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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[kcm]

The larger your gold pieces (the larger the classified material is), the easier it is to see amongst the other material. If all the material is near the same size already, then panning out the larger gold should be easy. Panning gets more difficult with the smaller sized material.

 

[arizau]

Plus 20 mesh is usually pretty easy to pan. It sounds like you are overly cautious in panning the plus 20. Plus 20 mesh, even when mixed with larger sized stones, will quickly sink to the bottom and stay in the crease with proper agitation/panning technique and you can literally just scrape off the overlaying waste material without fear of losing the, much smaller, gold in the process. It is only when the material left in the pan is pretty much like sized, or, in your case, much closer to 20 mesh, that you risk losing gold over the lip of the pan. Short answer....practice panning. Also I would pre pan the raw, mixed size concentrates prior to screening then panning the various screen fractions.

Good luck.

PS If all else fails then screen to 10 mesh too.

 

[ratled]

For +20 just pan, use a magnet to help unlock the black sands

ratled

 

[goldenmojo]

If you don't know how yet. Learn how to tap a pan. You can develop your own style from the basics and tap even very fine gold to edge of you pan quickly and then snuff it up.

 

[Hunt4gold]

Thanks for all the comments - looks like panning is the way to go with my +20 material.

Arizau --- you are probably right, I am being too cautious when panning this material. I've been panning the -20 and getting my technique down. Have watched the Gold Hog videos on panning down fines which has helped my understanding of the process. Tapping the pan and watching the gold hug the edge of the pan's bottom is pretty cool. Am also using the magnet as Ratled suggested.

Have about 5 cups of +20 to process this weekend, as well as some cons from the bazooka, so I will have some practice time.

 

[Jeff95531]

Thanks for all the comments - looks like panning is the way to go with my +20 material.

Arizau --- you are probably right, I am being too cautious when panning this material. I've been panning the -20 and getting my technique down. Have watched the Gold Hog videos on panning down fines which has helped my understanding of the process. Tapping the pan and watching the gold hug the edge of the pan's bottom is pretty cool. Am also using the magnet as Ratled suggested.

Have about 5 cups of +20 to process this weekend, as well as some cons from the bazooka, so I will have some practice time.

There is nohing like panning real gold. If you haven't done it yet, get some paydirt to play with. $$$ well spent

 

[Goldwasher]

Thanks for all the comments - looks like panning is the way to go with my +20 material.

Arizau --- you are probably right, I am being too cautious when panning this material. I've been panning the -20 and getting my technique down. Have watched the Gold Hog videos on panning down fines which has helped my understanding of the process. Tapping the pan and watching the gold hug the edge of the pan's bottom is pretty cool. Am also using the magnet as Ratled suggested.

Have about 5 cups of +20 to process this weekend, as well as some cons from the bazooka, so I will have some practice time.

panning 20+ 5 cups is barely a partial " pan" worth of material. If you take longer than two minutes to pan down to the heaviest material at +20 you are taking way way too long.
Its hard for begginers to not be scared but material that size in a modern pan is very easy to pan quickly. Especially if you classified it down already. make yourself able to pan fast. I pan everything 30+ so I have smaller material and gold even. Pan into a tub separate than your -20 so you can gauge yourself but, I promise you can and have to be done with that size material in no time at all. It's the -20 on down that requires more fines and even then you can work much faster than you think.
Like mojo said learn the gold learn to tap it into the edge of your pan use a snuffer to get what you can easily see. I do the same thing and keep the rich cons to process further later. I tell clients that I'm teaching that if you spend too much time with your face 8 inches for the pan wondering if you have gold or got it all you are slowing yourself down for no good reason. Gold isn't gonna get out of the ground because your winning a staring contest with a gold pan.

 

[Jeff95531]

"I tell clients that I'm teaching that if you spend too much time with your face 8 inches for the pan wondering if you have gold or got it all you are slowing yourself down for no good reason. Gold isn't gonna get out of the ground because your winning a staring contest with a gold pan."

Well said Goldwasher! I look at it as if you're praying to see it in the pan when it's simply not there.

 

[brianc053]

Hunt4gold, I agree with the suggestions that you can safely pan the larger material and be confident that the heavies (gold, lead) will remain in the riffles.
For larger material like +20 I like to use a pan with larger riffles, like the Garrett 15" "super sluice" gold pan. My thinking is that with the deeper riffles it's easier for the larger heavies to get buried and not fall out of the pan. (Conversely, with -50 material I use a pan with a lot of smaller riffles - like the Green Pioneer 14" Gold Pan - because I imagine I have more chances to catch the fines before they leave the pan).

One other suggestion to boost your confidence: find a piece of birdshot and throw it in the pan with your +20 stuff, and then pan pretty vigorously into a tub. I bet the birdshot piece will be in the pan 9 out of 10 (or 10 of 10) times. Heck, if you're panning into a tub you could even throw a +20 gold picker in there and repeat the same test. Worst case, if you lose it into the tub you can just find it again!

Good luck!

- Brian

 

[Hunt4gold]

More good advice - thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. I have a couple of the Garrett 14" Gold Trap (acentric design) and will practice this weekend with some birdshot added to the pan. Its all about practice... Will let everyone know how it goes.

 

[Kenmitch]

More good advice - thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. I have a couple of the Garrett 14" Gold Trap (acentric design) and will practice this weekend with some birdshot added to the pan. Its all about practice... Will let everyone know how it goes.

I panned a piece of birdshot probably 1/32" or so once. I drop it in the pan now before I add my material as a test item. If it's still in there at the end I figure most of the gold is also. I use a safety pan just in case. I might miss a floater or two on 1st go around at times. I used to pan too slow and carefully so working on speed. I can retrieve the birdshot out of 1lb of 1/2 " classified material in about a minute or two now.

 

[kcm]

No matter what, good multiple classification steps WILL make it easier to retrieve your gold. That's a given. You'll read this in many posts, in most books and on virtually every prospecting site. What I haven't yet seen is why it's so much easier to get +20 gold than it is, say, -100 or finer. What changes? What doesn't change? Well, the specific gravity for each mineral/metal remains a constant, adjusted accordingly as to purity of mineral. Still, everything will act basically the same. The size of the material changes. Even the size of the pan can change. What doesn't change is water. So if water doesn't change, then it stands to reason that water will more easily wash out fine material more easily than chunky rocks and nuggets. Eventually it gets to a point where physical separation of gold from material just isn't possible. Once you reach that point, the only thing left is either pyrometallurgy or alchemy (heat or chemicals).

Some people can pan down pretty darn fine. Some "claim" to be able to pan down to -1500 or so. Personally, that sounds insane to me - unless you can effectively classify ALL of the material to that size. Even then, you're gonna lose some gold! ...It's all about physics.




DISCLAIMER - I often write as though I have actual experience in prospecting. I have not! Only a very long and intense interest, and an even longer wish list!! But when my time comes, I'm gonna be prepared. Will be buying a pan this winter along with some Gold Hog dirt. ...Maybe that'll get the wife interested again!

 

[goldog]

I'm one of those too good panners. I get it down to half a cup, swirl it a few times and suck up the pile. 80-90% done in the first pass. I can pick up a few cents more at home but it's really just for sport. I hate it.

 

[Hunt4gold]

No matter what, good multiple classification steps WILL make it easier to retrieve your gold. That's a given. You'll read this in many posts, in most books and on virtually every prospecting site. What I haven't yet seen is why it's so much easier to get +20 gold than it is, say, -100 or finer. What changes? What doesn't change? Well, the specific gravity for each mineral/metal remains a constant, adjusted accordingly as to purity of mineral. Still, everything will act basically the same. The size of the material changes. Even the size of the pan can change. What doesn't change is water. So if water doesn't change, then it stands to reason that water will more easily wash out fine material more easily than chunky rocks and nuggets. Eventually it gets to a point where physical separation of gold from material just isn't possible. Once you reach that point, the only thing left is either pyrometallurgy or alchemy (heat or chemicals).

Some people can pan down pretty darn fine. Some "claim" to be able to pan down to -1500 or so. Personally, that sounds insane to me - unless you can effectively classify ALL of the material to that size. Even then, you're gonna lose some gold! ...It's all about physics.




DISCLAIMER - I often write as though I have actual experience in prospecting. I have not! Only a very long and intense interest, and an even longer wish list!! But when my time comes, I'm gonna be prepared. Will be buying a pan this winter along with some Gold Hog dirt. ...Maybe that'll get the wife interested again!

Wow! Panning down to -1500 does sound crazy. Especially since it takes about 50,000 colors to a troy ounce with -50 mesh screen. So at -1500 screen size gold - thats about 150,00 colors to make an ounce. Not worth the extra effort for me to pan to that size. Although I tend to try and recover to about -100 myself.

How about others --- how fine of gold do you try and pan down to and recover?

 

[kcm]

Wow! Panning down to -1500 does sound crazy. Especially since it takes about 50,000 colors to a troy ounce with -50 mesh screen. So at -1500 screen size gold - thats about 150,00 colors to make an ounce. Not worth the extra effort for me to pan to that size. Although I tend to try and recover to about -100 myself.

How about others --- how fine of gold do you try and pan down to and recover?

That IS an interesting question!! ...Just how fine of material CAN realistically be panned?

When a guy on GPEX posted how he could pan to -1500, and even somewhat to -2000, everyone thought he was full of hot air. Hell, just classifying down that small would be quite a feat! I'm sure it could be done, but what kind of equipment would be needed for such a thing? (this might could even make its own thread)

 

[brianc053]

Wow! Panning down to -1500 does sound crazy. Especially since it takes about 50,000 colors to a troy ounce with -50 mesh screen. So at -1500 screen size gold - thats about 150,00 colors to make an ounce. Not worth the extra effort for me to pan to that size. Although I tend to try and recover to about -100 myself.

How about others --- how fine of gold do you try and pan down to and recover?

Good, fun question Hunt4gold. Here are my thoughts:
Recently I've stopped classifying with my 100 mesh classifier. I use the 8, 20, 30, 50 mesh classifiers but I was finding that stuff that got through the 100 mesh didn't contain all that much gold relative to the effort that it took to recover it (i.e. it just wasn't worth the extra level of classification). I pan all the -50 stuff together and feel like I get most of the gold out, especially since I use a magnet on every pan to get out the magnetic black sand.

(Regarding the magnet process, here's what I do: I'll put maybe a half-cup of material on one side of a large pan and submerge it in water. Then I'll use the magnet to grab black sand, move the water over to the clear side of the pan and drop the black sand into the water. Then I'll use the magnet on that same black sand, making the black sand come up through the water, releasing some of the non-black sand stuff. Then I repeat 2-3x, pickup and drop, pickup and drop. By the 3rd time it's just black sand. THAT process seems to take forever, but I feel like getting the black sand out of the pan - especially at the smaller meshes - is super important to recovery. I wish they made an automated tool for black sand removal... I've seen the videos on using 3 or 4 different pans and moving the black sand from pan to pan, but I find I can accomplish the same thing in the one single large pan.)

Another note on the choice to skip the 100 mesh classifier: for most of 2016 I've been mining on the East Coast, and from New Hampshire to Virginia I've been finding that there's good 50+/- mesh stuff, but not huge amounts of the ~100 mesh and smaller stuff. Last year I spent some time in Colorado and California, and there seems to be more 100 mesh stuff in those locations, relatively speaking. If/when I go back to those locations I will likely use the 100 mesh classifier on any cons I bring home. And I'll break out the blue bowl too, which was awesome for separating the Colorado gold I brought home last year.

One final note on only using 50 mesh: this year I've been keeping all my panned cons (i.e. the leftovers after panning out the gold), and I've been taking them with me on my next trip wherever. I throw them in the sluice or high banker once I get set up (side note: it's a good test of the water flow in the equipment). My thinking is that if I missed any of the small stuff it'll have a second chance to get caught in the equipment, and then panned out the next time I go through the concentrates from the trip. It's probably overkill, but it doesn't hurt - it takes an extra 5 minutes maybe.

- Brian

 

[triple d]

I find the opposite most of the N.H gold I find is 100 mesh or finer. The larger gold in N.H is on the bedrock. As like everywhere else. But need to dig fairly deep to get to it. Dredging is about the only way to get to it. And most of the larger gold has been found. If your digging were people have dredged. Could be some that they didn"t catch. And got washed out of there dredge. I find this happens more so in Maine.

 

[Kenmitch]

Wow! Panning down to -1500 does sound crazy. Especially since it takes about 50,000 colors to a troy ounce with -50 mesh screen. So at -1500 screen size gold - thats about 150,00 colors to make an ounce. Not worth the extra effort for me to pan to that size. Although I tend to try and recover to about -100 myself.

How about others --- how fine of gold do you try and pan down to and recover?

I tend to just pan in sunlight and go for the gold I can see. I've never measured how small that is yet. I did read similar statistics which eased my mind and helped speed up the panning process. I do save concentrates for panning practice. I guess someday I could examine them with a usb microscope and see if there is micro gold left. Figuring it's not really worth the effort to retrieve looking at the statistics. Adds up eventually but probably more profitable picking up pennies off the street.

 

[kcm]

I tend to just pan in sunlight and go for the gold I can see. I've never measured how small that is yet. I did read similar statistics which eased my mind and helped speed up the panning process. I do save concentrates for panning practice. I guess someday I could examine them with a usb microscope and see if there is micro gold left. Figuring it's not really worth the effort to retrieve looking at the statistics. Adds up eventually but probably more profitable picking up pennies off the street.

Remember, it's this kind of thinking that has kept parts of Nevada from being mined until modern day. Miners/prospectors should ALWAYS know what they're working with. It could very well be that someone right now is working in an area and doing a good job of getting every piece of visible gold that is available to them, when the real prize just lays there waiting for someone to do a thorough sampling.

If you're certain your area/claim doesn't have micro gold, great. Otherwise, occasional full-scale testing now and then won't hurt.