DRYWASHING PROJECT

[ghostminer]

I have a pending drywashing project for summer 2018 in northern Sierra Nevada Mts in California. I have NO experience with drywashers but feel this may be a viable option. The past summers have been extremely dry at our location. We have good gold on a faultline that appears to be ancient river deposits. This area has a past production history from the hydraulic period in the 1800's & I have all historical records. It appears to me this area of a major faultline was partially exposed but never finished as the deposits are at the surface. Hand dug bucket samples taken across a 75 yard area below the crest of the fault consistently assay $35 - $45 per yard of fine gold. We have a flooded mine shaft that could be used for a water source but would require laying pipe some 2000 ft. My thoughts are to further test or run material first using either several Thompson puffers or a Keene 191 as it is dustless (or almost dustless). The ground is fairly easy shoveling with mix of sand, gravel, quartz. I think 2 people could possibly run 1 to 2 yards per hour through a drywasher. My plan is to take material by shallow trenching by hand across the area to make sure we always have dry gravels & come back around to deeper digging as the exposed layers dry completely over several days. Several of these trenches could be started to ensure dry material is always available. I would like to hear from you experienced people as to the viability of this project. Also, do you have any advice as to set up, best drywasher for fine gold recovery, etc. Is it good to pre-classify or j ust shovel direct to grizzly for speed? My feeling is more yards run would make up for any small % gold lost. Let me know what you think. Here is a picture of a test hole on the faultline. You may also PM me if you have an interest in this project.

 

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[arizau]

My washer loves minus 1/4". Don't know about what you may use but were I you I would pre-screen to a size just a little larger than the hopper screen on the unit (eg. 3/4" pre-screen for 1/2" and down hopper openings, etc.). Hopper screens on washers are pretty short so kind of inefficient but it is easy to attach wire mesh to a longer wooden frame that is propped up at an angle so that you can shovel onto it. The extra length will scrub a little more undersize dirt off larger rocks so a little more efficient. A bucket positioned under the screen will catch some of the screened material to ease some double shoveling.

Good luck.

 

[ghostminer]

Thank you. I was thinking of building a free standing grizzly/hopper to feed the drywasher. I'm leaning towards the Keene 191 in order to run several yds/hr for production. That unit also has heat induction feature for drying gravels. I think 2 people could run close to 2 yds/hr or better.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I built my drywasher with pretty much the same thought in mind but as soon as I got it up and running it started raining.