just for fun put some gold through -150 mesh screen

[zemetrius]

bought some 150 mesh screen from amazon, this piece of gold went through that screen, tip of a safety pin for scale.
white light through a yellow paper reduces the glare (from the white light) on the gold.

this is using a microscope i bought on amazon, has a nice view screen so i am not looking through the lens to see the gold.

this is without the yellow paper filtering the white light .

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

I have read somewhere about the use of the flowing water off of the American Falls.

I'm in the process of playing with a type of dry air movement of fines with the first stage acting as the 'puff' / surge control that the operator controls with the rest going down a 'wind tunnel sluice' and then into a few stage traps. Trying to control the losses in the process. Just a fancy dry concentrator in steps / stages for the different sizes......LOL.

I wanted to get away from any kind of blower. My dry sluice doesn't use one. But, I may revisit that at some point. If the new riffle works as I think it will, the motion I designed in will keep everything behind the riffles in motion. That was the snag I ran into with the plain drop riffle setup...with silt in the material, some compaction took place. Can't have that. But blowers, or puffers, tend to blow out the true flour....the Corey Shape Factor on flour is simply too high.
Best of luck with yours!
Jim

 

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[Assembler]

I wanted to get away from any kind of blower. My dry sluice doesn't use one. But, I may revisit that at some point. If the new riffle works as I think it will, the motion I designed in will keep everything behind the riffles in motion. That was the snag I ran into with the plain drop riffle setup...with silt in the material, some compaction took place. Can't have that. But blowers, or puffers, tend to blow out the true flour....the Corey Shape Factor on flour is simply too high.
Best of luck with yours!
Jim

Corey Shape Factor:
The Corey shape factor (β) is a logical dimensionless shape factor expressing the relative flatness of the particle where ab represents the particle projected area and c corre- sponds to the particle thickness.

Idea here try one step of dry shaking to help concentrate the flatter particles first into a more condensed concentrated layer.

The advantage of a partial (that is in 'puff' / surge controlled) gone with the wind step is to move the flour away from the courser particles acting as a crude classify process and just let the flour precipitate / gravity out. Some will ad a electrostatic process step I'm not there yet.

I'm referring or calling my process steps a more controlled flow of the flour away from the courser values. In short "Gone with the Wind"..............LOL.

Some slightly out of my control steps is part of the process and let the law's of nature take place along the way to intentionally separate the wheat from the flour chaff.

 

[Assembler]

Must be a sure sign of an addiction if one is found posting over a holiday about flour values you can't even see........

 

[Assembler]

I wanted to get away from any kind of blower. My dry sluice doesn't use one. But, I may revisit that at some point. If the new riffle works as I think it will, the motion I designed in will keep everything behind the riffles in motion. That was the snag I ran into with the plain drop riffle setup...with silt in the material, some compaction took place. Can't have that. But blowers, or puffers, tend to blow out the true flour....the Corey Shape Factor on flour is simply too high.
Best of luck with yours!
Jim

There is way less compaction with a 'wind tunnel sluice' and the down side is the drop riffle will fill up fast. You got me to think about having a good shaker process first then run the tailing materials through the wind tunnel sluice.

By the way some earth compactors can shake around 50-60 pounds at a time very fast at the normal 6-12 degree shoe angle that the compactor moves forward on. That is enough for many sluice boxes if the box can take the shaking.

O-no you got me to think of the next project...........

 

[Assembler]

I'm thinking most of the flour values will separate best with the wind treatment first then shake with another wind treatment.
No two deposits are going to be the same as far as the type, size, and amount of each values.

 

[Assembler]

No longer available Kobalt K rail in black

Tend to not pack tight in use with wind tunnel tests for riffle. Cut in half to make two riffles.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-Black-PVC-Multipurpose-Storage-Rail/3374252

 

[Jim in Idaho]

There is way less compaction with a 'wind tunnel sluice' and the down side is the drop riffle will fill up fast. You got me to think about having a good shaker process first then run the tailing materials through the wind tunnel sluice.

By the way some earth compactors can shake around 50-60 pounds at a time very fast at the normal 6-12 degree shoe angle that the compactor moves forward on. That is enough for many sluice boxes if the box can take the shaking.

O-no you got me to think of the next project...........

The eccentric in those plate compactors are enormous. Can't imagine the weight of the sluice you'd have to build to stand up to it. One of the keys to my dry sluice is to minimize the amount of material in the sluice, and keep the "dead" weight down, too. Less weight=better action.
Jim

 

[Assembler]

The eccentric in those plate compactors are enormous. Can't imagine the weight of the sluice you'd have to build to stand up to it. One of the keys to my dry sluice is to minimize the amount of material in the sluice, and keep the "dead" weight down, too. Less weight=better action.
Jim

How about a simple steel sheet metal box at an angle. The stand to hold everything including the compactor is a different matter. Not your typical back pack model for sure as the old earth compactor I have is easy 80 - 95 lbs. alone.

 

[Assembler]

10 lbs capacity HF paint shaker for much smaller batches.

https://www.harborfreight.com/pneumatic-paint-shaker-94605.html?_br_psugg_q=paint+shaker

 

[Jim in Idaho]

People miss out on the specifics of the motion needed. Would be nice if it was simply back and forth. Alas, it is not...LOL. On the other hand high-speed vibration doesn't work well, either, assuming you're after ALL the gold. Any old motion works on coarse gold, but few of us have coarse gold to recover. And, if you can recover the flour, the coarse will take care of itself.
Jim

 

[Assembler]

People miss out on the specifics of the motion needed. Would be nice if it was simply back and forth. Alas, it is not...LOL. On the other hand high-speed vibration doesn't work well, either, assuming you're after ALL the gold. Any old motion works on coarse gold, but few of us have coarse gold to recover. And, if you can recover the flour, the coarse will take care of itself.
Jim

Fluid motion can happen when materials hit the walls or a wall ring in a pan.

The up and down movement of a earth compactor is an angled up and down movement with the shoe on and a straight up and down movement with the shoe off. The materials can have a different fluid motion with this action.

A wind tunnel works differently then a straight up and down movement with the turbulent flows.

A pulse or 'puff' can mimic the action of a rod through loose material particles.

Centrifuge action can help to separate materials.

The general idea here is different action steps can be used to help separate the flour sized particles from the color size values with less screening that is often the biggest bottle neck that can slow the over all process.

Playing / fine tuning with some different actions will help one to separate the different size particles as there will still be losses as the electric charge that magnetite / natures minerals have on small value particles is always there. The electrostatic process can help with the losses.

One can live with these losses as one process will not catch it all.

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

10 lbs capacity HF paint shaker for much smaller batches.

https://www.harborfreight.com/pneumatic-paint-shaker-94605.html?_br_psugg_q=paint+shaker

Now that there, right there, is an interesting thing. Get a pressure cooker from a thrift store ... add some ball bearings & your lode rocks .... let 'er rip. Rock crusher extraordinaire

 

[Assembler]

Now that there, right there, is an interesting thing. Get a pressure cooker from a thrift store ... add some ball bearings & your lode rocks .... let 'er rip. Rock crusher extraordinaire

Yep I got lucky at an estate sale last late summer and picked up one for very little cost all ready mounted to about 80lbs. of steal on a cheap steal dolly. Used it for paint so far and I would say 10lbs capacity is pushing it. Did not think to use it yet as you suggest but I'm up for the test.

I will have to get a much better inline oiler first before using some more.

 

[Assembler]

I think I will use it next to shake down some test batches of fine materials to see how well it works. Then I'm up for the pressure cooker ball mill test to see how well it scrubs some black sands and who knows some ore rock?

 

[Assembler]

Well tomorrow I will likely buy the lubricator below for 25% off of price:

MERLIN 3/8 in. NPT(F) Filter /Regulator/Lubricator

https://www.harborfreight.com/38-in-nptf-filter-regulatorlubricator-58184.html

 

[Assembler]

Now that there, right there, is an interesting thing. Get a pressure cooker from a thrift store ... add some ball bearings & your lode rocks .... let 'er rip. Rock crusher extraordinaire

I have rounded up small aluminum pot with a round edge top that just may stay put in the jaws for the first test. Next I will shop for some other containers for other tests.

The down side so far is the jaws don't work well for anything but a paint can. That's why it is called a paint shaker. Perhaps a different type and shape of jaws will be needed.

I'm ahead of the game some as I have some ball bearings to work with. I don't think this is a good in town ball mill due to the noise factor...........

 

[Assembler]

The silt / muck factor of -150 and below can be a real pain to handle. If most of this size materials is removed that can be a big factor on processing the bigger materials.

 

[Assembler]

Panning and shaker processing below -150 is a real bottle neck stopper on time and energy as a general rule.
Dry sluicing is way way faster as a general rule. A big difference even with the loss factors included.

 

[N-Lionberger]

In my reading of personal accounts of the California gold rush I have seen many references to miners trying to recover gold dust the fineness of mustard powder.

 

[Assembler]

In my reading of personal accounts of the California gold rush I have seen many references to miners trying to recover gold dust the fineness of mustard powder.

Carried out with a shaker equipment?
Other equipment?
Thanks