SHOP VACS FOR MINING

[jog]

I have a claim that is an old hydraulic mine, it has very good bedrock with about a foot of overburden on it in most places. I have located two different spots where there high pressure water washed the overburden to the sluice box. I have tested the overburden all the way down to bedrock and have color throughout all the way to bedrock. There is no way to get water up to this location so I have been thinking of using a large shop vac and my generator to start cleaning off the bedrock in the area's I have tested. I would some how set up the shop vac so it would be in the back of my truck, I would keep dumping it until I have a pretty good load then go down to a holding pond that is at the other end of the claim where I could run it through my trommel. I am looking for ideas for the shop vac part of it because I'm sure there are some great ideas out there.

 

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[Doitlaynstyle]

That attachment AZ speaks of might be just a be a pipe bell'ed up in size going straight up off of the outlet.

 

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[wingmaster]

I've been thinking about one like this for vacing out cracks in the bedrock but probably open it up and make leads for a real battery so it won't go dead very quick.

I use this little guy and just dump the contents into a 5 gallon bucket. They take the standard Dewalt rechargeable batteries so if you have a couple of batteries you can swap out while one is charging.

View attachment 893700

 

[AzViper]

Jog if you run a vac without a filter, small bits of rock/sand/debris will hit the fan blade and eventually break the fan.i found this out the hard way.now i also carry a spare fan blade/filter and prefilter sock to go over the filter element!and youll still need to clean it off often!

I have been running two of the vacs I built. We picked up rock and clay from dust to 1" and I see no damage to the fan blades. Again you have to have a deflector that deflects the dirt and rock downward from the intake of the blade. There is no way the vac is going to pull the dirt up from the bucket into the blades. I have yet to hear anything remotely hitting the blades. I use no filter at all. I also have the suction inlet 6" below the fan blade intake. This is why I went with a 6 gallon bucket giving me more height and allows more dirt to fill into the bucket. Once the dirt get over the intake you loose suction.

 

[Fullpan]

Instead of renting an mini-excavator for breaking up overburden, depending on whether the ground is really compacted or not, you might try a red-neck
operation of just using rope slings to yank out the sagebrush with truck or ATV. And go back over the ground with jerry-rigged "harrow" or "plow" like farmers use, again using the truck or ATV. I've seen this used successfully on metal-detecting grounds.

 

[russau]

well i guess my fanblade cracking was just its time to be that way!OR it was a AAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW sh*t monment! i still bring along a spare blade.

 

[jog]

There is enough material that is fairly loose that has sluffed off the wall that could be easly dug by hand. By hand means no permits required, excavator requires permits so not sure if I want to go through all that right now. I don't know if there would be enough room for a small harrow or disc, you would only be able to go back and forth. It's the last foot and a half that will be the tuff part.
AzViper- you seem to know how these shop vacs work pretty well, can you tell me if they will work without a canister and if not can a person make a regular shop vac work on a 55 gallon drum?

 

[AzViper]

well i guess my fanblade cracking was just its time to be that way!OR it was a AAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW sh*t monment! i still bring along a spare blade.

I believe you that a rock broke your blade. All I am saying is that the Vac suction inlet needs to be a safe distance from the suction opening of the blower motor and to use a deflector over the suction inlet to direct the paydirt downward from the blade. When I built the two Vac's I used the stock finger guards. I have seen a host of other home Vac's that the user placed the suction inlet near the top of the bucket trying to utilize the entire bucket to capture more dirt between dumping the dirt, but not realizing that the suction inlet is near the suction opening of the blower motor.

 

[AzViper]

AzViper- you seem to know how these shop vacs work pretty well, can you tell me if they will work without a canister and if not can a person make a regular shop vac work on a 55 gallon drum?

Jog I can't see a reason that you can't use a shop vac provided you have the HP. How about building this lid (4th Photo) where you can just attach your vac to it and everything drops into the barrel. The third photo that vac head is sold by Grainger.



Jog a 55 gallon barrel has 7.352 cubic feet within the drum. I am not sure that a shop vac can move the volume of air within the drum to have lots of suction. You could pick up a lid and build the lid like the 4th photo and try your shop vac without investing much. I would use straight fittings and not the degree pipes. We have a Vac lid for a 55 gallon barrel at work. Let me check the HP of the motor. I really think you need the HP’s to displace lots of air.

The key is having a completely sealed system. Make sure the lid has a rubber gasket, fittings on the drum or lid are sealed.

 

[AzViper]

Jog, the barrel Vac we have up at work has a 5hp motor and develops lots of suction.

 

[jog]

Thanks, I will look into that.

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

Been a while, but I thought those little shop vacs don't use a separate fan for motor cooling. You don't want a lot of crap going through the motor.

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

Been a while, but I thought those little shop vacs don't use a separate fan for motor cooling. You don't want a lot of crap going through the motor.

 

[russau]

AZ/Jog i also made a shop vac on to a 30 gallon barell to vac out my hot tub. it works fine. and both of my vacs have the defelector installed.

 

[TheNewCatfish]

The Ole Timers used gravity and wind in a process called "winnowing" to get the gold outt'a their dirt. Basically they threw the dirt on a blanket and fliped it into the air. The dirt blew away and the gold fell back on the blanket. Pretty simple. I seen a fella at Point Bar, Colorado use a variable speed wet-vac to extract gold from black sand. He connected a small 1/4 inch clear plastic hose to the wet-vac using duct tape. Then made four loops in the hose about as big around as a beach ball. Next he stuck the end of the hose into a bucket of dry concentrate and turned on the wet-vac. After a minor adjustment that only took seconds, I watched the sand being sucked over the tops of the loops and the fine gold slide backwards and settle in the bottom of each loop. It was a BONANZA moment ! My eyes teared up. It was like watching the first man who discovered how to make FIRE. Actually he wasn't doing anything more amazing than what the Ole Timers were doing with a blanket and some wind. Air (suction) and gravity. Pretty simple. After he finished the bucket, i asked if i could pan some of the dirt in the wet-vac just to check the efficiency of the process. I panned quite a bit of it. Didn't find as much as a particle of micro gold. Try it for yourself. I think you'll be as impressed as I was.

 

[The Old Man]

goldenIrishman, I just found this web site so my response is kind of late, but better late than never, they say. I manufacture a potable gas powered vac for gold prospecting called (Removed by mod) You can learn more about it and how it works from my web site. (Removed by mod) from there you can contact me if you have any questions.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Old man you would need to be a supporting vendor to advertise your website to sell...






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We will NOT go quietly into the night!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Hummmm I don't remember asking about them in this thread. Besides... I'm like AzViper and a lot of others on here and prefer to make my own equipment whenever possible. That way I know how to fix it if it breaks down.

 

[AzViper]

Hummmm I don't remember asking about them in this thread. Besides... I'm like AzViper and a lot of others on here and prefer to make my own equipment whenever possible. That way I know how to fix it if it breaks down.

Yea we all have seen the pork size vac. Its the blue vac on steroids with a gas blower motor on it. I would hate to try to move the vac full of dirt in a wash with the narrow wheels. The vac must hold 18 to 30 gallons of dirt. Its nothing that we builders can't build using the method I used using a Echo PB-255 blower motor. Basically a barrel strapped to a dolly just a little fancier.

 

[jog]

Jog I can't see a reason that you can't use a shop vac provided you have the HP. How about building this lid (4th Photo) where you can just attach your vac to it and everything drops into the barrel. The third photo that vac head is sold by Grainger.

View attachment 895093 View attachment 895094 View attachment 895098 View attachment 895108

Jog a 55 gallon barrel has 7.352 cubic feet within the drum. I am not sure that a shop vac can move the volume of air within the drum to have lots of suction. You could pick up a lid and build the lid like the 4th photo and try your shop vac without investing much. I would use straight fittings and not the degree pipes. We have a Vac lid for a 55 gallon barrel at work. Let me check the HP of the motor. I really think you need the HP’s to displace lots of air.

The key is having a completely sealed system. Make sure the lid has a rubber gasket, fittings on the drum or lid are sealed.

View attachment 895152

AZV
I found a shop vac with 6.5 horsepower and the 2.5" hose. I am assuming that the barrel & lid with the two adapters that you show welded into it would be put between the vacume and my working end of the hose?

 

[AzViper]

Jog, if your building your own the center pipe would need to extend down into the barrel 12" of which is where you attach the hose your going to suck your gold up with. The other pipe will only extend just inside the barrel and this is where you attach the vacuum. My concern if the shop vac can handle the volume within a large barrel without loss of suction power. You will need to have a seal lid. What do you have to loose if you already have the vac.