Miller table and Spiral wheel job functionality?

arizau

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May 2, 2014
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Two separate jobs. The miller table is a finisher and is best used to separate and recover the smallest of fine gold from classified, mostly black sand concentrates including the tails from other concentrate processing methods. Some use a spiral for primary concentration thus requiring further processing such as panning, etc. and maybe miller table.
 

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Fossil4Life

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Jul 11, 2014
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Thanks for the response! Would a Blue Bowl be considered a finisher as well?
 

arizau

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May 2, 2014
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Neither the miller table nor the blue bowl is likely to separate all of the gold in one pass so most rerun at least one more time. Achieving proper set up for both devices is usually frustrating for most first time users and requires some adjustments to get desired results.
 

russau

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May 29, 2005
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depending on the operators experience on either piece of equipment. experience will dictate what works best for you! I have all three and prefer my Miller table over all of them!
 

gold hound

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What about the gold cube? I thought it was a clean up tool that looked like a less expensive option than a miller table and blue bowl.
 

Kamorle

Jr. Member
Jun 26, 2013
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I have a spiral wheel and its worthless. Made a blue bowl and it works good but very slow. Miller tables are great but expencive to buy and take up lots of room. The gold cube is supposed to be good but its not a final clean up tool, you still need a blue bowl or know how to pan to get the last of the black sand out. I ended up going with a nice finishing sluice (the s1 finishing sluice) and just panning the super concentrates out by hand.. fastest cheapest process for me.
 

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Fossil4Life

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Jul 11, 2014
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I ended up going with a nice finishing sluice (the s1 finishing sluice) and just panning the super concentrates out by hand.. fastest cheapest process for me.
Do you have a link to the S1 finishing sluice you are using?
 

Goodyguy

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Mar 10, 2007
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What about the gold cube? I thought it was a clean up tool that looked like a less expensive option than a miller table and blue bowl.

A decent miller table can be had for $125 Gold Mining Equipment Black Magic Fine Gold Recovery
A gold cube will run $390 with a stand. Gold Cube Banker - Mini Highbanker - Gold Prospecting Equipment - Recovery

I have quit using my spirial wheel and the blue bowl. Both are just too slow for me compared to using a gold cube to reduce my concentrates into super concentrate and the miller table for final finishing of the super concentrate.

You can reduce 1000 lbs of concentrate into about 2 cups of super concentrate in about an hour with a gold cube.
Two cups of the super concentrate once properly classified can then be finished on the miller table in under 30 minutes.

I used to spend many hours feeding the spiral wheel just 1 five gallon bucket of concentrates with a tablespoon and then had to run it at least twice to recover all the lost gold it misses on the first run.

The blue bowl while a great tool for separating -100 mesh and even smaller gold from black sand takes way longer than the miller table.
Plus I would spend hours just to get a few cents worth of gold. Every speck counts but sooner or later you realize your time is better spent on other activity.

GG~
 

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Fossil4Life

Jr. Member
Jul 11, 2014
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I have quit using my spirial wheel and the blue bowl. Both are just too slow for me compared to using a gold cube to reduce my concentrates into super concentrate and the miller table for final finishing of the super concentrate.
Thanks so much for the links! Question for you: What mesh size are your concentrates as you feed them into your Gold Cube? How about your Miller table?
 

AzViper

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Sep 30, 2012
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Seeing we have cover this same topic just weeks ago with nearly the same people replying to this thread as the last thread Fossil had posted you know where my heart lies between the Miller Table and Blue Bowl. Never tried the spiral wheel, but back in my day if I had the wheel watching that wheel turn itself into its self may have looked interesting under the influence. As GoodyGuy has said there comes a time you have to look at the time invested in recovery over your returns. MILLER TABLE ALL THE WAY BABY...
 

Kamorle

Jr. Member
Jun 26, 2013
64
32
A lot of videos of the miller table style of clean up seems to be of a guy hovering over the table with a squeeze bottle sucking up the flakes as they appear. I like my s1 because I can dump a load on and sit back and drink a beer. Not need to spend time slowly feeding and cleaning.
 

GoldpannerDave

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Apr 17, 2014
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GoldpannerDave

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Apr 17, 2014
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Colorado Springs, CO
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Bazooka 48" Miner and 30" Sniper, Le Trap, Wolf Trap, A52, 2" dredge, Miller tables, Blue Bowl, wheel, Falcon MD20, old White's detector
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A lot of videos of the miller table style of clean up seems to be of a guy hovering over the table with a squeeze bottle sucking up the flakes as they appear. I like my s1 because I can dump a load on and sit back and drink a beer. Not need to spend time slowly feeding and cleaning.

You just need to move that self-cleaning hopper shown with the S1 over to feed the Miller table. Problem solved.
 

AzViper

Bronze Member
Sep 30, 2012
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Arizona - Is there any other state worth visiting
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Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Nokta FORS Gold, Garrett ATX, Sun Ray Gold Pro Headphones, Royal Pick, Etc.
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GoldpannerDave

Bronze Member
Apr 17, 2014
1,076
1,279
Colorado Springs, CO
Detector(s) used
Bazooka 48" Miner and 30" Sniper, Le Trap, Wolf Trap, A52, 2" dredge, Miller tables, Blue Bowl, wheel, Falcon MD20, old White's detector
Primary Interest:
Prospecting

Goodyguy

Gold Member
Mar 10, 2007
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Whites TM 808, Whites GMT, Tesoro Lobo Super Traq, Fisher Gold Bug 2, Suction Dredges, Trommels, Gold Vacs, High Bankers, Fluid bed Gold Traps, Rock Crushers, Sluices, Dry Washers, Miller Tables, Rp4
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Thanks so much for the links! Question for you: What mesh size are your concentrates as you feed them into your Gold Cube? How about your Miller table?

I feed the Gold Cube with 1/8" paydirt and the Miller Table I most commonly classify to 4 sizes, 8 mesh, 16mesh, 30mesh and everything below 30 mesh.

The most important thing when running a Miller Table or Blue Bowl or any finishing equipment for that matter is to run all the same size particles as possible at a time making for much easier gold separation and minimization of micro gold loss.


GG~
 

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