how to clean oily black sand cons?

[simbad42]

hello all, it's been a while since my last post I'm almost done with all my d.u.i classes and have my license back so i have been going out digging almost every weekend for the last month or so. on this last trip down to east fork san gabriel i decided to go up to some of the culverts and dig out the heavies in the ridges, i did a test pan and it is loaded with 200+ mesh gold, it is also loaded with lots of road/car oil from the drought and recent rain.

my thoughts on how to not coat my clean up gear in oil is to soak and shake the cons with dish soap and water refilling the water and switching it till i stop seeing oil floating on the top.

questions.
how would you guys clean up the culvert sand, if you wouldn't worry about it why?
any tips and or past experience in the matter would be a great help.

Thanks
-simbad42

 

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[Prospector70]

IDK, I'd definitely soak it in dawn, hopefully someone can help!

 

[dasmoose]

Off the top of my head that sounds like the best plan. Perhaps one small change though once the oil floats to the top you don't necessarily need to change all the water just float more water over the top of your container and let the oil run of with the overflow

 

[arizau]

Not sure if this would work but it would have been my first step. Spread out thinly in steel pan then put on gas grill and stir. Might stink you and the neighbors out though or draw the local smog control police.

 

[goldenIrishman]

I'd soak it in Dawn dish soap but would mix the soap and water together first so you know it's evenly distributed. Let it sit over night then give it a couple of good stirs say once every half hour. The soaking should get it loosened up and the stirring should allow the oil to float up to the top. Rinse and repeat as needed. At least you're not having to break up those S.B. tar balls from the beach!

 

[winners58]

shouldn’t get on your equipment if stays cold, work it down to concentrates, heard of soaking over night in white vinegar
maybe you could can use a Citrus Degreaser, rinse good then use jetdry to keep the gold from floating.

ZEP 128 oz. Citrus Heavy-Duty Degreaser-ZUCIT128 at The Home Depot
.

 

[chlsbrns]

Lye/sodium hydroxide

Gold Prospectors of the Rockies - What to do with your gold

 

[Hoser John]

Any/all soaps foam and that's not good. Non sudsing amonia is the answer as righteous cleaning agent and no foam,works great in a tumbler fulla cons and mercury also. John

 

[Bonaro]

HoJo said it....back in another life when I managed a marina we kept a spray tank with Dawn dish soap and water handy near the fuel island. When someone spilled a bit of gasoline in the water we would spray the Dawn on it. The soap would emulsify the gas/oil and make the rainbow disappear. It didnt remove the gas, it caused it to mix and eventually sink and was not the preferred method of cleanup, so said the helpful DOE inspector one day.

Dump the cons in a cement mixer and sparingly add a bottle of generic windex from the dollar store. If you make foam you are floating gold

 

[Gold Cube]

The biggest issue with so much oil is the ability of the gold to hang on and float away with the oil. In the Gold Cube, the G-force separator actually rips the gold away from the surface and keeps it under water. Once you start running it though you have to keep it running until the job is done. Then after clean out. you will have to scrub everything good to get the oils off. I prefer to scrub the machine once as apposed to scrubbing all the dirt. Then when you have the culvert down to 1-1/2 cups of cons to bring home, it will be easy to get them clean for panning.

 

[simbad42]

Thank you for all the useful insight, so my new P.O.A is to drain out the soap water, and let it dry. Rinse and soak with water and lye because i have a ton of lye, then I'll try the same thing with ammonia after a very good rinse that is. If that fails I'll roast the rest of the junk off when my buddy burns his construction scrap.
S.B needs more rain for the last step, we still have burn restrictions going on.
@Goldenirishman coal oil point can get so thick it's almost like walking in a tar pit.

 

[rodoconnor]

Simbad , don't mix ammonia and lye. High School Chemistry [ a millenium ago] I think you'll be releasing chlorine gas.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Simbad , don't mix ammonia and lye. High School Chemistry [ a millenium ago] I think you'll be releasing chlorine gas.

Which will kill you so please make out a will leaving your newly cleaned gold to me! NEVER mix ammonia and other cleaners. When I was a kid, a neighbor lady died while cleaning her bathroom with a blend of cleaners.

 

[simbad42]

Simbad , don't mix ammonia and lye. High School Chemistry [ a millenium ago] I think you'll be releasing chlorine gas.

Which will kill you so please make out a will leaving your newly cleaned gold to me! NEVER mix ammonia and other cleaners. When I was a kid, a neighbor lady died while cleaning her bathroom with a blend of cleaners.

Ok, 1st i said i was going to rinse well. 2nd you guy are both thinking of bleach and ammonia. 3rd ammonia When heated with a caustic, such as lime water or lye water, all ammonium compounds decompose to form ammonia gas. For instance, if sal ammoniac is mixed with powdered lye and water, ammonia gas is evolved without the presence of heat. fallowed with The toxicity of ammonia solutions does not usually cause problems for humans and other mammals, as a specific mechanism exists to prevent its build-up in the bloodstream. Ammonia is converted to carbamoyl phosphate by the enzyme carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, and then enters the urea cycle to be either incorporated into amino acids or excreted in the urine[citation needed]. However, fish and amphibians lack this mechanism, as they can usually eliminate ammonia from their bodies by direct excretion. Ammonia even at dilute concentrations is highly toxic to aquatic animals, and for this reason it is classified as dangerous for the environment.

I think I'm good to go, but thank you for being concerned with my well being

 

[KevinInColorado]

Glad you understand so well and I'm also writing for all who read and do not know better. Be safe and "heavy pans"!

 

[rodoconnor]

Simbad, It sounds like you got it covered man . G/L

 

[chlsbrns]

Ok, 1st i said i was going to rinse well. 2nd you guy are both thinking of bleach and ammonia. 3rd ammonia When heated with a caustic, such as lime water or lye water, all ammonium compounds decompose to form ammonia gas. For instance, if sal ammoniac is mixed with powdered lye and water, ammonia gas is evolved without the presence of heat. fallowed with The toxicity of ammonia solutions does not usually cause problems for humans and other mammals, as a specific mechanism exists to prevent its build-up in the bloodstream. Ammonia is converted to carbamoyl phosphate by the enzyme carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, and then enters the urea cycle to be either incorporated into amino acids or excreted in the urine[citation needed]. However, fish and amphibians lack this mechanism, as they can usually eliminate ammonia from their bodies by direct excretion. Ammonia even at dilute concentrations is highly toxic to aquatic animals, and for this reason it is classified as dangerous for the environment.

I think I'm good to go, but thank you for being concerned with my well being

True!

One thing... Be careful with lye! Wear rubber gloves, glasses and cover your body. If you get a strong mixture of lye on your skin, your skin will instantly absorb the lye. Initially there is no pain, within a few hours you will experience extreme pain as your skin peels off like melting wax and hits the floor.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Yeah! Any process that uses caustic chemicals requires proper safety gear! As an ex-lab tech I could tell you some stories about what happens when people forget to use their gear. There's no amount of gold that's worth an eye or your life! Unless you've been trained on how to handle caustic materials I'd stick to things like detergents n this case. Much safer for you and those around you.

 

[simbad42]

yep gloves, glass and mask. thanks for looking out and making sure that other people don't just jump into my P.O.A without some sort of warning on the page.
I myself am very comfortable with using lye, i have a few friends that suffer from cluster headaches and i have been making a batch of medicine for them once or twice a year for the past 6 years almost.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Or long-term you could do what Ramstein AB, Germany did with all the dirt contaminated by the crash of the C-5A taking off fully loaded, fully fueled on 29 Aug 1990. It crashed in the middle of my bike trail at the end of the runway that I used to bike to work. Lots of fuel spilled, some burned up but the rest soaked into the earth. Here is a link to some pictures from the crash. Anyone remember it?

C-5 Crash

They dug all the dirt out, put it in place where it could not get into the environment and then added earthworms. In about 4 years the worms had cleaned it up so good that it met German standards and the Air Force was allowed to put it back where it came from.

So put a liner in your back yard to keep it from leaching out, pile in the oily dirt, cover with some clean dirt and add earthworms! In 4 years you can run it through your equipment without and oil problems.