Placer Gold Mill

[Enlitnd1]

This is Bill in Arizona. I live in the Bradshaws. Not sure if this is the right forum for this topic, but I used to be a dredger in the mid eighties and I feel at home here. Getting too old for dredging now, cold water makes my joints ache, but that doesn't mean I can't participate. Below are some photos of a 5 cu.yd./hr placer gold mill I built years ago and kept in storage. Gold was only $300 then. This mill has to be fed with a Bobcat or backhoe/loader and has a water recovery and recycle capability. The input hopper is powered by a 1hp motor which spins an eccentric that causes the ore to migrate across a screen. The oversize is expelled and the undersized (3/8" minus) drops into a sluice for coarse gold retention and then flows across a duplex pan-American pulsator jig for fine gold recovery. Once the heavy mineral content is captured, the slurry flows into a dump bin where the water overflows into a clarification basin and is pumped back for reuse. The dump bins are periodically dumped onto the ground and the moist material can be stockpiled or returned directly to the excavation.
At $1100 an oz., I'm looking forward to putting it to work. We have a lot of capable prospectors around here, but where it breaks down is converting a decent placer deposit into a reliable cash flow. If you can process yds/hr instead of cu.ft/hr, a deposit averaging a pennyweight per yd. will produce some serious money. And, there's no reason why you couldn't put several mills on a single deposit.

Bill in Ariz.

[Treasure_Hunter]

Bill, your mill looks very impressive.......

I was in Az in August 2008, have a good friend who lives there I and want to retire there in a few years. He lives in the Bullhead City/Laughlin area........took some trips up in the mts, saw lots of old mines.....

Good luck sir...

[Arid-Zone-A-seeker]

Bill, what a great machine! I kinda got out of prospecting for a while. Worked all the time, shoes for three kids, etc.
But now I am ******ed, be looking to build a contraption similar, but to fit on a flat bed 3/4 ton. And to stay with water.
Is the electrict's 120v or 240v?
Got tired of losing all the fine gold drywashing, then gold was 287.00 an oz or so.
So your machine is looking like an idea!
Thinking I will join up with roadrunners, or maybe gpaa to get started again. But this time I am going to build my own equip. as much as possible.
Good luck!

[Enlitnd1]

All of the electric on the mill is 110v AC. The shaker motor is 1hp, the pump for the jigs is 1hp and the wash water pump is 1/2hp, so the total watts is about 2500. The problem with prospecting clubs is their prohibition against mechanized loading equip. If you have to move the ore by hand, you probably can't process more than 2yds./day. I've found that water consumption is about 30gal/yd depending on the clay content. So this mill requires at least 150 gal/hr for operation plus extra for cleanup at days end. You would be better off building your mill on a trailer or on skids and free your truck up for other support activities. If you're looking to build a mill similar to this, I will post more photos. There is nothing proprietary about this doodlebug. I operate on the KISS principle.
KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!
Machines similar to this were built in the 1930's during the depression and they worked well.

Bill in Ariz.

[dazoff]

That is very cool.

[Hoser John]

Cool tool and that water consumption ration seems to be quite accurate. Did you ever get to run this equipment in full production mode?? My bud Jim Rotta has used a trailer mount system for over 10 years and it rocks. Clay is always the biggest pain as it can easily double water requirements. Do you have a place with lots of water in AZ for you to run? I'd like to see running video/pix ANYTIME. Patent/private property would definately be my goal and thats a fine fab job!!! tons a au 2 u 2 -John

[Enlitnd1]

Can't run it as I don't presently have anything to load it with. Heavy clay is a problem, even for the heavy scrubbing power of a trommel. Also have a 10,000 gal skid mounted water tank for stockpiling. If there is no water within a few hundred yards of the operation, it has to be trucked in. When I operated out by Quartzite, the nearest water was over 3 mi. away. Made two trips each day with a 600 gal tank.
You're right about private property, but you can operate through BLM on a 5 acre mill-site basis which doesn't require an environmental impact study or a comprehensive plan of operation, just a reclamation bond. In most instances you would be following a dry wash, so you can make your mill-site 1sq acre wide by 5 acres long, thats about a thousand linear ft. The last time I talked to BLM people, admittedly, several years ago, they assured me that they had several people here in Ariz with small scale operations doing exactly that.
With the price of gold going up, I'm starting to get that old itchy, twitchy feeling again. The last year I dredged, we ran a 12in. with two VWs with Precision pumps on the south fork of the American where Weber creek flows in. Didn't do too well that year, but the previous year I ran an 8in. on the middle fork of the American and did over 5lbs. If i can find my old photo album, I'll post some pictures.
Still have both pumps and one of the VW engines if anyone needs them.

Bill in Ariz.

[Nowara]

Bill
Could you please post more pictures of the unit from all angles with something that could be used for scale measurements.
Nice unit and want to build similar.
Thanks
Tom

[nuggy]

Hi Bill, nice looking machine you have there, specially if you are in a place with limited water. Looks like something a ten ton digger would work comfortably.
There must be a list of mining permit holders in your area that you could access. Then write to or phone them offering to work their ground on a percentage basis? Nuggy