Processing +20 classified material

[Hunt4gold]

Wanting to get some insight on how to process my +20 classified material... Have learned a ton from people on this site (just started prospecting in October) so I am confident that good advice on this topic. If I can set up my Bazooka on a stream/river, then I just run all my material through it, but sometimes there is not enough flow (and no way to build a dam) to set it up. So then I begin by running material through a #8 classifier, and then a #20, and on occasion I will then put it through a #50 and then pan out the remaining -20 or -50 material. My question is what is a good method to process the leftover +20 material. Maybe I am being overly optimistic, but I hope that someday there will be a +20 nugget or flake in there! Have gotten decent in panning out the -20, but panning the +20 seemed difficult. I also tried running it through my Miller table - cranked up the slope to 6-7 degrees and increased the water flow. Seemed to work Ok, just have to move along some of the flatter pieces. Any help/suggestions appreciated.

 

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[Hunt4gold]

Am actually using some really small lead split shots that I have for fly fishing that are close to +20 size grain. Am putting 2-3 in with each panning that I have disfigured so that they are not perfectly round. This is definitely helping my panning technique for +20 classified material.

Just need to get some material with +20 gold!

 

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[Jeff95531]

paint em gold till you find the real stuff.

 

[Jeff95531]

All this talk about gold made me miss mine, so I turned it loose for a lil bit.

 

[goldenmojo]

Nice little picker Jeff.

 

[Kenmitch]

Am actually using some really small lead split shots that I have for fly fishing that are close to +20 size grain. Am putting 2-3 in with each panning that I have disfigured so that they are not perfectly round. This is definitely helping my panning technique for +20 classified material.

Just need to get some material with +20 gold!

When I 1st started playing around I just bought a .5 gram of 20 mesh, 50 mesh, etc.

Just finished burning out my eyeballs using the usb microscope looking at some concentrate for micro gold. Conclusion I came to was 1st I need to get some finer classifiers. Dang little pebbles look like bolders!

 

[kcm]

If you want to talk really fine material, take a look at nano particles.

 

[Hunt4gold]

Finally got around to panning out a couple of cups of +20 (-8) that I collected from one of the creeks I was sampling 2 weeks ago. Took all the suggestions to pan it out, adding a couple of lead bird shot that also came out of the creek. This is what the +20 material looked like.



And here is the gold I would have missed if I had thrown it out. Not much, but the one +20 flake made it worth while. There were also some -20 size gold that was still with the +20 material.
Each time I added the lead bird shot to the pan, and recovered the two shots - just where they should have been tucked up beside the bottom lip of the pan.



Thanks again for all the great advice! One of these days there will be a real picker in the pan...

 

[Jeff95531]

Great Job fellow prospector!!

Any black sands?

 

[Hunt4gold]

Jeff,
There is a good amount of black sand in this section of the creek. Will process the cons that came out of my Bazooka Sniper from that trip this evening. Was getting down to bedrock on the point bar so am hoping for some nice color.

Your question about amount of black sands conjured up an idea. Next trip out I will photo document the amount of black sand in a sample pan, then take another photo of what is left after pulling out the magnetite, then gold amount. Will see...

 

[Jeff95531]

Well believe it or not...the only reason I asked is cuz I love (and a lot too much in fact) watching the gold poke it's head outta the black sands while panning. MMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[Hunt4gold]

Jeff - could not agree with you more! Its awesome when you get down to the last 1/4 cup of a pan with just black sand, do 4-5 more swirls and seeing 3-4 nice flakes of color start to appear against the black sands.

 

[Jeff95531]

Gold! MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm