Placer Claim Mined Out?

desertgolddigger

Bronze Member
May 31, 2015
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Twentynine Palms, California
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Prospecting
I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.
 

Upvote 50
I believe you purchased a jaw crusher recently. Is that why your ore going through the mill is pea gravel sized? A jaw crusher would probably be another good investment, especially with my arthritic fingers. Guess I'll look into that to put on my wish list.
Yes, I have a small jaw crusher it makes life easier but I still need to single jack rock to size. The material needs to be 1" 1/2 to 2 inches or it starts jamming. It has adjustable jaws, but I keep it tight to get the smallest crush you can run a five-gallon bucket of rocks in no time.
 

Didn't do as well with this weeks total from three 5 gallon buckets of crushed ore. Got a paltry .063 grams, not counting the 15 or so tiny pieces I picked out with tweezers. Hopefully I'll get more from the carefully picked out material, and pea gravel I toted back this past week. Most of the weight came from my drywashing of the dirt that came out of the mine, The rock only contained the ultra fine gold. Still, not a skunk like I was experiencing at the Humbug claim.
 

I may've found the reason for increased amounts of crushed ore, larger than 100 mesh. Seems I had a hidden tear in my crusher screen that was about 1/i inch wide, and about an inch long. That area was also caved in from the impacts of the chains, or ore, or both. The tear was almost unnoticeable the way it was setting, especially when you aren't consciously looking for such things.

I'll try throwing in a few scoops of the larger material, along with the new ore when I crush it. Hopefully the two buckets I accumulated this past week will slowly disappear.

I did run some of it this afternoon by itself, and saw about two cups crushed to smaller than 100 mesh. That's when I discovered the tear in the screen..

I'm hoping that running material 1/2 inch and smaller will be less damaging to things. I just need to figure out where to find an electric jaw crusher, and then get an electrician to install a 220 volt outlet.

I'll take care of this problem before considering something extremely expensive like a shaker table. I'll only get one of those if I can find a gold ore location. Right now I still don't know what kind of rock outcrops to look for in my area.
 

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I changed the screen on the mill, and put new chains on, and still have the exact same problem with almost half my ore material larger than 100 mesh. I am using the small hole screen. I wish there was a smaller hole screen (1/32 inch holes).
 

I don't know what size my final milled ore is but here's a few photos. Start to finish! I haven't been classifying just making slurry and running across the ribbed sluice. Now that were back to smaller lots I will classify and rerun anything that passes the 30-mesh screen. Maybe cooking the ore will give you a better grind?
 

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I don't know what size my final milled ore is but here's a few photos. Start to finish! I haven't been classifying just making slurry and running across the ribbed sluice. Now that were back to smaller lots I will classify and rerun anything that passes the 30-mesh screen. Maybe cooking the ore will give you a better grind?
From the third photo it looks like the results are about the same. I'm going to turn my rock tumbler into a small ball mill to see if the stuff that's about the same size as the screen holes has value in it. Otherwise, I'll just run it through my drywasher to get whatever larger gold is in it.
 

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Gents, I performed another experiment. This time, after milling 12 bucket of ore, I noted that possibly 1/2 was stuff not ground to 100 mesh or smaller.

I ran this poorly ground material again, and reduced it by about 1/3rd. I ran the poorly ground material from the second run again, and reduced that by about 1/3rd again.

This fine material I panned to see if there was gold present, and was shocked when there actually was more gold in this tiny batch as compared to my average for 10 cups of finely ground material.

I can only think that dozens of buckets with sand consistency that I threw away was richer in gold than what I got with material ground on the material I panned.

I need to find some way to improve the way my material is pulverized. Apparently a chain mill isn't very efficient at grinding material down to 100 mesh and smaller. This is the size I need to get all the available gold out of the rock I haul home. I just can't believe I may be only getting less than 50 percent of the gold in this ore because of poor grinding.

Anyone know a better way to grind ore better than a chain mill?

Also, I called Mark Keene at Keene Engineering, and he spent about 20 minutes explaining Shaker Tables. He also said that for my situation, a table isn't really something I should have. He talked about the 48 inch sluice I have, and what I can do to make it work better at processing my ore. This discussion lead me to think I should toss the magnetic riffles, and the black ribbed matting, as they are rather inefficient for my purpose. He said not to install the metal riffles, but yes, install the fibrous matting and expanded metal that came with my sluice. Of course, he also mentioned the Miracle Mat, but at $295.00 for a 35x35 section of mat, that is a big ouch. Anyone heard if this mat is good?

Anyway, I've reduced my sluice to the metal frame. I need to secure the three sections that fold. Then I have to silicone all the cracks, holes and gaps in preparation for modifying it to what Mark recommended.

This is a cheaper way to process the gold ore than the shaker table, but it's still going to cost me for that mat, the two 150 gallon water troughs, and the material to create a 3 inch siphon tube that goes between the troughs.

I also have to buy Clay-be-gone. and more Finish soap.

Never knew how difficult making processing crushed ore could be with solving so many technical issues.
 

I think I spent 24 bucks on my ribbed mat and have made thousands. What is the problem with your ribbed mat $295 for a rubber mat is way high.
 

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I think I spent 24 bucks on my ribbed mat and have made thousands. What is the problem with your ribbed mat $295 for a rubber mat is way high.
Yeah, I doubt I'll purchase the overpriced piece of rubber. But I'll be rearranging things. Seems the fiber mats and grizzly are supposed to go into the top section, with the ribbed mat in the last two sections. Mr. Keene said the grizzly with fiber mat would grab most of the gold, and the last two sections will catch whatever is gets past the first section.

The sluice box is free of everything down to bare aluminum. I just need to drill a hole so I can install a bolt, nut and washer to hold down the mat and grizzly

Then the hard part is installing the mats back into the sluice box so no water or debris can sneak under or the sides of the rubber mats. My previous work left a lot to be desired. I hate working with sillycone. :-)
 

I used 1 1/2 abs pipe to make my siphon tubes.
Unfortunately, today when I went to get the ABS stuff, Home Depot has discontinued what I was looking for, at least at our local store. I ended up with the largest pipe they had that I could afford, a 1.5 inch 10 feet long PVC. I will have to triple up on it to get the three inch ABS siphon performance.

I picked up two 110 gallon water troughs at Tractor Supply.

I just need to get the fittings for the drain inserts they have, so I can run pipes to waste water sump. I'll just add a simple valve on each to facilitate emptying them.

I should be able to do quite a few runs with these, before the water needs changing, especially if the "Clay-be-Gone actually works, and doesn't affect how gold is captured in the sluice.
 

Unfortunately, today when I went to get the ABS stuff, Home Depot has discontinued what I was looking for, at least at our local store. I ended up with the largest pipe they had that I could afford, a 1.5 inch 10 feet long PVC. I will have to triple up on it to get the three inch ABS siphon performance.
You're going to fall about 25% short of equality if you use just three 1.5" siphon tubes instead of one 3". The area of three 1.5" tubes is about 5.3 square inches whereas one 3" tube is about 7.1 square inches. To keep both tubs at same water level, the siphons must be able to transfer at least as much water as your pump capacity.....try what you have and add capacity if necessary.

Good luck.
 

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I can't say enough about the flexible animal feed buckets that I use from Tractor supply. Then I use 3" abs for the siphon. I wrote about my set up here, just follow the numbers.
I just use a 3" elbo with a 3" street elbo glued into it for the 180° then a couple 6" pieces of 3" abs for the arms... cheap as it gets...

 

How big is the pipe feeding your sluice?
My sluice hose is 2 inches, but I only run the sluice so that the matting is just covered with a film of water. So I'm not even close to running at full capacity.

Remember, most of the gold I am getting is very small, probably averaging 250-300 mesh, so a strong water flow would blow that gold right through the sluice.
 

I can't say enough about the flexible animal feed buckets that I use from Tractor supply. Then I use 3" abs for the siphon. I wrote about my set up here, just follow the numbers.
I just use a 3" elbo with a 3" street elbo glued into it for the 180° then a couple 6" pieces of 3" abs for the arms... cheap as it gets...

I'll keep looking for a source larger pipe. Every time I go to our local Home Depot, thinking I'll get what I need, they are either out, or have quit carrying the item. It's really the pits living in the Morongo Basin. You have very little chance of finding what you need, other than basics.
 

You're going to fall about 25% short of equality if you use just three 1.5" siphon tubes instead of one 3". The area of three 1.5" tubes is about 5.3 square inches whereas one 3" tube is about 7.1 square inches. To keep both tubs at same water level, the siphons must be able to transfer at least as much water as your pump capacity.....try what you have and add capacity if necessary.

Good luck.
My pump capacity is 2100 gallons per hour, but I doubt I'm running 1/4 that due to the super fine gold that forces me to keep the water flow very docile.
 

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