Simple solution to fine gold recovery

[johnedoe]

This was developed by Randy Clarkson, an expert in gold recovery designs.

A simple gizmo to help miners snag lost gold..... New gizmo could help placer miners snag lost gold | Yukon News

Also this by Randy Clarkson on fine gold recovery which is somewhat misleading in that this is mostly about commercial ops and 1" minus classification is considered fine....... The Clarkson Study Fine Gold Recovery

Here is a PDF presentation of the process....... http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/pdf/141114_Nov1014_Grinding_for_Gold_Presentation.pdf ....... Thank you arizau for finding that PDF

Enjoy the learning.

 

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[bobw53]

I'm planning on either building or buying one of these. It's very interesting to me. I was at Home Depot today and looking for rods. They do have steel rods of the perfect diameters but no iron rods. Does it really matter if they are steel or iron? If so can someone explain it to me?

"iron" rods are few and far between, you can get them, but you will pay. Steel, Iron with some other stuff...

Check Online Metals and Speedy metals. They will even cut them for you for a bit of a premium... Pretty much the lowest quality crap you
can get your hands on should work just fine. Check on E-bay also... For CHEAP, you want A36, or 1018 or 1020. A36 is pretty much
just "commercial quality structural steel", pretty much the crappiest stuff out there, usually hot rolled and has some scale on it.
1018 and 1020, a tiny bit up the ladder, 1018 is usually cold rolled, and the 1020 usually comes in hot rolled.

You will see stuff listed as "Hot Rolled" and "Cold Rolled", for the purposes of a rod mill, fine, but it doesn't have anything to do with the alloy of the
metal, just the manufacturing process, and when material is simply called Hot or Cold Rolled, my skin crawls... kind of like when somebody refers
to aluminum as "billet"... Makes me want to puke.

If you end up with some nice cheap rods with mill scale on them from the hot rolling process, it will probably come off eventually in the mill, or soak
it in some vinegar for a day or so.. You can also grind it off, but that's a pain, and its dirty.

Also, for cheaper material than the big box stores, check your local area for metal suppliers, even small cities have them. We are a county of only 180,000
almost the size of Connecticut, and we have 2 of them. If you have local machine shops, they may have some drops (drop: left over bits after you already
got what you needed from the bar), they will also have a bandsaw to cut it to size for you... Scrap yard also, they may have all the drops the machine shop
already brought in for recycling.

 

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[GoldpannerDave]

Here are the rods.

Not bad for free, huh?

Now to see if they work as well as Kevin's did.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Metal shear? https://www.google.com/webhp?source...spv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=metal shear to cut steel rod


PS: The rod charge on the original design was about half full if I recall correctly so you may want to take another trip if results are less than hoped for. Maybe a few of a larger size, as the design illustrates, too. The motor should be pretty durable since rock polishers are designed to run for days on end.

Yes, that looks sort of like it; same green color, too.

I know that the rod charge was much bigger but I was hoping Kevin's results with even less rods than I will have (and he had a larger diameter container also) are indicative of what I might expect. Of course, Kevin rolled his rods for a great deal more time than Randy Clarkson did (like 1-2 hours I think vs about 10 minutes...to get this posted I am not going to go look right now for the exact times). Still, if I don't get results like his, there is another 4 feet left on that scrap rod and I think I can talk my way into having my new friend shear another couple of feet's worth of rods off of it.

I appreciate you bringing it up; and the motor durability, too--that is encouraging; should have thought about it myself. I was thinking of having a charge over half full when I was worrying about the motor, so with a lesser amount of iron to roll, it should be fine. Thanks. I will post some results and pictures here.

 

[mytimetoshine]

I would think for testing purposes maybe more that a motor isn't even necessary. You could build some rollers and manually spin the canister. Maybe attach a crank handle to the end?

 

[arizau]

I'm planning on either building or buying one of these. It's very interesting to me. I was at Home Depot today and looking for rods. They do have steel rods of the perfect diameters but no iron rods. Does it really matter if they are steel or iron? If so can someone explain it to me?

Also I'm still a bit confused on the process. So is this done dry or wet? If wet,it would seem to me, that it would be very difficult to remove the material.

This link is the inventors formal presentation and explains the process, operating procedures, etc. What others are mostly discussing here are their ideas for some kind of a scaled down "do it yourself home remedy"....may not work as well as an original but works well enough.

http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/pdf/141114_Nov1014_Grinding_for_Gold_Presentation.pdf

Good luck.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

I would think for testing purposes maybe more that a motor isn't even necessary. You could build some rollers and manually spin the canister. Maybe attach a crank handle to the end?

True. I thought about using an electric ice cream maker on its side. Then I thought about a hand-cranked one. However, with the lighter charge of rods in the smaller canisters, you are probably are going to have to turn them longer than the 7 minutes Randy Clarkson used. Kevin's time was over an hour. Not sure I want to hand-crank over an hour. Of course, there is still the electric ice cream maker, though it would need some modifications.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

This link is the inventors formal presentation and explains the process, operating procedures, etc. What others are mostly discussing here are their ideas for some kind of a scaled down "do it yourself home remedy"....may not work as well as an original but works well enough.

http://www.geology.gov.yk.ca/pdf/141114_Nov1014_Grinding_for_Gold_Presentation.pdf

Good luck.

Thanks for clarifying for new readers and for the good luck wishes. Kevin's experiment sure did flatten the gold, just like it was supposed to. Of course, we are not going to be doing "... 2 pounds of black sand collected from the vibrating table along with about 2 cups of water in the mill and run the unit for about 7 minutes." Trading time for money, we are. Smaller batches run longer but still flattening the gold.

 

[Disfunctional]

I'm glad to see that the whole idea of reducing the size of a rod mill for separating gold from black sand concentrates, is proving to be an effective method. I hadn't bothered to consider building a scaled down rod mill for use in a "conventional" home application. Living "off the grid" I tend to focus on 12 volt DC for most everything, which is why I was thinking along the lines of using a windshield wiper motor to drive a rod mill. Being able to use the device in remote area's, run off a battery and solar panel, or cigarette lighter plug seems more efficient for my needs, but whatever works for others, so long as it works as intended.

I was kind of curious to find out if people in other area's noticed any increase in the percentage of gold recovered using a rod mill, as compared to other methods? And do others have issues with sulfides requiring the use of salt and heat to recover additional gold? If so does the use of a rod mill work well in increasing overall gold recovery and by what percentage? I'm thinking that some small scale miner's in your respective area's may find your replies useful to their situations.

The more details you all provide, means the less problems others will have in replicating your work. Looking forward to more reports of results. Best of luck to all!

 

[arizau]

I'm planning on either building or buying one of these. It's very interesting to me. I was at Home Depot today and looking for rods. They do have steel rods of the perfect diameters but no iron rods. Does it really matter if they are steel or iron? If so can someone explain it to me?

As to steel or iron...The main thing is to have relatively heavy, straight, cylindrical rods contained in a larger straight sided cylinder. That configuration ensures that there will be maximum potential contact area rod to rod or rod to container which, in turn, maximizes the grind of waste material and the flattening effect on the gold. The cylinder depth/rod length should be longer than the cylinder diameter to ensure that rods cannot turn sideways while in operation.

Grinding rods, as were used in the mine where I used to work, were made of a special, wear resistant, alloy. They were used because the mill operated 24/7/365, processed thousands of tons of ore per day and were only shut down when mill liners needed to be replaced, rods needed to be replenished or there was some type of mechanical issue. The longer the rods lasted the less shutdown time was necessary.

With as little operating time a little home mill will likely run, there is little chance one would wear the rods out in their lifetime so use what you can find.

Hope this helps your understanding.

PS: Utilizing varying sizes of rods will fill in voids rod to rod, as long as stacking occurs, and increase overall total contact area...shorten the grind cycle time.

 

[johnedoe]

Thank's for getting this back in line with the original intent of the thread.
All these junior inventors trying to reinvent the wheel just waste time and money ....
They will spend a buck trying to save a dime......

So with that said .... for those of you who still "Don't get it" read the article and the parameters of the mill.... if you do that it will give you what you need to be able to re-scale the drum and rods.... also remember the speed is important too.

Hope this is politically correct enough for all you wanna-be inventors cause ya really don't want to her what I was going to originally wright........

 

[Duckwalk]

Just because you add a laughing face at the end of the sentence does not mean it isn't disrespectful. Some of us are on a budget and some of us want to try and build something ourselves. Besides, if you are going to insult someone for wanting to do things their own way, please fix your spelling. Its "hear" and "write". And to call us junior inventors? everyone starts somewhere, there is no need to put someone down in every single post you add to these forums.

 

[johnedoe]

Have a good day......
Actually ... I seem to be getting a bit more cranky in my old age and my tolerance for BS is diminishing dramatically..
I will try to temper my responses a bit more in the future.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

As to steel or iron...The main thing is to have relatively heavy, straight, cylindrical rods contained in a larger straight sided cylinder. That configuration ensures that there will be maximum potential contact area rod to rod or rod to container which, in turn, maximizes the grind of waste material and the flattening effect on the gold. The cylinder depth/rod length should be longer than the cylinder diameter to ensure that rods cannot turn sideways while in operation.

Grinding rods, as were used in the mine where I used to work, were made of a special, wear resistant, alloy. They were used because the mill operated 24/7/365, processed thousands of tons of ore per day and were only shut down when mill liners needed to be replaced, rods needed to be replenished or there was some type of mechanical issue. The longer the rods lasted the less shutdown time was necessary.

With as little operating time a little home mill will likely run, there is little chance one would wear the rods out in their lifetime so use what you can find.

Hope this helps your understanding.

PS: Utilizing varying sizes of rods will fill in voids rod to rod, as long as stacking occurs, and increase overall total contact area...shorten the grind cycle time.

Your last point about varying the sizes of the rods--it is on my list of projects as far as rods go. However, I just wanted to get started and it was easier to take advantage of the scrap that was available yesterday. And you are correct; note the picture of Randy Clarkson's mill on the earlier pages of this thread.

 

[KevinInColorado]

@johndoe - I get grumpy sometimes too and my wife is sure it's because I'm getting older

Great presentation on rod mills. I should add that I ran mine dry (not wet as they recommend...oops?) Like them I only put a modest amount of material in to process. Unlike them I made-do with the rods and junk that was on hand...they ran with 40% of the volume being rods so I need to step up the rods for sure. Also you can see a dry wall screw that I ran through the wall of my drum to ensure tumbling not just rolling...what you can't see in the pic is that there's a row of 5 of them in a line! Unsure that was needed. Anyway, it works!

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Have a good day......
Actually ... I seem to be getting a bit more cranky in my old age and my tolerance for BS is diminishing dramatically..
I will try to temper my responses a bit more in the future.

John, what BS?? Look at the picture Kevin posted. He got flattened gold. End of BS charges, thank you very much.

I still don't understand your difficulty, even if you are getting old and cranky. Duckwalk nailed it.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Hope this is politically correct enough for all you wanna-be inventors
cause ya really don't want to her what I was going to originally wright.

We NEED "wanna-be" inventors! Us old guys ain't gonna live forever,
and seeing people figure it out on their own, in their own ways, is awesome..

If guys like Doc, Mike Pung and others didn't hang their cumulative asses out
on the line we would not have many pieces of the most efficient gold-catching gear
that's ever existed.

Speaking for myself, I can only get so much data from a book. To actually
understand why something works, I need to get my fingers and
golden screwdriver right in the middle of it. Other than prospecting,
there's not much cooler than messing around with a new project
in the shop. Figuring out why it works, or doesn't, and then coming
up with a solution that actually does work.

Have a good day......
Actually ... I seem to be getting a bit more cranky in my old age and my tolerance for BS
is diminishing dramatically..I will try to temper my responses a bit more in the future.

I'm generally considered as "The crankiest SOB in the Valley", and even added
that 2nd to last line in my signature as a reminder to myself. That, and "The essence
of Compassion" are constant reminders that we all come from different backgrounds,
and respond to challenges in life based on our own experiences.

If someone is carping at another person on a website just because they're in a
crankyassed mood, odds are quite high that what is making that person cranky
has absolutely no relation whatsoever to what's being discussed on the site.

Many times I'll take a moment, sit back in my chair, and ask myself: "Mike, just
what are you really ticked about?" 99% of the time it has -0- connection to what
I'm griping at someone about, and I wind up apologizing to them for being a
jerk. They didn't make me cranky...someone or something else did and I just
took it out on them.

Great thread, BTW, and after I read the links enough times I may just
have a go at making a small rod mill. Pretty sure I've got the pieces need
here in the shop (if'n I can find 'em), but I may have to hunt down material
for the rods.

 

[arizau]

Your last point about varying the sizes of the rods--it is on my list of projects as far as rods go. However, I just wanted to get started and it was easier to take advantage of the scrap that was available yesterday. And you are correct; note the picture of Randy Clarkson's mill on the earlier pages of this thread.[/QUOTE

Just a "heads up" for other readers of this thread who may not fully absorb or understand the various principles involved in the process and certainly not a requirement for the process to work.

By the way...Time to fire that thing up so you can try those new micro screens out.

 

[mytimetoshine]

I hope this non sense wasn't directed at me? I asked one, maybe 2 questions? That still weren't answered until Kevin posted..thanks Kevin!

In fact I don't really see where any one was trying to re invent or change the original design. Nobody was talking about a commercial op. I basically wanted to know if I add water to my "hobby" version or run it dry? And if it mattered if your rods were steel or iron .

 

[johnedoe]

I hope this non sense wasn't directed at me? I asked one, maybe 2 questions? That still weren't answered until Kevin posted..thanks Kevin!

In fact I don't really see where any one was trying to re invent or change the original design. Nobody was talking about a commercial op. I basically wanted to know if I add water to my "hobby" version or run it dry? And if it mattered if your rods were steel or iron .

Nothing directed at you.... It's all cool.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I hope this non sense wasn't directed at me? I asked one, maybe 2 questions? That still weren't answered until Kevin posted..thanks Kevin!

In fact I don't really see where any one was trying to re invent or change the original design. Nobody was talking about a commercial op. I basically wanted to know if I add water to my "hobby" version or run it dry? And if it mattered if your rods were steel or iron .

Steel is really best in principle. In practice it probably doesn't matter. I'm sure you could also use brass or even stone rods.

The pros run wet, I didn't know that and ran dry. Both work I guess.