How to get fine gold that is too small for Blue Bowl

There are all kinds of methods. I've seen some expert panners who could drum the rim of a gold pan with their fingers and vibrate it out. One fella preferred to shake his concentrate in a mason jar till the gold settled at the very bottom. The Ole Timers used to "winnow" their concentrate by flipping it up into a breeze on a blanket and allowing the gold particles to fall back on the blanket (which was later burned). I've also heard of heating up black sand in an iron skillet and throwing ice cold stream water on it when it gets red hot. This is supposed to fracture the sand and release any trapped gold, but you better be sober to try that one. The weirdest thing i every saw was a guy using a looped clear plastic hose attached to a variable speed Wet-Vac. Properly adjusted, the black sand passed over the top of the loops and the gold particles fell to the bottom of the loops. I could actualy see the gold collected at the bottom of the loops and test panned the sand in the Wet Vac and didn't find any gold there. That was pretty impressive. Lotta work just to get $5 dollars worth of gold dust outta a 20 gallon bucket of concentrate though. Don't you think ?
 

gtxkid said:
We have a lot of FINE gold that is too fine for blue bowl.
It will not pull other fine black sand off of it.

What can i use.???
Click to expand...

Iv seen a blue bowl pull some super super fine gold you just need to classify it and run it slow
But the next and a better process would be a wave table !
 

Catfish: I think your right, lot of work for not so much.
and i will double check my classify G1sammons, i do have a 30 50 100 would like to have a 70.
 

gtxkid said:
Catfish: I think your right, lot of work for not so much.
and i will double check my classify G1sammons, i do have a 30 50 100 would like to have a 70.
Click to expand...
Just slow the bowl down and it will work the fine stuff just as well!
Iv seen it done but I don't do it it would be easer just to pile it up and melt it in a kiln with flux
Just not enough gold to mess with untill you have a good size bucket! Or tub

Where r ya workin for the fines?
 

I find fine's up and down the Arkansas river.
Selling is a good idea.
 

Hi gtxkid,
I use the blue bowl all the time. Classify cons -20, -30, -50, -100. Run -30 to -100 in the bowl using this water levels. Run water to the brim of the bowl for -30. Drop water level 1/4" when running -50 and another 1/4" or 1/2" below brim for -100. It will amaze you how small the gold is that you will capture.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector
 

Thank you
I wanted to get a 70 classifier also but will take your advice B H Prospector.
It is kinda cool to watch and kinda thought i had it figured out.
I do have a cool friend that will come down also and give me a few pointers on how he runs his.
His gold is clean, real nice.
 

I've ran blue DAM Industries bowls for almost 30 years now. I had 5 -5 gallon buckets plum full of leavings from my stores wet processing area exclusively from the DAM bowl. When I sold out and retired back to mining I ran all those through a grinder,mixer,clean cycle and mercury treated and cleaned up by retort. After 4 years and over 200 lbs of preclassified 100% pure black sands yielded less than a gram--didn't even pay for electricity or mercury loss as gold was at about $365 in 88. I feed my roses and assorted plants the leftovers now but NOT the vegetable garden though.. John
 

I learned you can not level blue bowl from outer rim.
You have to level it off of the center where the water exits, yes a line level or 6" level is needed.
Worked real good after that.
 

gtxkid said:
I learned you can not level blue bowl from outer rim.
You have to level it off of the center where the water exits, yes a line level or 6" level is needed.
Worked real good after that.
Click to expand...

Ace Hardware has a small bubble level for like 3.00. But a hard piece of plastic over the exit hole and place your bubble level and good to go. Cheap and easy:-)
 

Yea
That is all i used was a small bubble level.
Was surprised to see such a big difference from the outer rim.
Maybe we should suggest to them to send a small level as a setup tool with them when they sell them.
 

Any gold that the blue Bowl can't get isn't really worth the trouble to the average prospector.
 

I agree.
I have to learn as i go.
Looking forward to going up in the hills in 3 or so months and get some real good stuff.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Picture day

⬅️ Previous Thread

Claim jumpers

Next Thread ➡️

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
We Dig Metal Detectors

Latest Discussions

Back
Top