Hydrostatic Vertical Table

T

Traveller

Jr. Member
Sep 22, 2010
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1
Does anyone recall seeing a tabletop gold separator called the Hydrostatic Vertical Table? It was manufactured by Action Mining Services in the late 1980's but discontinued, I think, in the early 1990's, following the debut of their series of Micron Mill Wave Tables.

This separator was a variation on the elutriation tower theme but, instead of a clear round column of water, it employed a clear flat thin panel of upward moving water.

I actually had a videotape of this unit in action but lost it in a housefire in 1991. I would be interested in any info that could be found on this separator.

Regards
Bob
 

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Hi Bob, yes I remember this unit, a Jim Humble creation from the late eighties early nineties era, I think. It was featured in Popular Mining Magazine back then, might be possible to acquire this issue somewhere? House fire destroyed all my copies, about 1999. Two panels of glass about a quarter inch apart, with a tube along the bottom with tiny holes directed upward. The pressure was controlled by a valve, which because of the ability to see everything happening between the two panes, could be adjusted perfectly to retain tiny gold and stop black sand from settling. Several of these could be set across a recovery table, hanging down below to be seen, and adjusted individually.

I always thought these had great potential, a simple but brilliant concept. I never built one not having the application to use one, but never forgot them as you never know when one might be useful. Don't know any exact specs if you are planing to build one, but ask away if you have any questions and will do my best from imperfect memory. Nuggy
 

John
Google turned up nothing at all. Even the free patent search sites turned up nothing. It would be invaluable to know what name it was patented under.
Nuggy
You are one of a handful of people that recall this unit. It was rather ingenious and, if my memory serves me correctly, was capable of separating (not just concentrating) gold down to ridiculously small particle sizes of just a few microns.
However, it was not a perforated pipe below the two clear panels. Rather, the unit had a swelling below these panels and a single 1/2" water entry port with a regulating valve. The beauty of it was that, below this swelling, the unit tapered down to a clear detachable catch cup where the fine gold ultimately ended up.
I know that the tailings went up with the water and overflowed. What I cannot recall is how the screened material was introduced and how the waste particles got past the incoming material. I recall that the manufacturer felt it important to screen, slurrify and auger feed incoming material to maintain constant feed. Also, the dimensions of the space between the two clear panels was never mentioned.
Well, at least you came up with the inventor's name and the fact that it appeared in Popular Mining in the late 80's, early 90's. This is more to go on than I had yesterday.
Does anyone have a collection of Popular Mining magazines from that era?
Regards
Bob
 

At least,,,, unless I saw the prototype......? What you find depends on what you google.
 

Traveller said:
Does anyone recall seeing a tabletop gold separator called the Hydrostatic Vertical Table? It was manufactured by Action Mining Services in the late 1980's but discontinued, I think, in the early 1990's, following the debut of their series of Micron Mill Wave Tables.

This separator was a variation on the elutriation tower theme but, instead of a clear round column of water, it employed a clear flat thin panel of upward moving water.

I actually had a videotape of this unit in action but lost it in a housefire in 1991. I would be interested in any info that could be found on this separator.

Regards
Bob
Click to expand...

I found this on google. It is a 5 volume set for the years Popular Mining magazine. They say they are out of stock, but the price isn't too bad I guess for all 5 volumes.

http://www.miningbooks.com/servlet/the-383/Popular-Mining-Encylopedia-Gold/Detail
 

I could construct an e-tower. However, this separator, if it performed as well as was claimed, would be far superior to the other e-towers. For instance, minimal fuss is involved in cleanup. The catch cup is simply unscrewed from the bottom and fine gold is sitting at the bottom of it. Also, as nuggy pointed out, because separation takes place in a clear flat panel only a few millimetres thick, the operator can precisely adjust the flow of water to suspend non-PM particles.
Regards
Bob
 

I haven't seen the vertical table you are talking about, but if you get one made i sure would like to see pictures. Thanks.
 

By all means, jimmygoat. If I only so much as find a picture of the HVT, I will post it on here for all to view. Though it is a simple device, it may take the sum effort of our collective "brains" to work out some of the specs on it.
Once all the specs are known, anyone handy with power tools and in possession of a small sheet of plexi-glass could likely construct this separator.
Regards
Bob
 

I recall these elutriation towers from the eighties. You might go back and look
at Lashley's articles with ASAT. My partner built one but quickly abandoned the
quest when problems arose. Although cheap to built they have too many inherent
disadvantages. Incredible amounts of classification are required. Your concentrate is
not going to be pure gold but a mixture of black sand and gold. (Gee that sounds like a
lot of simply water gravity concentrators today)The reason why you are not going to get a
clean gold product is

1. Gold with a FF20(flatness factor of 20) is very close to magnetite. If you intend to
remove all magnetite you will lose a lot of flat gold.
2. Flow in the tube is not equal- This was the real problem with E-towers. The flow
around the sides of the tube is less than away from the sides. You may have your
tower set up to remove a certain size magnetite but you will get quite a bit of this
magnetite flowing down around the sides.

Action Mining dropped their e-tower when the wave tables made this concept obsolete.
I guess everyone is hoping to invent the Holy Grail for simply water gravity separation devices-
A simple water gravity device that produces a clean gold product down to 300 mesh. It will never happen as long as you use water to remove non gold particles. Wave tables are effective because they do not use water to remove non gold particles off the table- the mechanical action does that.
It is funny how old ideas resurface or are recycled from the past. If they were really that effective 30 years ago everyone would be using e-towers instead of the blue bowl today.
There is a device from OZ called the Gold Rocket which is an e-tower. However with a prize tag of $3000 you can't find someone who has bought one and is willing to talk about the machine.

George
 

Hi George, great post. You are so right about the flatness factor. It makes a huge difference on recovery. Best bet is to know the size and flatness of your gold before making or buying equipment. I watched the video for the gold rocket and you still will get black sands or some gaunge as a bi product. good thing about the towers is you can use them for production, they're cheap, and use very little water. Added note- e-towers have evolved and can recover gold under 10 microns depending on the flatness of the gold. 400 mesh is 38 microns. A man that has intimate knowledge of the towers tells me they really excel at minus 200 mesh which is 75 microns. 40 micron is about the smallest gold the un-aided eye can see.
 

The Osterberg e-towers (and other similar units) suffered from unequal flow for one very obvious reason; they were attempting to maintain an equal flow in a 4" diameter pipe. Even if equal flow was attained, the second you added screened material to the concentrator, the flow was disturbed. This was further compounded by gold and black sand sitting over the orifices at the bottom of the concentrator.

However, the HVT looks nothing like the Osterberg and, outside of the fact both have an upward flow of water, is not in any way similar to the Osterberg.

Instead of gold sitting over the orifices at the bottom, as in the case of the Osterberg, the gold in the HVT passes through the pressurisation chamber and ends up in a catch cup below the pressurisation chamber; totally out of the way and easily retrievable.

The so-called "elutriation chamber" on the HVT is not a 4" dia. pipe or any other dia. of pipe. Rather, in the laboratory model, it is roughly 4" wide but only a few millimetres thick. Because it is a thin, flat panel, the turbulent vortices created in the Osterberg are eliminated in the HVT simply because there is not enough room for them to evolve. It was this total lack of turbulence that supposedly minimised the flatness effect of the smaller particles of gold. As far as I know, there is not another gold recovery unit on the market that has taken this approach. Also, the flow must be equal all across the chamber simply because it is pressurised from below and, as everyone knows, pressure in a semi-confined hydraulic system equalizes in all directions.

I actually had a discussion with the inventor of the HVT back in 1989 and he was quite emphatic that the HVT was a separator, and not a concentrator, and that the catch cup would only contain gold and other PM's. Action Mining Services is not known for making outrageous, impossible claims. Look at the ad from 1988, the claims they make for the HVT, and tell me this; was the HVT discontinued because the wave tables made it obsolete or was it too simple, too cheap to make and too easily copied in larger sizes?

Regards
Bob
 

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Hey Bob, Thanks for posting the picture. Seems like Humble was always working on new ways to recover gold. I have never seen the HVT, but was looking for another of Humbles (Action) products, The impact sluice table. This machine is a sluice with a jerking action that helps seperate the gold. Jim Humble has a book out and I think action mining sells it. I can't rememder the name of the book but I'll bet there are plans to build a HVT. Keep us posted if you make one. Jimmygoat
 

jimmy
Thanks for the tip on the book. I will check it out but I'm not holding my breath. I spoke with the people at Action Mining Services a while back and they offered no information at all about the HVT. However, it is possible Mr. Humble's book was not on the market back then so I will try again. It occurred to me to just ask them how to get in touch with him and ask him directly for help.
I will let you know how I make out.
It's strange, the Impact Sluice Table is something I remember seeing years ago but I'm afraid I couldn't tell you anything about it. If it was anything like his other inventions, it will be unique, cleverly designed and worth pursuing.
Regards
Bob
 

You can search the net for Jim Humble he is all over it with MMS - same guy.

Traveller said:
jimmy
Thanks for the tip on the book. I will check it out but I'm not holding my breath. I spoke with the people at Action Mining Services a while back and they offered no information at all about the HVT. However, it is possible Mr. Humble's book was not on the market back then so I will try again. It occurred to me to just ask them how to get in touch with him and ask him directly for help.
I will let you know how I make out.
It's strange, the Impact Sluice Table is something I remember seeing years ago but I'm afraid I couldn't tell you anything about it. If it was anything like his other inventions, it will be unique, cleverly designed and worth pursuing.
Regards
Bob
Click to expand...

I was just kind of playing around as Mr Humble is all over the internet with his MMS and he had mentioned his gold recovery method without any details. I noticed this thread and also noticed it didn't appear that you got the info you were looking for. Somewhere in the thread one of you guys mentioned that you would like to contact Mr Humble to get the details. Just thought I'd let you know if you still get info from this thread and if you are still looking for it then google Jim Humble's MMS and you will be able to find a way to contact him.
Good luck.
Rosemary
 

Traveller said:
The so-called "elutriation chamber" on the HVT is not a 4" dia. pipe or any other dia. of pipe. Rather, in the laboratory model, it is roughly 4" wide but only a few millimetres thick. Because it is a thin, flat panel, the turbulent vortices created in the Osterberg are eliminated in the HVT simply because there is not enough room for them to evolve. It was this total lack of turbulence that supposedly minimised the flatness effect of the smaller particles of gold. As far as I know, there is not another gold recovery unit on the market that has taken this approach. Also, the flow must be equal all across the chamber simply because it is pressurised from below and, as everyone knows, pressure in a semi-confined hydraulic system equalizes in all directions.
Click to expand...
Not sure why, but this made me think of laminar flow nozzles. Load a tube with soda straws or coffee stirerers.

Caution, use the restroom before watching,..

 

There have been many millions of "inventions" that were made throughout lo these long years. 99.99% died as didn't work or many other ways much easier and cheaper to do. Mutzing and a putzing is fun during those long hard cold months so go play in the sun,have some fun,get some gold and save the whatyamaycallits for the cold gloomy days-get up-get out and get ya some-I was a Action equipment/Popular Mining dealer for many years and them gagets didn't work for squat as sold BUT maybe?????John
 

Reviving old thread :laughing9:

John , that sayin much eh?! I recently saw an add for Popular Mining Magazine on ebay going like 150$ for the whole package.
 

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