Floating ore

[Mountaineer2020]

So I finally found some decent ore in 4 different veins. Running 0.8 opt but micro fine. I am hoping it will concentrate on the wilfrey table once I get the old beast refinished and ready for action. However on the chance the percent recovery is unacceptable has anyone used floatation and how complicated is it? I am embarrassed to mention this but I was setting up a gravity system with 2" orange conduit which is stiff and nasty to work with. I had to push in a barbed fitting and had misplaced the dawn soap so I used vaseline instead. Later in the day the sun had heated the pipe up a bit and I filled a tub from my gravity system to pan some crushed ore with probably 100-200 mesh and a beautiful silvery scum floated to the top of the pan when I was mixing the water in with the dry ore. I think it was floatation by accident. If I can do it accidentally it should be easy to do it intentionally right?

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

Yes..it can be done. But you're going to need to do some research on flocculants and determine what will work best for your ore. On the Wilfley table, you'll need to recirculate your water so you can add some soap to it. Or, you can wet your ore, with soap added, to prevent the surface tension from floating your heavies out with the tails. On the Wilfley the best results with fine gold result when using a shorth stroke at fast pulse rates, and angled riffles (angled at about 5 degrees to the stroke direction). The table should be angled up, in the stroke direction about 1/4"/yard of table length.
Jim

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Yes..it can be done. But you're going to need to do some research on flocculants and determine what will work best for your ore. On the Wilfley table, you'll need to recirculate your water so you can add some soap to it. Or, you can wet your ore, with soap added, to prevent the surface tension from floating your heavies out with the tails. On the Wilfley the best results with fine gold result when using a shorth stroke at fast pulse rates, and angled riffles (angled at about 5 degrees to the stroke direction). The table should be angled up, in the stroke direction about 1/4"/yard of table length.
Jim

Thanks Jim, I will set up the Wilfrey the way you described and wet the ore. It has a resin top over marine plywood and some of the resin cracked letting water get underneath. This in turn caused a bubble on the surface which I think I can belt sand out then overlay with a new coat of resin. Was also thinking about laying a rubber mat over the whole table but not too sure how to make riffles then. I did read in the old mine records they were using pine oil as a flocculant and said the ore was "easy to float".

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Sounds good. I rebuilt a Wilfley lab table last winter. Had to make an entire new table for it. I made it of ABS plastic. Wifley offered two different riffle setups. For coarser gold they made the riffles straight in line with the motion. For fine gold they angled them. That bit about sloping the table up 1/4" per yard came from a guy who worked at Denver Mine & Smelter. They were the retailers for Wilfley back in the day. I know next to nothing about using float systems for gold recovery. If you try it, it would be really good to post your results so people can learn from your efforts...no matter how they turn out.

 

[arizau]

Thanks Jim, I will set up the Wilfrey the way you described and wet the ore. It has a resin top over marine plywood and some of the resin cracked letting water get underneath. This in turn caused a bubble on the surface which I think I can belt sand out then overlay with a new coat of resin. Was also thinking about laying a rubber mat over the whole table but not too sure how to make riffles then. I did read in the old mine records they were using pine oil as a flocculant and said the ore was "easy to float".

If the gold is free milling and ground fine enough to free it then pine or some other type of oil should work. Gold is oleophilic which means it is attracted to oil. Wet filtering, dissolving the oil with solvent or burning off the oil will yield some concentrates. Some other minerals will probably be part of the makeup of the concentrates.

Good luck.

PS GOOGLE "FINE GOLD RECOVERY - WESTSIDE PLACER" for an excellent detailed report on recovery methods.

 

[arizau]

Google "using turpentine to float gold".
Click on the link from a gold refining forum....it was the first one to pop up when I Googled it. Good info on how pine oil/turpentine is/was used and descriptions on how to set up.

Good luck.