Gold Recovery Below 100 Mesh

[desertgolddigger]

Hi All, After so many years away from digging for gold, I got back to it several months ago.

I did a lot of reading and viewing of videos online to educate myself about how I set up my dry washer.

Apparently I must be doing something correct now, as I am getting all kinds of sizes of gold. And I am seeing
a lot of fine gold that's much smaller than 100 mesh when I ran my Blue bowl for the first time in over 10 years.
Yes, I also read and watched videos about Blue Bowls.

The problem is that when I shined a very bright flashlight into the bowl to view how things were progressing,
I noticed that the gold just at the 100 mesh size was happily setting on the bottom, but stuff that was very tiny was
being washed up and over the cone, and into my catch bucket. Thank goodness for that bucket, as I can run the
material again.

I think that if I can find wire mesh in the say 125, 150 and smaller range, I may be able to classify the sizes down to where
I have fairly consistent sizes, that won't have the gold going up with the black sand and other little stuff.

From what I was viewing, there was just oodles of that super fine gold.

Now the question. What is the most efficient method of super fine gold recovery that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars.
I know a sluice is useless, except for refining the junk material out. Anyway, a sluice is something I, who lives in the high desert
would get any use of, unless I want to run some of those dry washing tailing piles. That's where I have been getting all my
gold, in those tailing piles that the previous people left. I can catch a lot of what they let go out of their machine, but finding
a way to get if recovered to just gold is just beyond me right now.

I hope someone can tell me a simple way that will work.

 

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[Bonaro]

Without involving chemical extraction your options are limited. However, so are your results. You have to balance between time spent and actual recovery achieved...the smaller the gold the more difficult and time consuming it is to catch it. It takes a LOT of flour gold to add up to something you can actually weigh. You can literally spend a whole day and only have $2 in gold to show for it.

Add a few drops of dish soap or Jet Dry to your water if you are recirculating, that will help keep the fine stuff from floating.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Without involving chemical extraction your options are limited. However, so are your results. You have to balance between time spent and actual recovery achieved...the smaller the gold the more difficult and time consuming it is to catch it. It takes a LOT of flour gold to add up to something you can actually weigh. You can literally spend a whole day and only have $2 in gold to show for it.

Add a few drops of dish soap or Jet Dry to your water if you are recirculating, that will help keep the fine stuff from floating.

Thanks, I did add JetDry to the Blue Bowl.

I just purchased some finer mesh sieves so I can get consistent sizing. I believe the Blue Bowl is most efficient when material size is that way

 

[Assembler]

Hi All, After so many years away from digging for gold, I got back to it several months ago.

I did a lot of reading and viewing of videos online to educate myself about how I set up my dry washer.

Apparently I must be doing something correct now, as I am getting all kinds of sizes of gold. And I am seeing
a lot of fine gold that's much smaller than 100 mesh when I ran my Blue bowl for the first time in over 10 years.
Yes, I also read and watched videos about Blue Bowls.

The problem is that when I shined a very bright flashlight into the bowl to view how things were progressing,
I noticed that the gold just at the 100 mesh size was happily setting on the bottom, but stuff that was very tiny was
being washed up and over the cone, and into my catch bucket. Thank goodness for that bucket, as I can run the
material again.

I think that if I can find wire mesh in the say 125, 150 and smaller range, I may be able to classify the sizes down to where
I have fairly consistent sizes, that won't have the gold going up with the black sand and other little stuff.

From what I was viewing, there was just oodles of that super fine gold.

Now the question. What is the most efficient method of super fine gold recovery that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars.
I know a sluice is useless, except for refining the junk material out. Anyway, a sluice is something I, who lives in the high desert
would get any use of, unless I want to run some of those dry washing tailing piles. That's where I have been getting all my
gold, in those tailing piles that the previous people left. I can catch a lot of what they let go out of their machine, but finding
a way to get if recovered to just gold is just beyond me right now.

I hope someone can tell me a simple way that will work.

Well I have a simple step that is more time consuming however you will be able to recover more fines.
The Chinese wire mesh of 100, 200, and even 400 mesh stainless steel that you can buy on line will help you to screen out all of the larger materials. Then when you process just 100 mesh for example you will be able to catch a lot of the fines. This can add a fair amount of time for each screen process unless you can stack the screens together. Be prepared to see the screens plug up fast and will need cleaning out often. For a $100.00 you should be able to get a few screens then make a wooden frame for them with screws.

 

[Assembler]

On a bigger scale one can make large steel pans and this can give you better returns for your time spent. The fines in general will stay at the bottom of the pans unless there is some sticking to the rock materials as well.

 

[Assembler]

Most people have trouble panning below 150 - 180 mesh minus unless there is a lot of screening going on. Even then a system of different movements in steps will really help out. My thoughts is to try to trap the fines down at the bottom of a collector first then the next step is something else with screening taking place first.

 

[southfork]

Thanks, I did add JetDry to the Blue Bowl.

I just purchased some finer mesh sieves so I can get consistent sizing. I believe the Blue Bowl is most efficient when material size is that way

I use a little mercury in the blue bowl along with jet dry. I do the same thing in the gold pan when working flour gold.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Don’t be so greedy! ; ) seriously feel good about dumping some seed gold out your recovery system it will make things easier (just trust me). The sooner you come to grips with this the more enjoyable your mining time will be.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I can’t take anyone that uses the term “seed gold” seriously. They aren’t seeds. They won’t get bigger if you leave them in there longer.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I use a little mercury in the blue bowl along with jet dry. I do the same thing in the gold pan when working flour gold.

I definitely won't use mercury.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Well I have a simple step that is more time consuming however you will be able to recover more fines.
The Chinese wire mesh of 100, 200, and even 400 mesh stainless steel that you can buy on line will help you to screen out all of the larger materials. Then when you process just 100 mesh for example you will be able to catch a lot of the fines. This can add a fair amount of time for each screen process unless you can stack the screens together. Be prepared to see the screens plug up fast and will need cleaning out often. For a $100.00 you should be able to get a few screens then make a wooden frame for them with screws.

Like I said earlier, I purchased some very small sieves. I believe they are 120, 150, 180 and 200. Hopefully this will help. If I find anything smaller, I'll get finer sieves. But I doubt I will accumulate enough material to justify needing anything else. I only go to the claim once a week for a couple hours. I do placer mining for fun. It also helps keep this 72 year old body in shape.

 

[desertgolddigger]

One reason I work the tailings of others who've dry washed these piles is that some 10 years ago, a gentleman came to the claim with a recirculating sluice, and worked these piles. He recovered lots of the very fine gold along with some larger pieces up to about 3/32 size. This tells me that most people who dry wash, run their washers incorrectly. I know dry washing isn't very efficient, with a lot of gold just being blown through the washer.

I would love to sluice the material, but I just can't figure out how without hundreds of gallons of water. The soil is like s sponge. Does anyone here do sluicing in the desert? How do you deal with getting the water filtered enough to recirculate it? How much water do you carry with you? I only have a small 4x4 Frontier truck, so heavy loads of water isn't something I can take with me.

 

[RTR]

A Miller table with the proper water flow will catch - 100 mesh as seen here.Highly magnified, are pieces/specs so small they are floating on the top of water.

 

[RTR]

If you want smaller.Caught on my Miller table,magnified 1200X

 

[RTR]

"Pin" head size off the Miller

 

[Tesorodeoro]

I can’t take anyone that uses the term “seed gold” seriously. They aren’t seeds. They won’t get bigger if you leave them in there longer.

You missed my point completely. That part was not intended to be taken seriously. If it doesn’t move the scales, I’m ok with leaving some gold for future miners (again not intended to be literal).

 

[russau]

I loved my (Slate)Miller Table ! and to make it work the best only run fines that have been screened by different sizes separately to ensure a good capture of the gold. and each separate run of the Miller Table needs the flow and the angle of the table to be adjusted to optimize capture of the gold.

 

[Reed Lukens]

I've got a 50gallon bladder tank to haul water, but 50gallon drums work fine or those nice white 330gallon totes work great also.

330 Gallon Food Grade IBC | Drinking Water, Rainwater Harvesting Container – Xikers

Then for a nice small portable set up, this is how I do it -

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www.treasurenet.com

But mosty, I enjoy working the material at home, where I have nice clean water straight from the tap that I use and run into the little dry stream bead in my back yard. Everything gets classified and sorted by size coming out of the Gold Fox and then piled for different uses as fill or gravel in my own or neighbors yards. I fill 22 or more 5 gallon buckets, put them in the truck, then work them out here in the mornings.
I also have a Gold Cube trommel set up that I have at my other house in California that I leave there to use at my mining claim there when I head up in the summer. That's another great little set up that runs recirculating water really nice.

 

[Assembler]

I use a little mercury in the blue bowl along with jet dry. I do the same thing in the gold pan when working flour gold.

Works well. I will not use mercury yet and will try the large pan method first. I will have to test the tailings to see how much fines is going through. Most likely I can live with the losses.

 

[Assembler]

One reason I work the tailings of others who've dry washed these piles is that some 10 years ago, a gentleman came to the claim with a recirculating sluice, and worked these piles. He recovered lots of the very fine gold along with some larger pieces up to about 3/32 size. This tells me that most people who dry wash, run their washers incorrectly. I know dry washing isn't very efficient, with a lot of gold just being blown through the washer.

I would love to sluice the material, but I just can't figure out how without hundreds of gallons of water. The soil is like s sponge. Does anyone here do sluicing in the desert? How do you deal with getting the water filtered enough to recirculate it? How much water do you carry with you? I only have a small 4x4 Frontier truck, so heavy loads of water isn't something I can take with me.

I agree most 'dry washers' are not that good at recovery of the very fines. I like the idea of a large steel pan to collect. Then take the collections and process what ever way you like even wet.