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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[Jeff95531]

I've heard this virus has been going viral. Dodged an ER visit tonight for Karen. I Googled and applied some home remedies that helped her sleep. Loss of sleep, coughing fits and the inability to breath. Throw in asthma and not so good.

 

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[KevinInColorado]

She'll be in my thoughts and prayers tonight.

Meanwhile, I got your concentrates sample in the mail today and already processed it. My steps were a little different since it was already dry.
1. Pull magnetics up thru air to my magnet, dropping into another pan.
2. Repeat this and set aside magnetics.
3. Drop dry non-magnetic material thru a 50 mesh classifier.
4. Pan -50 and +50 separately. Twice.
Total elapsed time 10 minutes. Here's the gold I found:

A few pieces of +50 up top, the rest is -50
And here's the gear I used:

 

[Jeff95531]

Awesome Kevin! I've been looking for a benchmark for my minus anything gold recovery and this is a great starting point! We can narrow both down to a science...as long as I can devote wintertime to cons and the other 3 seasons to prospecting. Not this upcoming spring cuz I gotta be honest...I intend to disappear quite a bit (once in awhile that is)...and of course as life allows.

 

[delnorter]

Thanks Jeff for your help in processing the 2 black sand samples and 1 sample of cons. Thank you too Kevin for your help. You are a very good panner.

Jeff, could you recap the results?

Black sand 1 was a pretty full baggie of black sand from which I'd separated the gold by use of only the plunge type magnet.

Black sand 2 was a smaller amount of black sand that I didn't remember if I'd processed or not.

The third sample was a small amount cons from riverside reducing down numerous pans of bank run material. Nothing removed except for light material at stream side. Is this sample what you sent to Kevin after you'd run it through your process?

Thanks again Jeff and Kevin.

Mike

 

[Jeff95531]

Hey Mike. I wanted to see how well I had dialed in the Miller Table before I did all of it. Results so far is...

Black sand one is still pending.
Black sand two was panned and tabled and I found zero visible gold. Tossed it.
Snuffer bottle from your last trip and my last trip in 2016 was panned and tabled and after I was done running it all once, I dried it and shipped it off to Kevin. I still have the vial from the 2 samples to finish cleaning which I will post soon. (there is more gold than sand for sure)

Lesson learned? Rerun your cons if you use a Miller Table! And thanks Kevin! That was fun AND educational! Also Kevin, did you have any trouble with the magnetics? And was really surprised at the number of -50's. I think I need to up the flow and flatten it out a little, which I will do next.

 

[KevinInColorado]

My pleasure and no trouble with the magnetic material BUT another tip to avoid pulling gold out with the mags: classify first then use your magnet.

 

[Jeff95531]

Back in the saddle again. Had a good time this afternoon doing the final clean up. It's not Kevin Kleen but then again, I didn't reclassify as instructed. Wasn't bad at all tho and used my loupe while I pulled the magnetics. I tried and TRIED to get a picture of the platinum "nuggets" in the magnetics because they looked just like a freshly minted 1964 quarter. That is why I thought the gold was being trapped using the magnet. Without the loop, it was just sparkly and hard to tell with my old eyes. (BTW Mike, I saved what was pictured in the white lid...under magnification, the platinum was beautiful as the gold...really!)

Anyways, here's the pics. The sign was for Karen and she didn't take it personal and best of all, no spills! Last pic is Mike's black sands which needs processing on the Miller Table...once I re-set it that is. (Don't want to give anymore to Kevin ). Also in the pic...when I added water to the soap dish...look at the clump o gold floating (the shadow under even)...before Jet Dry.

NOW! Enuff testing and time to start producing! Here's a tenth to get us started!

 

[delnorter]

Right on Jeff, thank you for you're efforts. It sounds like you had fun.

I just yesterday ordered a Gold Hog Stream Sluice. We'll have to knock the new off it.

Mike

 

[KevinInColorado]

Looks clean to me!!

 

[Jeff95531]

Right on Jeff, thank you for you're efforts. It sounds like you had fun.

I just yesterday ordered a Gold Hog Stream Sluice. We'll have to knock the new off it.

To Mike

Oh Boy! Can't wait and you done right!

To CA[/QUOTE] I'll see your lack of permits and raise you equipment.

 

[wildminer]

Had to smile at that sign as we have the same type of tv trays! I'm the klutz in this family as my brain and old bod don't match up. Hope Karen is feeling better by now. Nice to see you guys working together.