Time for black sands clean up and a sample of things to come

[Jeff95531]

It rained all last week. It rained all this week. Forecast for next week? You guessed it. So I dug out the Miller Table, took notes on what was wrong/needs to be fixed and there it sat. In the mean time, I gathered my super fines from the last trip to dial in the table once I get around to it. Then, my good buddy Delnorter PM's me with an offer of not only a few pounds of gold bearing black sands to feed my table, he also had concentrates from a recent gold/platinum and silver producing solo prospecting spot he discovered. Was I interested? Oh yeah!

Mike brought everything over and as he pulled out baggies of dart black sand, he also shows me the coolest plastic mini classifier set I've ever seen. He also lends me his black sand magnet/plunger which is something else I must have. As the new list of must haves roll in the background, he offers up this latest spot of his is accessible even now as flooding surrounds meaning it just may be an old river channel with good to moderate access. OK, now I'm excited...

But, first things first. The table taught me a lot since I got it, especially what not to do. One big problem is I never got full side to side coverage/discharge. I also let the pump sit in fines which reduced it to next to nothing for flow, even with attempts to revive it. So, I replaced the pump, put it in the filter/container and discovered the discharge hose was way way longer than it needed to be so cut it in half. Also used a different/courser scratch pad along with the denser stuff it came with.

I finally got it to be full and flat board (as a baseline) not to mention his black sands are freakin heavy! After lots of tweaking yesterday and today on the table, it's about right. I still have to reduce the amount of spray bar diffuser material I added in the head cuz max flow is not just not there yet. So far I'm finding 8% to 10 % loss in the discharge pan so not bad for not done.

The water diffusing pads where packed with fines as shown in the pics. I took advantage of the rain to flush out "the mats".



There may be some extra pics...can't confirm deletes.

 

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[delnorter]

Save the material from the snuffer separately if you can Jeff. I can let you use my screens. For some reason I can't see pictures on the forum since yesterday.

Mike

 

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[Jeff95531]

You guys are right on. I had not really noticed the difference in sizes till I looked @ the pics again. Should have caught that...yep.

Mike...the snuffer contents are all still here, just not in the same spots...which I will re-group today. The smallest classifier I have is 40 mesh (and will use that today to start with) so anything you have that is smaller would be great. I'll leave the magnetic step till after we get it all sorted out.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[johnedoe]

Hey..... Just trying to keep you on the straight and narrow......... Which appears to be a full time job by the way....

 

[Jeff95531]

Hey..... Just trying to keep you on the straight and narrow......... Which appears to be a full time job by the way....

 

[Oregon Viking]

...and I'll race you both with just pans n classifiers!

OK. You can use what ever classifier you choose... But.... Here is your "competition" pan!
I will also include a.... production sluice!!
Good luck Kev!!





Oh, and it's -200 black beach sand.....

Hey Jeff... I inject nonsense in to threads, and sometimes... I've been told... go off topic!
Always... if you want my posts, pics silly BS removed....from your threads... just ask!

 

[KevinInColorado]

LoL!

 

[Jeff95531]

Just a quick update on delnorter's sample. He was kind enough to lend me his classifiers and the result was no gold in the +20. Not saying there weren't some interesting pieces...definitely some platinum and mini black magnetic rocks with tiny quartz veins...also saw my first piece of wire gold ever...all of which was cool enuff to explore. The +40's on the other hand, look quite promising. After I took the pics, I took a toothpick and started poking these tiny black clumps. They exploded into gold dust and explains a lot as to why I was having so much trouble with the magnetic black sands holding onto the gold. The pieces were bound so tight they released moisture into a two day dried pan. Cool chit!



Next, clean up the +40 and classify the remaining. May test the table Vs panning again.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Try this method: http://findinggoldincolorado.com/finish-processing-your-concentrates-after-a-day-of-digging/

 

[Jeff95531]

Try this method: Finish processing your concentrates after a day of digging ? Finding Gold in Colorado

Thanks! I'll add that to the other one I stole from you.

Kevin Klean procedures:

For magnetic black sand clean up…

1. Classify first
2. Put cons in a large pan, in a thin layer, under an inch or so of water
3. Wave the magnet over the water drawing the material up thru the water. This will wash any non-mag material out as it comes up.
4. Dump magnetite and repeat.
5. Once no more is coming up, lower the magnet into the water somewhat using a back and forth or swirling motion to wash the material as it gathers on the magnet…don’t touch the material directly yet.
6. Dump and repeat.
7. Finally grind the magnet around in the material to get the last of the magnetite. Drop this material right back in the pan- it’ll land on top of the rest of the cons. Repeat step 5 once to grab this last material.
Good job, time to pan. It took longer to write this than it takes to do it!

 

[No gold in NY]

My cons get demagnetized three times. Yup, it is time consuming, but it works. First time with two giant speaker magnets inside a ziplock..
Then two more times with the Keene gold magnet.
My pump sets on a little dock off the tub bottom.
Discharge material never goes directly into the tub. Instead there are two settling beds
The first pan has a baffle to help divert material downward.
I do not understand the problem with the ScotchBrite pads unless you are running real dirty material.

 

[Oregon Viking]

Jeff here is yet another.... method.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I love those guys but not their method. It requires you to dry your cons which:
1. Takes too long. I have my gold in the vial while they are still waiting for their cons to dry.
2. Handling cons dry increases the risk of losing gold...scattered across the floor of your workshop...or even worse, your campsite.

 

[Jeff95531]

I do not understand the problem with the ScotchBrite pads unless you are running real dirty material.[/QUOTE]

Couldn't agree more on what you said and I really like what you've done with your setup. I raised and filtered my pump with a cut out plastic coffee can and as far away from the dump into my "catch pan" at the end. The only "problem" I had with the Scotch Pads were self induced...as I have a serious problem with tinkering/experimenting. I may remove a little more restriction at the head as I'm still not happy with max flow performance.

 

[Jeff95531]

Jeff here is yet another.... method.

Thanks buddy. That is one video I've seen and saved to fav's cuz it made good sense to me. In fact, using delnorters magnet, I just did something like that after I did my first -100 classifying job.

 

[Jeff95531]

I love those guys but not their method. It requires you to dry your cons which:
1. Takes too long. I have my gold in the vial while they are still waiting for their cons to dry.
2. Handling cons dry increases the risk of losing gold...scattered across the floor of your workshop...or even worse, your campsite.

1. Yep. I've been surprised how long a drop of water can take to evaporate here lately. (Over 6 feet of rain so far since 10/1). I've tried both dry and wet lately and wet has the edge when you are dealing with a witches brew that delnorter offered me from his latest sample.

2. Yeah well, I'm not in the gold belt so I still treat my gold like uranium so no to losing it. My wife on the other hand is on probation from handling. (Seems she is programmed to spill upon handling)

 

[Goodyguy]

Amalgamation is another option.......
About Amalgamation and Using Mercury

 

[Jeff95531]

Yes. Still working with delnorters sample. Here is what I've found so far.

What appears to be platinum in the sample is more magnetic than the surrounding magnetic black sands. The platinum (and from what I could find on line) bonds the fines right along with the blacks. I get rid of as much of the nickle and magnetic blacks. Then I dry, break it up, dry it again and still a chore to separate. Wet worked better but something else I learned? All that glitters is not gold...especially when you get to -100. The sparkles in the sand (meaning platinum along with the gold) are misleading (to me) during panning so now what remains is set to go back on the Miller table tomorrow. The +40 gold is already in the soap dish....waiting for the rest.

(BTW Mike, thanks for the unsolicited and ultimate crash course in extreme fine gold recovery...tho it's perfect for fine tuning the table. )

 

[Jeff95531]

Amalgamation is another option.......
[FONT=&]About Amalgamation and Using Mercury[/FONT]

To be honest GG, I just as soon stick to +50. Then you see LOTS of fines and...jeez, here we go again.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I only use a magnet when I am going through large amounts of black sand that only has very fine bits of gold left in it. I use a big steel pan to dry it out. I also roast and quench the non magnetics to release hidden values.

 

[mytimetoshine]

what do you do with the magnetics after you pull them? beacuse I don't care how many time you swirl them in the water if your dealing with anything more then a teaspoon there WILL be gold trapped.

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