Made my own Miller Table with a "Hopper"

[SunshineMiner]

Hello TNet!

First post! Pretty exciting. I've been lurking these glorious pages for a couple months now, gotten quit a few ideas, lots of inspiration, and lots of laughs too
I've only been out a couple times with bucket/classifiers/pan to bring home some dirt to test. Basically I'm trying to get my technique down before visiting my aunts place up by Weaverville, CA.
She lives on a small creek her and her husband used to dredge, well, they havent done that in quite a few years due to the ban and they havent even gotten in there to dig a few holes due to aging.
My plan is to get in there this summer and have a field day! I think i'll do ok considering they used to go down to Quartsite, NM(or AZ) for some swap meet sort of thing and my uncle(being an uncle)
said they used to take pounds down there when it was $250 an oz

Anywhooo... So I finally threw down and made a miller table. Had a piece of plywood laying around, bought a piece of poplar for the sides/back, and another piece for a dam to even the flow. Bought the duck brand Easy Liner AND a hobby mat to try out after the Easy Liner. I want to see if it still holds gold, yet clears easier.
Had some pvc laying around from my highbanker build that is still in the process . Also a 500gph attawood(walmart) cartridge pump. I also put a vial underneath so I can just sweep the gold up. At the moment the way I have the hopper(and material classified) I get some unwanted material in there, so i'll have to adjust. I went out and bout some more 1/2"pvc and some fittings/valve and some 1/2" vinyl tubing and a little drawer organizer? Not sure, but a little rectangle box for use as a hopper. I drilled a hole and put a T fitting and connected the hose, drilled a bunch of slightly larger than 1/8"(cant remember the bit size) holes.

So far it's worked pretty good! The Easy Liner definitely holds gold and other material VERY well I definitely need to work on tuning it, and having better classifiers might help as well I think the smallest I have is 12 mesh lol. Oh well. The material I ran through the video is done with a kitchen strainer.. pretty small holes, looks smaller than my #12. Just super clayish material and so the water is pretty dirty and has lots of silt. I have two tubs in the big tub, one for catching the runoff, and another the pump sits in to try and keep the big stuff out of the pump.

Props to AzViper, Kazcoro, UTAvalanche, and a couple others for the inspiration



A little bit of gold, pretty small flakes.. But its something!


And a picture of the 2nd valve i made to control hopper flow


Hope you guys enjoy! Feel free to ask away! I'll see you guys around!

Sunshine

 

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[DizzyDigger]

Howdy Sunshine, and welcome to Tnet!

Nice lookin' table ya made, and looks like it'll do the job OK. As
for classifiers, yep, you need to get some more. I don't run anything
larger than #30 mesh on my table, and it preforms best with material
that's less than #60 mesh.

Classifiers in 30, 60 and 100 mesh should give you a good start, and
that's honestly all I use. I use some 6" ones I bought off the bay, and
they do a great job classifying the concentrates.

One change I did make on my table was to take that ball valve and throw
it as far away as I could, replacing it with a multi-turn gate valve. Now, there's
pinpoint control over the water flow, which is critical to a table working correctly.

Glad to have ya on-board!

 

[SunshineMiner]

Thanks Dizzy! I'll keep at it and make classifiers as I can.. I made some bucket classifiers like these: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/375049-diy-bucket-classifier.html
made those to 1/8" and bought a #12... I found a place where I can buy wire mesh down to #150 so i'm going for that

 

[elgatodelnoche]

Welcome to Tnet. Nice Miller Table you have built.

 

[Jimmydolittle]

Nice build, but at the angle it is at, it retains too much blonde, and black sand. In my opinion it should be moving the lighter material off faster. This comes from a man who doesn't even own a table, so I'm not trying to be overly critical of it.

 

[arizau]

It sounds like you are feeding your table with paydirt that has not been previously panned to concentrate the heavies including gold. Do this and you will eliminate most of the silt and clay ( the cause of the dirty water) as well as probably being able to separate and snuffer bottle much of your gold. A miller table should only be used for final clean up of the hard to recover gold in the remaining black sands, etc. and not for primary recovery. Good luck.