Gold Cube....A bit of the history

[arizau]

The Trevor Alty quote shown below is a post to the detectorprospector.com forum and he gives a little of the history of how he helped the Gold Cube guys. Also check at the bottom of this post for a google link showing Trevor's hand drawn description as to how boil boxes work (the Gold Cube is an ingeniously designed boil box). Kudos go out to Trevor for the explanation of the technology and to the Gold Cube guys for the product.

"Trev (NZ)
Copper Member

Members
PipPip
23 posts
Posted 24 November 2014 - 11:19 PM
Hi Folks

I have posted a few messages on here. And it is one of my favorite forums to visit.

So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Trevor Alty and I live on the West Coast off the South Island of New Zealand.
My county is called " Buller". And yes it is a gold bearing region. But we are covered with very green lush forest, As we have a very high rainfall.

I am 66 years old. But have kinda done gold since I was five. Did the learning curve, Pans first, then sluices, then got into underwater dredging. And also ran a beach claim, Its called black sanding down here. Really micro fine gold, smaller than a fly poo. But I learn't how to catch it.

Some of you may know of the " Gold Cube" well my old mate Mike Pung and Red didn't invent it.. And neither did I. But when I decided to put a claim on a beach where I lived right by. I needed to find a method of catching that fly poo. So I used what the black-sanders were using over a hundred years ago. Down here we call that the boil box system. Believe it or not it was developed by people from the Shetland Islands, up Britain way. They came down here in the early gold-rush days and somehow worked that system out. Its basically a column of water that rises up, and the sorts out the relative gravity of the different minerals. Now days its got a flasher name.

Anyway it worked for me. I love taking the old guys idea's and using them. After all they were the masters. Siphons, Perfect water races with just the right amount of fall, and many run for miles. Damn they were smart. An engineer those days was indeed an engineer.

Anyway Mike Pung had some trouble catching fine gold up at I think it was Lake Mitchagin. He ended up on a forum I run, that had a lot about how to catch real fine gold.. He followed my instructions, built a wooden one, went back and yep it worked. So then he did a lot a research and development. And at the end of it all, "The Cube was Born" and now they are shipped all over the world.

And very popular they are indeed. Why even Lip CA has one. And believe it or not his son Arlie came down to NZ stayed with me
for most of our summer, a few years back and we did very well dredging on my claim. Eh Harry.

And yes I have been to the great ole US of A. Washington State. But wait there is more. And yep to Alaska. A mate of mine Bruce Strandburg, that was one my forum came down to NZ. I took him out and yep he panned some nice gold.. He got the bug and wanted to get a claim in Alaska. In the Circle/Central district. He flew me up to help him look. Great State, but to much glacial muck and overburden in that area. Hey Steve, yep " Fast Eddies" is a great place, Good tucker my man. And yep its in Tok. Damm we should have turned off there and went inland to the Chicken Place. After scouting out Central and Circle we headed back to Fairbanks. Then went up the oil line road, to the hidden valley. Think it was the Elliot Highway. Ended up staying on the runway at Les Cobbs place, and had our evening meals with him. He was a great man, didn't suffer fools, bit like me there I guess. We got on like a house on fire. Why he had even been down to NZ on a hunting trip. So sad to hear he fell out of a tree when setting a bear bait drum and got paralyzed, then died not long after. He was a man amongst men. I must get his wife's book one day.

Sadly didn't get to Anchorage, bugga. But damm I sure loved Alaska. (In the Summer) fire weed, blue berry's and its remoteness.


Anyway I am rambling a bit here, but it sure is fun. Cause this kinda feels like home.

My latest project is resurrecting the hydraulic elevator. And I am sure it will resurface in the near future. Once again old technology but it works, and it efficiency is 100 per cent. Down here in NZ they had ones lifting 12 inch rocks eighty feet. Straight up. Now beat that. Our suction nozzles and power jets utilize the same principle . But sadly are only at 50 to 60 per cent off effiency . I am developing two at the moment, one for sucking rocks, sand and gravel, and one purely for sand. I will add a pic of a bit of the sand one. Doesn't look much as it needs the throat attached. Now as we all know there are no free lunches when it comes to suction and lift. The higher you lift, the less suction you get. But so far I have had very favorable results. And I continue my research and development, The main denominator is Jet size to throat size. But I do know the ratio's. Thats what R and D is all about.. Maybe you will see the sand one at Nome in a year or two. Hopefully sooner..P1000742.JPG"

Here is a google link for Trevor's plans and explanations. Open the one titled Boil box or gravity column - GPEX

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=boil box or gravity column

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Bonaro]

I was googling around just a hour ago looking for some tidbit of mining tech and was thinking....Trev (NZ) would know this

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Thanks for bringing that back up. Trevor's design is angled down as opposed to some commercial ones that are flat; very interesting.

 

[russau]

AND Trev sure knows how-2 party! 2006 NWMiners Rally and Alpine Micro brewry in Oroville Washington! Jerry King (part owner)was tops in my book!

 

[KevinInColorado]

If you get Mike and Red talking about their design process for the gold cube (which I did with Red just yesterday when we were talking through an idea for his next invention), they are sure to mention Trev's writing. They give him a lot of credit for their use of under flow in the cube.
...and it's fun to hear their stories!

 

[russau]

Mike and Red even sent Trev a free Gold Cube to try out! Talk about a great deal!! SALUTE!

 

[Gold Cube]

Hello everyone,
We were lead to Trev's Thesis on the boil box and the theory of columning by a few of the members on this and other forums. The concept intrigued us to say the least. But if you know Red and I we are not happy with old technology. Down inside the box, it was too square and haphazard. We needed better alignment of the gold. By taking the corners out, removing the boiling, rounding off the bottom and making it a non-turbulent environment for the gold, we were able to utilize the centripetal force to line up or gold to the outer edge directly in front of the lip leading to the mat. The lip is the only eddy in the system and will suck the gold onto it and start sliding the gold into the mat without having to worry about how far it has to drop through the water to find a place to be caught. This is especially important when you start getting minus 100 gold. The little stuff wants to take it's time through the water. So by totally re-designing the old boil box and adding G-Force to the mix, and still utilizing the columning effect, we had a winner. Many thanks to everyone Especially Trev for not letting an old idea get away, and Thanks to Red for being a great partner in the goofy ole gold business. More good things to come. Mike

 

[arizau]

I have been trying for a long time now, to figure out how to marry a boil box with a fluid bed concentrator to be used primarily in-stream. I have some ideas but no real way for construction or testing. The princlples of both are somewhat related and maybe can result in an advantage through a combination of the two. The boil box could deposit the heavies fairly low in the fluid bed giving them a better opportunity to settle while the lights would be introduced higher in the fluid bed and be subject to ejection. Fluid beds are already efficient but I think some kind of combination is worthy of testing.

 

[bobw53]

The lip is the only eddy in the system and will suck the gold onto it and start sliding the gold into the mat

Seems to me when I have visible gold it barely even makes it to the first mat at all. The furthest into the cube I've seen visible gold was the 7th row of
riffles in the first tray, and quite a bit of it sitting right in front of the mat on the lip..

The gold cube is awesome, though I'm still not sure why I bought the tall stack.

2 yellow rocks and a piece of gold. Never even made it to the first mat.

 

[russau]

Mike sent me the 4 stack delux modle. I really like it because I can be running and see a clean up needed and all I need to do is pull the top tray and put the slick plate top back on and keep running while I wash off the tray I just pulled. then I put that tray back in BUT on the bottom of it all and keep repeating this .............Thanks Mike and Red for developing this setup to us!!!!

 

[Capt Nemo]

I've been thinking about a stacking 2-3 stage fluid bed system. The first bed would be run with high pressure, the second with medium pressure, and the third with low pressure. Undercurrent traps could be used between the first and second, and second and third beds. The big thing would be finding a 12V pump to feed the 3 beds. Also skimming some of the water off the faster beds might be needed.

 

[russau]

interesting idea ! At first Id say don't try to reinvent the wheel , BUT that's just what Mike and Red did with their products! and did a fine job to boot! so if-n-when you do some testing please take some pics of your results! good luck! maybe youll be the next millionar!!!!!

 

[Capt Nemo]

I see a 3 stage fluid bed for trapping all the gold in raw material, and the Gold Cube for finishing the cons from the fluid beds. They complement rather than fight each other. The Cube just came out first.

 

[johnedoe]

I was just reading about Trev's gravity well at the Oregon gold hunters site.
This has a little more detail about the build.
Oregon Gold Hunters Login

 

[arizau]

Here is another recent post by Trevor on a competing gold forum.

I found it especially interesting that he likes to feed it more water than Gold Cube suggests because it will process more feed material than at the regular rate. From this I presume that he did not think it effected recovery but that it does make a difference as to what tray/mat it collects on (my interpretation as to what he wrote).

"Hi

Yep its Trevor from New Zealand here. Been lurking around for a while and this is a great place. I have been absent from gold forums for a while. Stopped underwater dredging about six years ago. The gold ran out on our claim. Took about 200 ounces out over the years. When we got down to a couple of dwt a day. That was it for me.
But there is one thing that kinda makes me famous Miner in the gold scene. The "CUBE " yep my concept. Not the final design but the concept of the principle.
Which I have to acknowledge, that I learnt from black sand miners who were active over a 100 years ago down my way. So let me tell you the whole story. A few years back Mike the Pung as I call him. Well ok Mikgoldminers group on yahoo groups.e Pung was up at Lake Ontario, well one of those lakes up that way. And was working a bank on the side of the lake with very fine gold. Trouble was he couldnt catch it. Drat he thought, there has to be a better way. Somehow or another he ended up on my old gold miners yahoo group. And of course the answer was there. In a treatise I wrote outlining the principle. I must admit I always hoped somebody could get their head around it and run with it. If I could do it then its got to be easy. The ole KISS. Keep it simple approach. Well Mike made a prototype kinda cube, took it back up there and it worked. Well I think he did. I have seen a pic of the wooden prototype cube. But like me he had square boil boxs. Now I had always thought of why not try an oval boilbox. But hey what I had worked . So I left that idea there.

Now Mike is a craftsman, a real woodworker craftsman, so he had the nouse. After he found the principle worked better than he ever imagined. He rang me. Asked if I had a patient on the idea. I said no I didn't as the concept was really public knowledge. And I said go for it with my blessings. Now Mike and Red arent dumbo's and they saw a market opening. All the other fine dan dangos for catching fine gold were and lets face it, pretty ineffective. So they pursued the concept, did lots of R and D and finally came up with the Cube. And then it arrived upon the gold mining fraternity. Oh yep lots of ha ha ha and all that crap. Even got my gander up cause I know it woks and works so well it catches just about every little piece of micron gold. And the cube does seem to be even quite well at catching the shall we say bigger bits. They sit on the lip.

Mike sent me down a goldbanker, and whilst I do beleive the so called nugget traps are somewhat ill designed. I would have preferered to see reverse riffles much as in the Le Trap sluice configuration. But I held my tongue. But what escaped the poorly designed so called nugget traps. Just got caught on the lip in the low zone area. So alls well in th end.

I might add Mike sent me the whole caboodle for nicks. He is that kinda guy. I asked him for a bit of discount, well it was worth a shot. And then he made me feel humble. Freight down to NZ aint cheap.

Well I can tell you this. That system can take a lot more than you believe. The more water you feed it, the more stuff you can feed it. Often on my box we had the water backing up half way up the preceeding table. The bonus was we had a higher column, so the next table worked even better.

Im 67 now and aint as fit and inspired as I used to be. But hopefully this summer my goldbanker is going to get a work out. No shoveling for this ole fellow. I am working on a hydraulic elevator to feed it. First the stuff goes onto a Keene sluice, then onto the goldbanker. I may have to dewater the goldbanker a tad. But that is simple. I am running a 5hp honda with a 180 keen pump. And well not a hydro force suction nozzle, but a keene suction nozzle with a dedicated water supply at the head. The beauty of the hydraulic elevator is it is self primimg. My prototype built out of pvc plastic spouting worked a treat. I did it all last spring down our way, then summer was more like the wet season. So I put it all away. But this spring out it all comes and away I go.

Ok thats enough for now. I need my sleep. Buggar getting old eh.

Cheers Trev of course from New Zealand"

 

[GoldpannerDave]

The Trevor Alty quote shown below is a post to the detectorprospector.com forum and he gives a little of the history of how he helped the Gold Cube guys. Also check at the bottom of this post for a google link showing Trevor's hand drawn description as to how boil boxes work (the Gold Cube is an ingeniously designed boil box). Kudos go out to Trevor for the explanation of the technology and to the Gold Cube guys for the product.

"Trev (NZ)
Copper Member

Members
PipPip
23 posts
Posted 24 November 2014 - 11:19 PM
Hi Folks

I have posted a few messages on here. And it is one of my favorite forums to visit.

So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Trevor Alty and I live on the West Coast off the South Island of New Zealand.
My county is called " Buller". And yes it is a gold bearing region. But we are covered with very green lush forest, As we have a very high rainfall.
[snip]
Sadly didn't get to Anchorage, bugga. But damm I sure loved Alaska. (In the Summer) fire weed, blue berry's and its remoteness.
[snip]
https://www.google.com/webhp?source...&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=boil box or gravity column

Alaskan Fire Weed Honey--delicious. New Zealand has some great honey also, but a previously reigning Florida Miss Honey Queen told me of all the honey she tasted at various shingdigs she went to as Honey Queen (1994-1996), Alaskan Fire Weed was the best. I had one taste of it and it was great.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Mike sent me the 4 stack delux modle. I really like it because I can be running and see a clean up needed and all I need to do is pull the top tray and put the slick plate top back on and keep running while I wash off the tray I just pulled. then I put that tray back in BUT on the bottom of it all and keep repeating this .............Thanks Mike and Red for developing this setup to us!!!!

Great idea! I will be doing the same. Thanks, Russau!