dealing with clay material at home... problems

[FiresEye]

Seems to me working with clay material in a recirculating sluice is a big failure at home because the water clays up and all the gold runs right off...

For the first time ever, I found gold in the very last riffle of my ove r20 riffle home-made sluice( yes over 20 riffles!)
Before now, all the gold I've found has been in the top 50% of the sluice.. but this way, there's gold on almost every riffle, even the last, and that means gold is running right off...
And no, the riffels aren't clogged either..

So it's true about the clay.

So it seems maybe the only way to really deal with clayey material without wasting tons of water from the hose would be to take a bucket of material to a stream and swirl it around letting the fresh water wash the clay out...

I don't mind wasting a little water here and there, but to wash a 5 gallong bucket of clay out with a hose in a bucket would probably take 100 gallons.

And, where I live, you get charged sewage for the water whether it's from the toilet or from the garden water hose
I might need to look into getting my water re-sectioned for different uses.. because the sewage bill is hefty.

Other than that, I guess I could have two 20 gallon buckets, and maybe let the clay settle to recirculate the clean water at the top, but after several minutes, the water is too cloudy again.

So, guess I'm gonna have to lug this 5 gallon bucket to the river with a big stick and get stirring...I think there may be a place I can do this at a local park( much closer than the source of this gold laden clay)...

Any ideas? etc?

Will keep you updated.

 

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[FiresEye]

So I pulled about a 5 gallon bucket of hard packs from a new area, and they were the colors red, black, and grey clay. They are those big chunks you can break out with a rock pick, the size of a fist or smaller, and are cemented together, above the bedrock.

In my opinion, these could be as little as 3 years old, or as old as hundreds of years. I hear people say hard packs are ancient... but, a flooded winter and a dry summer will bake those new washout into hard pack conglomerates in just one season...( right?)

anyways, I set up my recirculating sluice to save water at home....
SO after that was done, I got an old t-shirt and a sledge hammer out, and started crushing those bad boys... I would crush them in the shirt and dump in bucket.
THen, once I had a half gallon of mostly powder material , I ran it through a sieve , about 1/12 of an inch or so, to remove the larger particles for further crushing.

Then, the moment of truth.. It had taken me a cople hours so far to get set up and strain this hard packs down to sluiceable material ....

Well, I ran about half a gallon of the material just to see what was going on.. and low and behold,. the stuff is loaded with fine gold... and some of it is even perfectly visible with the "naked eye"
but I had a problem with the clay.

WHy the problem? Well, there was gold all the way at the last riffle, and also at the top riffle, which means that gold is also escaping.. so I NEED to adjust the angle I know( I ran out of time) but I'm pretty sure that when recirculating clay-ey water, that the clay can grab at the gold and run it right off the end. In fact I'm sure of it.

So, does anyone think I should try to swirl wash the material a bit first? I'll probably use the two bucket swirl method, because straight home sluice recycling tubing let's gold fly out the end like it was in a hurry.

So, for 2 hours of work, half a gallon of crushed conglomerated and a lot of fun, I ended up with over 20 visible flecks/specs and a multitude of microscopic.... gonna have to refine my recirculating home setup...

The purpose of this thread is to mention that when digging and mining, to not toss the clay chunks into the sluice to roll right off... just take them home and crush them later( WAY easier to crush than say, other hard bedrocks like schists and quartz) because they at least contain some fine gold.. and who knows what else..

The second purpose is that i need HELP on how to deal with heavily clayed gold ladden material. because never in my life have I seen gold at the last riffle.. it always get stuck at the top..
but I guess the water got so clayed up, all the gold was just whisking away...
k
I may have to bite the bullet and just waste some water to wash out the clay... any tips?

this was virgin material , for the most part, from my new spot... I will be hard at work reading deep into past threads. ,but hopefully someone can post a helpful reply!

Lots of AU 2 you!

 

[FiresEye]

for sake of time refference, the first post is a consolodated version of the second post, which was my initial thread...
So they are both talking about the same day adn same material... just more in detail the second time.

thx in advanced

 

[jbarker52]

Fireseye: I have a clay/clumping problem in my claim as well. One guy with lots of exp. suggested a small cement mixer from harbor freight. Throw in a few large rocks to break up the material and he said it would cure my problem! Hope this helps!

 

[chadrack]

Welcome to the world of water management. It is true that clay lumps can cause losses like a piece of bubble gum rolling down a sluice. But, as you describe it, I believe your problem is something a bit different. I've tried to deal with this for years with water hauled to sites. Recirculators recirc. suspended material (clay) as you add even more to the mix until the water reaches a point of overload. It quickly gets less effective after that. Things just don't settle right. In effect you raise the specific gravity of the water, you lower drag and decrease friction. You "slick" the stuff. Too much suspended clay actually scours out material in the sluice, black sand, gold, and all. Jet dry helps for a while, it should be part of your arsenal. I find no purpose for clay b gone if you are really going to run some dirt, it is expensive for its worth. There are probably more additives, including sodium hexametaphosphate, whatever it is, but they make my typing finger hurt, so you can look them up. Really the bottom line is the only way to deal with it is to dilute your water with more water. Or better yet double or triple up on water so there is always some settling out while you are running. Hence, water management. Settling tubs and buckets everywhere, and in succession. It adds time and effort in dry country but I think it is unavoidable. Products or machines that break up clay have nothing to do with suspended material in your water (think pancake batter!). I'd love to find something that would send clay right to the bottom and gel it, but I haven't. Good luck and keep it up. C

 

[Astrobouncer]

The areas I have been prospecting in have this problem as well, the gold is mostly found in the super sticky clay. One solution that seems to work well is changing the PH of the clay with some 31% muriactic acid from ace hardware, once you get the ph down the clay will stop clumping together like that. Oh I should add this stuff is dangerous though, so be careful, when you are done using it you can use baking soda to neutralize it so its no longer so potent.

 

[FiresEye]

thanks for the replies all.. I udjusted the angle of my sluice and it helps alot.. but, pancake batter, and MORE water are the answrs.. you guys hit the nail on the head.

And before, I normally just swirl the bucket in the stream and the clay washes away, but at home this is not possible..

So get this, today It was pouring rain and I hooked up my 5 foot poop tuber to the rain gutter and let the rain water wash out some of the clay at a very low angle, as to no loose anything but still wash off some clay.. works wonders.. free rainwater raingutter sluice powered by, well, rain ... it was awesome. Until a huge thunder ripped right near my house and about scared the living lights out of me. Needless to say I kept sluicing, testing the fates to take advantage of the free water flow despite the risk.

I had two poop tubers set up on the two gutters and boy was it awesome using rain to wash some of this stuff.. I onyl got about 20% through the material though..

More results to follow!

 

[Traveller]

There is another way of looking at this, I think. Clay is a problem to the placer miner in two ways: when trying to separate PM's, the clay often refuses to fully disintegrate; leaving little clumps that rob PM's from the sluice. Later, the clay refuses to settle out of water the miner wishes to return it to the stream; giving him a bad name with the environmentalists.
Why does clay behave as it does? Clay particles, suspended in water, may behave in two different ways. The electrostatic charge on each particle may cause both attraction and repulsion. In an acid environment, the particles are attracted into clumps in a state referred to as "flocculation". In an alkaline environment, the particles are repelled by each other in a state referred to as "deflocculation". This explains why the clay you assumed was broken up into soup was still robbing gold from your sluice; presumably in the form of "micro-clumps".
The science of how deflocculants work is somewhat complex but for the most part the addition of a deflocculant raises the Ph of your recirculating water to the point where clay literally comes apart into its sub-micron particles. The addition of a deflocculant also greatly speeds up the breakdown of clay lumps into soup prior to sluicing.
Some of the more common deflocculants are sodium and potassium carbonate (check out washing soda at the store), sodium and potassium hydroxide, sodium silicate, phosphates and polyphosphates and sodium and ammonium oxalates.
Once the gold bearing clay is reduced to a repulsive slurry, there is another step one could take. It is generally agreed that clay is defined as being below 5 microns in particle size. A micron is 1/1000th of a millimeter and I seriously doubt any of you are attempting to sluice gold anywhere near that small. If one knew the particle size of the smallest pieces of gold (let's say 150 mesh) one was attempting to recover, a vibrating screen or screened centrifuge could be set up that would allow the clay particles to pass through, say, a 200 mesh screen but would retain gold and anything else larger than 200 mesh (or whatever size screen you selected).
Adding a flocculant to the tailings water would, of course, clump all of the clay back together and leave you with clear water. There is a product marketed called "Clay-B-Gone" made just for this purpose.
Regards
Bob

 

[FiresEye]

Wow Traveller, Amazing info, I had no idea about the particles and the PH of the mix the use of a deflocculating agent .
As far as the charge of the particles goes, looks like I'm gonna have to create a basic solution to break the micro clumps apart.
And who knows how fine the gold is.. I have yet to look under a scope at some cons, but I can't wait to do so. I think I might be really bored this winter, so I have lots to work with, if I get around to it.

As far as the guy mentioning the clay never settling out... Not sure what the environmentalists think happens every time it storms and the rivers flood up with debree as compared to a say a prospector. I'd imagine large scale operation would draw attention.

And as far as the clay goes, I wish I had more time to work it, because it holds unknown secrets, and the fact that gold is among it only gives it more allure.
These days I just work my two jobs and try to keep my living space, vehicle, and mind up to date and clean. So after that, my hobbies such as CRH and Prospecting and Gardening take a hit to the timeframe. But all in due time.

 

[Traveller]

Just a suggestion here. If you sent a sample of your clay to an assay lab, they would be able to tell you what values per ton it held in gold; or any other precious metals you asked them to assay for. Remember, "All that glitters is not gold; sometimes it's rhodium!!"

Following this, if you had a fairly good idea of the smallest PM particle size, you could ask the lab to screen another sample to just smaller than your educated particle size guess and assay the smaller portion. If nothing turned up, you'd know what size mesh to use to separate the deflocculated clay and gold. If PM's were present, try an assay at the next mesh size down, etc. etc. etc.

 

[patches63]

high pressure water works well.but for sampling a few buckets,perhaps a large cordless drill with a large paint stirring attatchment.could stand up straight and use one,big plus.

 

[Hoser John]

Amen Patches them paint mixers work righteous and the clay simply dissolves and then ez to remove just like a dredge blaster bozzle. Stay warm bud here come another one :P John

 

[Traveller]

Simply stirring clay and water until it is reduced to what appears to be a liquid with minimal viscosity is only accomplishing part of the task. The particles of clay will still retain most of the attractive electrostatic charge that caused them to bond together in the first place.
Deflocculation, as I pointed out, will cause these particles to repel each other and reduce the viscosity of the clay to its minimum value; in other words, full deflocculation. It must be remembered, as well, that this same attractive electrostatic charge will have an effect on fine gold particles in your sluice, pan or other separator.
Here is a simple idea for removing gold from clay or, in this instance, clay from gold.
It is generally accepted that clay is defined as material with particle sizes smaller than 1-5 microns; with a micron being 1/1,000th of a millimeter or 1/1,000,000 of a meter. A meter is just slightly longer than a yard, for those not familiar with the Metric System.
For comparison, here is a table converting mesh sizes to microns:
100 mesh = .0059" = 149 microns
200 mesh = .0029" = 63 microns
400 mesh = .0015" = 37 microns
It is quite clear that, if viewed under a microscope, a particle of gold in the 100-400 mesh range would look like a boulder beside a clay particle at 1-5 microns.
Once clay was fully deflocculated, would it easily pass through a 200 mesh screen (or smaller) and leave all of the fine gold on the screen?
Regards
Bob