Gold cube and miller table

[bottlecap]

Now that I have a little experience with prospecting I was thinking running material through a gold cube then using a miller table to cleanly extract the cons from the cube might be a good one two punch. Any thoughts? I get really frustrated panning some of the really fine stuff, very hard to separate from the black sand without panning black sand out and probably losing gold.

 

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[bobw53]

Works for me. I usually wait until I have several 5 gallon buckets full of cons before running through the cube and then I run the pint of super cons from the cube down the miller table. Saves time and beats panning all those buckets full of cons hands down.

GG~

My method of time savings... I know I said up there that I go all the way down to a 400... And I do, just not very often...

Take the Cube cons, then 20 and then 50, then maybe 80, and see whats there.. If its looking good I'll go 120, and pull out the good stuff,
then I just dump the rest in the panning tub... Every so often, clean out the panning tub and run that back through the cube and classify
that down until I lose interest, then dump the rest of the cons back in the tub for the next go around. If the cube caught it once, it will
catch it again.

I wrote my initial classifying experiment up over in the journal section.. I was losing hundreds of pieces of gold in the -250+400 range, stuff I didn't
even know was in my pan just going down to an 80 or 120.

 

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[bottlecap]

One thing I am noticing is not many are saying to skip getting a gold cube

 

[KevinInColorado]

One thing I am noticing is not many are saying to skip getting a gold cube

The cube is probably the very best way to get from xx buckets of material to 1.5 cups of super concentrates [emoji106]🏻

 

[Jason in Enid]

One thing I am noticing is not many are saying to skip getting a gold cube

The videos by Mike and Red convinced me. The testimonials from purchasers confirmed it for me.

 

[Goodyguy]

The cube is the fastest and most efficient way I know of to reduce a huge amount of cons into a tiny amount of super cons.


My version of the folded gate trap sluice.


GG~

 

[GoldpannerDave]

I guess what I am also wondering is if a guy ran material through the cube then went straight to a miller table could you skip additional classification or would you still be losing gold somehow? I have no problem working but my small amount of free time needs to be spent gathering material, working 60 hours a week leaves me little time, I know I am not the only guy that has to spend all week working but I am looking to be efficient, I would also like a system that leaves me with pure gold, I hate getting the last couple grains of black sand out of my vial. Another reason you may know I am not afraid of work is I live in Mn and after a half day running a pro pan my gold still barely registers on a scale!!!!

A miller table will leave you clean gold, but you still have to classify it before running the black sands/gold. Look at the plans here in TN by AzViper. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/400309-making-miller-table-using-rubber-mat-surface.html

 

[bottlecap]

Hey got some great tips in this thread! Oddly enough the back panning is the way I was doing it, no one showed me, it's just the way I found worked. One thing to keep in mind about guys like myself in Mn is we may be half decent at panning, the only gold we see is tiny and one of the biggest pains is when you get your little piece isolated with a little black sand and that little piece ends up floating down with the last bit of black sand you try to pan away to get clean gold. I have jet dry in my water and I know when a small piece is exposed to air it will float, still doesn't matter, the little tiny stuff is really hard to isolate. This is why I was looking at miller tables. My master plan was to use the pro pan at the river(actually concentrates the good stuff quite well), run my dirt through a cube in the basement to ultra concentrate to just the good stuff then miller table. After reading through this thread I am thinking maybe I can just pan the cons from the cube, you can always dump the gold from the vial into a pan for a really good clean up I guess, that's usually what I do, don't like black sand in my vials. Hoping like hell I get enough time this week after work to get some material gathered, going through material withdrawls!

 

[Goodyguy]

I am thinking maybe I can just pan the cons from the cube, you can always dump the gold from the vial into a pan for a really good clean up I guess, that's usually what I do, don't like black sand in my vials. Hoping like hell I get enough time this week after work to get some material gathered, going through material withdrawls!

After running a batch of super cons down the miller table I have found it easy to eliminate the remaining specks of black sand from the gold that ends up in the snuffer bottle simply by dumping the contents of the bottle onto the table, and then re-snuffering once the remaining black sand washes away. Takes just a few seconds. And then only gold ends up in your vial when you transfer from the snuffer bottle.

My technique is to stop the flow, dump the bottle on the table, then ease the flow back on just enough to wash away the remaining black sand.

Here in Indiana where the black sand is so abundant and the gold is so fine it's just easier for me to classify down and run it on the Miller table for final clean up.

I have two Miller tables, the slate one is set up for use at home and the other soft mat one is portable for use in the field.
Both are homemade.




GG~

 

[Capt Nemo]

If you're good with plastics, you can build a table for about $120.

 

[bottlecap]

If you're good with plastics, you can build a table for about $120.

View attachment 1307498

I am not good with plastics but that looks like a great table!

 

[bottlecap]

After running a batch of super cons down the miller table I have found it easy to eliminate the remaining specks of black sand from the gold that ends up in the snuffer bottle simply by dumping the contents of the bottle onto the table, and then re-snuffering once the remaining black sand washes away. Takes just a few seconds. And then only gold ends up in your vial when you transfer from the snuffer bottle.

My technique is to stop the flow, dump the bottle on the table, then ease the flow back on just enough to wash away the remaining black sand.

Here in Indiana where the black sand is so abundant and the gold is so fine it's just easier for me to classify down and run it on the Miller table for final clean up.

I have two Miller tables, the slate one is set up for use at home and the other soft mat one is portable for use in the field.
Both are homemade.
View attachment 1307363 View attachment 1307364

View attachment 1307362

GG~

Sounds like an awesome idea for a final clean up!

 

[Capt Nemo]

With plastics, it's pretty much how well you can cut it. For acrylic, having a table saw blade made for it is a big help, as well as, a router. The rest is solvent welding similar to putting PVC pipe together.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Bottlecap, you just need to spend more time panning. There are different methods of panning and once you do it enough, you know how to switch from one to the next depending on how much material is in your pan and how heavy it is.
You need a good magnet (and learn how to properly use it), as well as a snuffer bottle.

 

[bottlecap]

So when you guys classify do you stack all sizes on top of each other then empty each size into your container?

 

[Jason in Enid]

So when you guys classify do you stack all sizes on top of each other then empty each size into your container?

I tried that in the beginning and found it to be more trouble than it saved. So now I run it multiple times, starting with the biggest mesh. What won't wash through goes into bucket #1, then repeat down through all the sizes with a bucket for each size. Then I process each size on it's own.

This is why a lot of guys spend the summer running as much dirt as possible, with only occasional test of the cons to make sure they are still on the gold. Wait until winter for all the classifying and gold separation.

 

[arizau]

If you do stack, or even if you don't, then make sure that none of them get overloaded and that is easy to do with the 4-6" sieves. I usually dry the material first. Couple hours in the sun here in AZ does the trick.

 

[Jason in Enid]

True, you either have to use water to wash the cons through the sieve, or it has to 100% dry. If it's even the least bit damp it will just clump up and you will be completely frustrated.

 

[bottlecap]

Got ya, I'll go with the wet method, very wet around here these days but anxious to try a new river this weekend. Looking at classifier sets online right now, lots of size options! I don't really need the larger sizes for these parts.

 

[bottlecap]

Seems to be a lot of sets with a 30, 50, 70 and 100.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Seems to be a lot of sets with a 30, 50, 70 and 100.

...which is perfect for you