how to recover gold from 100 mesh

[GlenS]

I have 25 gallons of material that has been classified through a 100 mesh screen. when i flipped the bucket over it had gold in it. So i ran it through my mini sluice and I recovered nothing. I did all the tricks like using jet dry, I think the problem is it has a lot of clay in it, so when i slow the water down the clay builds up. is quick silver the only way? speaking of quick silver I am working a tailing pile from the 1800's and it is full of it. How do I stop it from grabbing gold in the finishing process.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

There's lots of plans on Youtube for making little ovens for smelting, and some use inexpensive materials. That may be something you'd like to carefully research as an option for doing your refining inexpensively.

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[bobw53]

I won on the clay, locale shop turned me on to Clay be gone, long process. now i am down to the mercury in the concentrates. built a retort yesterday. but when i went to build a kiln my wife flipped out about the price of that high temp concrete at a 142$ for 50pound any ideas people?? hopefully if i don't blow my self up i should have so pics next week for you all. then my next ? is how to you get all the other metals out of the button. with out chemicals ? or can I

Refractory cement is mad expensive, I built a furnace a few years ago. 4" thick walls , big enough to hold a 40lb crucible (40lbs of aluminum, 1/4 ton+ of gold). Turns out you really only need a hot face on the bricks.
If I had to do it again, I could have saved $500 easy by just doing a hot face an inch or so thick.

Refractory cement is NOT easy to work with. At least the stuff I used. You need a "high shear" mixer (I welded up a fancy paint stirrer), water needs to be measured out VERY carefully, its
incredibly sticky (I used parchment and Vaseline on my molds) and it takes forever to set up... Testing my molds with concrete, I could slam brick after brick after brick... Refractory stuff, you
need to pound the crap out of it (its real stiff) and then it was a good 4-6 hours before you could even think about taking the mold off. At best I could make 3 a day, with concrete I could make
3 in 5 minutes.

Also, there are a million home brews for refractory cement, I honestly don't know how well they work.. In other words, how long they last.

Kilns are a dime a dozen, or so it seems, I have one out here, electric with no controller, I think its 18"x18"x12", I paid $50 for it. Its still out front and nobody has stolen it yet.

Some pics, just for fun.

This is the brand of refractory I used. I'm not sure exactly which product though, it was a few years ago and I've tried to repress the whole thing.
PryorGiggey | The Refractory Specialists

 

[ohiochris]

I won on the clay, locale shop turned me on to Clay be gone, long process. now i am down to the mercury in the concentrates. built a retort yesterday. but when i went to build a kiln my wife flipped out about the price of that high temp concrete at a 142$ for 50pound any ideas people?? hopefully if i don't blow my self up i should have so pics next week for you all. then my next ? is how to you get all the other metals out of the button. with out chemicals ? or can I

For the smelting furnace I built I used sand , fire clay , and type N masonry mortar. I already had the sand and though I cant remember how much the fire clay and masonry mortar cost , but they weren't really expensive , if I remember correctly the whole project cost me less than $100 , steel pipe , trashcan and all.

 

[desert-rat]

im going to agree with arizau I ran some super fines with my gold hog mats and I couldn't believe how small the gold was it was way below the size I ever worried about.