the magnet around the pan.

I then back panned, and alternated tapping the front edge to remove about 75 percent of the blond sands, and non-magnetic heavies (dark material).

I then back panned, very carefully, material to the back of the pan, then tapped the front edge of the pan super gently.

The tap was the key. I'd been pounding on the edge, never knowing why no gold appeared. I found today, that the smaller the mesh, the more gently that tap needs to be.

I'm still learning how to use the Suffer Bottle, especially for the super fine gold. My first attempt had the gold disappear, only to reappear. I'll eventually figure out how to use it properly.

All this mornings practice was on my dry washing super fine gold I'd been saving. I hope the ultra fine gold I'm getting from rock crushing will also pan like this morning.

EDITED: I just finished Mesh 200+. There wasn't much, but it went as well as my 100-119 mesh trial. Everything is in the Snuffer Bottle, though some dark and blonde material still got in also. But I imagine that the gold is clean enough for whenever I nave enough to smelt it.

Now I need to talk to Royal Manufacturing about the Miller Table they sold me. It was supposed to be perfectly flat, and its not.

That super fine gold will give you fits squeeze a little too hard and it swirls, and you have to trap it again. Squeeze way behind the line of gold then move slowly toward the gold release while moving along the line of gold. Place finger over the tube turn up and give it a shake. Sometimes there's still gold trapped inside the tube when you squeeze out it comes always work over the pan, I like a lot of water in the pan. I looked at a Royal table in town today complete kit in a tub $325 the table was laying on top of a tote with a hose dangling I assumed a pump came with it. I just made a big fat button from fines

 

[southfork]

here's a question for you hard rock experts.

While panning my take from placer mining today, I see very small dark pebbles that have a yellow patch, that when wet, shine nearly as bright as gold. To me, it's a distraction.

But I've looked at pictures of rocks with sulphides in them, and one color is yellow.

It it possible these little pebbles might have gold in them? Or am I seeing something like fools gold.

What do they look like under the microscope or loupe? a lot of our gold is inside of little dark reddish material takes a lot of crushing or smelting to release the gold. Like this

 

[desertgolddigger]

What do they look like under the microscope or loupe? a lot of our gold is inside of little dark reddish material takes a lot of crushing or smelting to release the gold. Like this

Southfork, I've decided to send what I dug up, nd rn through my dry washer through the chain mill to answer the question. Not sure the mill can make the stuff smaller, and if not, I'll hand crush it to get the answer.

 

[desertgolddigger]

That super fine gold will give you fits squeeze a little too hard and it swirls, and you have to trap it again. Squeeze way behind the line of gold then move slowly toward the gold release while moving along the line of gold. Place finger over the tube turn up and give it a shake. Sometimes there's still gold trapped inside the tube when you squeeze out it comes always work over the pan, I like a lot of water in the pan. I looked at a Royal table in town today complete kit in a tub $325 the table was laying on top of a tote with a hose dangling I assumed a pump came with it. I just made a big fat button from fines

Yes, the pump came with it. The Table actually is very nice, but the center is definitely higher than the sides.

That's what I'll do when I have enough fines to make a button, then I'll have to purchase all the stuff required for making it. Probably going to be sometime next year before that happens.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I've finally made it to the containers of mesh 100 and smaller from my crushed rocks. This is material I saw no gold in, and discarded.

I scooped out four tablespoons of this material, and panned it like I did this morning with my dry washer material. I was wrong about there being no gold. It isn't a lot, maybe 30 or so specks, but it is encouraging. It means I've learned to pan the material a bit better.

I believe it was Arizau who suggested I scoop out a little into the pan, and slowly reduce it, then do the same thing again, slowly increasing the quantity of gold in the pan. I'll do that, adding the material, until I run out from the tub I'm scooping from. Then I'll pan it all down to the gold, and snuffer it. I'll repet with all the recovered tossed mterial, and see what I come up with.

BTW, those silvery specks are no longer hanging round. They're drifting towards the low end of the pan, while the gold stays at the top. That question is answered. It's not gold.

Funny what a rainy day will do for you, keeping you indoors to learn.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I have material that keeps giving up fines. I’ve been building an ABS shaker table deck to mate with a driver I got the plans for from Jim in Idaho. I have a friend down south with a machine shop I own a lathe in I’m waiting to build the Wilfley driver.

 

[russau]

I for one would really like to see a update on your equipment as you are able to keep us posted on it ! I liked making / building my own equipment and then taking it out and giving it a workout!

 

[desertgolddigger]

I have material that keeps giving up fines. I’ve been building an ABS shaker table deck to mate with a driver I got the plans for from Jim in Idaho. I have a friend down south with a machine shop I own a lathe in I’m waiting to build the Wilfley driver.

Wow! I watched a gentleman on a video make one. I wish I had the skills and tools to make one. Shaker tables are so expensive. I'm finding that my spending money on the Miller Table was a waste. I can pan better and quicker. But having a Shaker Table would be wonderful, only if I had somewhere for it.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Guess I'm super stubborn. As I'm not going to the claim for a while, due to the recent rain, and now freezing temperatures, I moved all my stuff into the living room and kitchen. Yeah, kind of nutty, but I don't have anywhere else to do the mini sluicing and panning.

I'm still working on one of the recovered containers of crushed material. I'm cleaning the material again, and then running it through the mini sluice.

Results were unbelievable. I had a long line of super micro fines. Snuffer bottle is still driving me crazy, but I'm slowly getting the hang of things

I discovered that running 25 tablespoons of the material through the mini was overloading it, and I was losing gold and black sand. So I'm now limiting it to five tablespoons.

And what a difference it made when I panned it out. Working with less concentrates makes the panning easier. I'm still running my flat round rare earth magnet through the material before panning. I found the lack sand was bullying the super fine gold, so that I basically couldn't find the gold.

Another thing I learned about doing good panning is not only do you very gently tap the pan with this super fine gold, but you also have to constantly stratify the material until it's almost gone. Once the gold and over burden is about equal, the gold just takes over, and separates with gentle tapping.

If you wonder why all the detail, I'm writing this for other beginners in the hope my experiences, and solutions will help them.

Taking a break for now. Working with this type of gold is tedious.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Guess I'm super stubborn. As I'm not going to the claim for a while, due to the recent rain, and now freezing temperatures, I moved all my stuff into the living room and kitchen. Yeah, kind of nutty, but I don't have anywhere else to do the mini sluicing and panning.

I'm still working on one of the recovered containers of crushed material. I'm cleaning the material again, and then running it through the mini sluice.

Results were unbelievable. I had a long line of super micro fines. Snuffer bottle is still driving me crazy, but I'm slowly getting the hang of things

I discovered that running 25 tablespoons of the material through the mini was overloading it, and I was losing gold and black sand. So I'm now limiting it to five tablespoons.

And what a difference it made when I panned it out. Working with less concentrates makes the panning easier. I'm still running my flat round rare earth magnet through the material before panning. I found the lack sand was bullying the super fine gold, so that I basically couldn't find the gold.

Another thing I learned about doing good panning is not only do you very gently tap the pan with this super fine gold, but you also have to constantly stratify the material until it's almost gone. Once the gold and over burden is about equal, the gold just takes over, and separates with gentle tapping.

If you wonder why all the detail, I'm writing this for other beginners in the hope my experiences, and solutions will help them.

Taking a break for now. Working with this type of gold is tedious.

EDITED: Finally finished reprocessing my first container. The first pan after the break got me a thin line of the micro fines. The next got me exactly three specks, and the last two were skunks. I think there is gold in all those, but it is so fine, I need a microscope to see it, and another way to process micron size gold. I saved the panning tailings, and will run them again for that just i case. But enough for today.

I take Gwendolyn my silver Elven Steed (Nissan Frontier 4x4 ) in for tire rotation, and brake check/repairs tomorrow. So a day off from all this.

EDITED: Gwendolyn is happy again, as long as she doesn't have to carry large rock loads over rough hills. Had to get her a new brake job, at $1000 cost. That means no more heavy rock loads. Can't afford to repair her brakes at the prices they charge now for repairs.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I'm curious as to why black sand is saved and smelted to get small gold buttons. So I just read something on that subject. Apparently there are two types, magnetic and non-magnetic.

It seems the non-magnetic is associated with heavier elements such as tungsten, silver, gold, etc., sometimes binding with each other. Apparently this is the type of black sand most likely, but not always, where smelting it will give you precious metals.

To make my panning easier, I've been running a flat round rare earth magnet around in my pan several times to extract the magnetics, and noticed that there was still black sand in the pan, as well as other darker material. I can extract the fine gold from this type of concentrate, but the darker material, non-magnetic, gets panned off, and saved for future panning attempts.

Is this the stuff I've been told to save, or I save the magnetic black sand also?

 

[russau]

On my 4 inch dredge that I sold, I made 3 3/4 inch PVC tubes that had rare Earth magnets inside of them and they were positioned across the headend of my dredge to capture the magnetic Black sands. They were attached with a home made quick release so that I could clean off the B.S. as I was running and NOT miss any B.S.. It also helped to keep the B/S. from building up behind my riffles Everything went under those magnets and trapped them !

 

[desertgolddigger]

On my 4 inch dredge that I sold, I made 3 3/4 inch PVC tubes that had rare Earth magnets inside of them and they were positioned across the headend of my dredge to capture the magnetic Black sands. They were attached with a home made quick release so that I could clean off the B.S. as I was running and NOT miss any B.S.. It also helped to keep the B/S. from building up behind my riffles Everything went under those magnets and trapped them !

Currently I'm working on a water flow control for my Royal recirculating highbanker sluice. I'm hoping this will allow me to process the crushed ore faster. If I can control the flow, then hopefully I can catch the fines.
If that happens, then maybe I will try what you did with that dredge.

This highbanker was another of my purchase mistakes, so I hope it will work as a gold ore cleanup device, and I can get use out of ot. currently it just sits in my shed.

 

[southfork]

How high do you set the water from the top when using the mat inside the bowl. I watched a video of< I'm assuming, the guy who invented this mat, and he set the water very high. Of course his demonstration probably had pre classified material at a particular mesh, which I believe, made catching all the gold very easy.

I did order a mat, and hope it fits my Bowl, purchased about 15 years ago.

Just a heads up on the turbo mat a few dabs of silicon to hold it down is not enough. Per instructions I tried it and what happens is the micro gold gets under the mat. I suggest putting a bead all the way around that's what I'm doing it's a pain to try and wash the gold out. Happy mining

 

[desertgolddigger]

Today I was out at the claim. First job was finally beeping the gravel I laid in the access road. Not a sound from gold, but plenty of shell casings, and old time can pull tabs.

But I also went to look for more possible gold bearing ore. I decided to take the opposite way in; you could call it the back way. I noticed an old timer worked area up on the hillside that I never noticed going in the opposite direction. So that was my goal for the day, a new place to look, and one really hard to get to.

I spent time beeping, but no luck other than a piece of broken metal, and an oddity, a piece of lead. It was very flat. Took the hammer to it, and it flattened very easily.

But the detector didn't sound off except on the super mineralized rocks. They had just about every color you can imagine.

I decided to load a few in my bucket, and bring them home.

I broke up one fist sized rock, and ran it through the chain mill, then classified and panned.

My first surprise was a piece of gold larger than 50 mesh, and another larger than 70 mesh. Had another speck larger than 100 mesh. I then quickly panned the 100 mesh and smaller, and got another surprise, a small line (couple dozen) specks of gold.

If this is any indication of gold content in this highly mineralized rock, I will be returning. But first I need to crush a few more of the same type of rock to make sure it's worth toting a half bucket nearly a quarter of a mile over very rough terrain/steep too.

I do know of one other super mineralized dig, and that is a bit easier to get too, but not much. Will check that out also.

The only problem with such mineralized material is that it is super messy when crushed and wet, almost rusty in color.

 

[southfork]

Today I was out at the claim. First job was finally beeping the gravel I laid in the access road. Not a sound from gold, but plenty of shell casings, and old time can pull tabs.

But I also went to look for more possible gold bearing ore. I decided to take the opposite way in; you could call it the back way. I noticed an old timer worked area up on the hillside that I never noticed going in the opposite direction. So that was my goal for the day, a new place to look, and one really hard to get to.

I spent time beeping, but no luck other than a piece of broken metal, and an oddity, a piece of lead. It was very flat. Took the hammer to it, and it flattened very easily.

But the detector didn't sound off except on the super mineralized rocks. They had just about every color you can imagine.

I decided to load a few in my bucket, and bring them home.

I broke up one fist sized rock, and ran it through the chain mill, then classified and panned.

My first surprise was a piece of gold larger than 50 mesh, and another larger than 70 mesh. Had another speck larger than 100 mesh. I then quickly panned the 100 mesh and smaller, and got another surprise, a small line (couple dozen) specks of gold.

If this is any indication of gold content in this highly mineralized rock, I will be returning. But first I need to crush a few more of the same type of rock to make sure it's worth toting a half bucket nearly a quarter of a mile over very rough terrain/steep too.

I do know of one other super mineralized dig, and that is a bit easier to get too, but not much. Will check that out also.

The only problem with such mineralized material is that it is super messy when crushed and wet, almost rusty in color.

Thats what most of our gold is coming out reddish mud when crushed. Real dirty red slurry when wet you might even get a whiff of sulfur.