Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

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.

 

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[Assembler]

Great find! I wonder if that aluminum cone can be welded to the base steel plate. I envisioned my local welder taking then steel plate, and adding something on the outside he could easily bend into a circle. Add that cone, and you have the trap area for grinding. Add material and water, and start the motor. Of course my welder would also need to cut a nice central hole for the shaft, and then add a bearing for the shaft.

I.ve various diameters steel round stock that are 12 inches long that might work, though a foot might be too short.

The project is fun thinking and planning, but not sure if it is cost effective. Of course, my shaker table ended up costing me about 2K, most of the materials I thought would work being useless. I chalk the mistake purchases to being inexperienced.

One should be able to drill and tap holes around the edge if thick enough to pull the two parts together. That is both the aluminum to the steel bottom wear plate with a center cone to keep the materials where you what them.

 

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[desertgolddigger]

I've thought on this for a few days, and decided, while an interesting project, I won't pursue it. Cost for just the steel bottom plate is $600, and the high torque, slow motor, about the same.

I'll stick with my mini cement mixer ball mill.

Any other project will have to wait until cooler weather comes. My just doing my landscaping project, and running a little material through the mill and sifters is taking a toll on me. I just can't handle the 90F something temperature around 9AM. I'll just concentrate on finishing up milling, sifting and sluicing my material from the club claim. So far that's producing oodles of super fine gold. That'll keep me busy for a month or so.

 

[Assembler]

I've thought on this for a few days, and decided, while an interesting project, I won't pursue it. Cost for just the steel bottom plate is $600, and the high torque, slow motor, about the same.

I'll stick with my mini cement mixer ball mill.

Any other project will have to wait until cooler weather comes. My just doing my landscaping project, and running a little material through the mill and sifters is taking a toll on me. I just can't handle the 90F something temperature around 9AM. I'll just concentrate on finishing up milling, sifting and sluicing my material from the club claim. So far that's producing oodles of super fine gold. That'll keep me busy for a month or so.

You have a good point about the cost in general. With that being said how about what some others do out side of the U.S.A. say using wood with metal on top with sheet metal cones as the material deflectors to really keep the costs down?
The wood with metal setup is not designed to last a long time in general however still can get the job done.

 

[russau]

$$$$$$$$$$ is a killer to a DIY project ! I've been in several project's myself that I stopped on because of it and or found a cheaper / EZ'er way to do it ! I'm doing a small project that this just happened and I'm kicking myself right now for NOT going this new /cheaper /EZer way in the first place !

 

[Assembler]

How about buying second hand exercise weights such as 40 - 100 weights that are steel and have a 1" shaft hole in the center as the core parts of the wet pan?
Use thick wood for the bottom with sheet metal covering the bottom with some sheet metal cones to divert the materials to the working bottom of the wet pan.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Here's a thought, people. How about a mini sandblaster that blasts the material against a hardened steel plate to break it into tiny pieces? Could rerun it as many times as you want until arriving at the desired size. All it would require is a small and sandblast nozzle. Size the nozzle for the material to reduce the amount of air needed. Would be too expensive for a large operation, but might work for a smaller outfit.
Jim

 

[Assembler]

Here's a thought, people. How about a mini sandblaster that blasts the material against a hardened steel plate to break it into tiny pieces? Could rerun it as many times as you want until arriving at the desired size. All it would require is a small and sandblast nozzle. Size the nozzle for the material to reduce the amount of air needed. Would be too expensive for a large operation, but might work for a smaller outfit.
Jim

Good idea. Some may not like the noise and amount of dust. If the system is mostly self contained will help a lot.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

Could attach a vacuum to handle any dust.
Jim

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

The idea was broached years ago on this very site. Blast it horizontally into a hole in a pipe or box tube. Cap the top and flood the bottom in water. Like a barely filled pail so it doesn't spray around. The problem turns out you have to scrape the gold off the wall, so you need to make your device open-able.