Ultra fine gold dust

Tahoegold

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Hi all,
The other day I found a patch of gold in a highbank. I've been sampling to find the parameters. So, I didn't move much dirt. I used a snuffer bottle to grab the tiny -50 mesh I would say and took that plus some of the sands surrounding these pieces from my pan. I am being careful and gentil to recover as small of gold as I can. I went home with only my snuffed material. I then decided to try a process I saw on line that uses one small dish inside a slightly larger dish. Then ran a steady stream on one side of the small dish pushing the black sands out the opposite side like the blue bowl process. To my surprise, it really worked. I would say -100 stayed and only 4 bits of black sand remained. I had about 20 pieces of gold. Then comes the interesting part. I took the bigger of the bowles and tried to swish the black sands around to see if any gold spilled into it. No,not even a tiny speck. Upon setting this bowl down I noticed some material forming a line. It was moving like mud does in water. You know, cloudy swirling color. This material, however, quickly settled into a trough on the bowl. I thought, humm, that looks like it may be golden. I swished it gentlyand was able to get a better defined line. This really looks and acts like gold. It really settles fast and looks like it could be ultra fine gold dust. I have been looking into methods of recovering this tiny pigment like form of gold. Millertables I believe would wash this away. The two bowl method seems to capture it though! I am going to try the two bucket process that uses a whirlpool and a test plug to capture all the gold.
My question is, if just a tiny bit of black sands can produce a visible amount of gold dust. If this can this be mined to produce some quantity. How would a newbie recover this ultra fine gold dust in s payable quantity? I'm curious as heck. I've accidentally recovered the smallest particles I could ever imagine. I couldn't even tell you how small the mesh of the would be. It moves like smoke in the water before setteling. I literally had one drop of black sands that produced this material. I am proceding with caution. I need advice. Anyone have actual experience mining this? Please, lets not speculate. Experienced miners, please advise. Thanks!
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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I don't have pics. Once I thought it was gold, I just wanted to protect it and snuffed it back into the bottle. Knowing me I would tip the bowl and loose it! The words do accurately describe it. If it is what I think it is. Would pics really help with my question? I do not want to loose the oppertunity to work with more. I'm going to find out what to do. But for now, I'll try to get more to work with...Thx!
 

et1955

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A picture is worth a thousand words, I and others with a lot of mining experience need to see what you have found.
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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et1955,
Tomorrow I will get a pic with sunlight. I can understand needing to see exactly what it is. Thank you for responding!
 

Reed Lukens

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Hi all, . How would a newbie recover this ultra fine gold dust in s payable quantity? !
Mercury... A couple drops of charged mercury in a copper pan is the best way, but mercury... you know...
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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Thx RL,
A copper pan? Ok, I'll look into this.I know I need to be careful. I'll study the process. I know someone familiar with doing this. The bigest part of this however, is getting it out of the ground quickly, efficiently. I suppose using classification to get some of the bigger overburden then going as small as 20 mesh all wet process would be the most recovery. I have a bucket inside a bucket classifier that is 1/2" and it does a nice job. I could make a couple others. 1/4" then 20 mesh. Then sluice everything bigger than 20 mesh. I've heard of running a tumbler over night with mercury then processing with acid for mercury recovery and then recovering the mercury with copper strips. All fun to play with but doesn't seem like a real money maker. I suppose I need to start capturing the concentrates and worry about processing later. For now maybe suggestions on mining could help? Pics tomorrow. Thanks again for the advice!
 

winners58

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I have gold like that, I screen to 100 mesh and I can see it building up on the lip of the blue bowl
you can only see it when it bunches together, I just save all my -100 to run with mercury someday.
I'd really rather be out getting more than mess with it, I've heard of making a drip leach using a 5 gallon buckets.
 

Bonaro

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I've heard of running a tumbler over night with mercury then processing with acid for mercury recovery and then recovering the mercury with copper strips.

Um, no... Using a tumbler with mercury is effective on very small quantities, perhaps with the concentrates after careful screening. Using it on a larger scale is another animal... You also have cleanup of equipment and wastewater to consider and you dont use copper strips, you need aluminum.
Please do not try this until you understand how it works.
 

Goldwasher

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Mercury and aluminum are not friends



Let them play together for a while and you won't have aluminum strips anymore.

It would be copper that you use.

If what you describe is gold , you already know how to get it as you've seen it.

Work on accumulating more of it before you get into advanced fine recovery that can hurt or kill you.

Until then don't mix aluminum with mercury. It will not get you more gold.
 

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Bonaro

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Mercury and aluminum are not friends



Let them play together for a while and you won't have aluminum strips anymore.

It would be copper that you use.

If what you describe is gold , you already know how to get it as you've seen it.

Work on accumulating more of it before you get into advanced fine recovery that can hurt or kill you.

Until then don't mix aluminum with mercury. It will not get you more gold.


Once you have liberated the HG from amalgam using nitric acid, you will be left with gold and mercuric nitrate Hg(NO3). You can introduce strips of AL foil to this solution and the HNO3 will drop the HG to attack the foil.
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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Thank you all for your input. I am listening and will not be doing any thing dangerous! I can mine this for now safely. I did some research about mercury recovery. I found out that mercury will actually dissolve gold a little leaving a blackend form of gold. Most folks don't know this black material is gold. Apearantly the smaller the gold the more surface area and the greator amount of dissolving of the gold by the Mercury. This being the case, I'm concerined I may be up against a problem of too much loss or yet another process to recover the blackened gold. Thanks for all the support. I am glad to have the info from you all. The search for the best method continues! Waiting for the sun for pics...
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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Mercury... A couple drops of charged mercury in a copper pan is the best way, but mercury... you know...
I read that charged mercury works great for dirty gold or gold with material which prevents the gold surface from coming into contact with the Mercury. Thank you.
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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I have gold like that, I screen to 100 mesh and I can see it building up on the lip of the blue bowl
you can only see it when it bunches together, I just save all my -100 to run with mercury someday.
I'd really rather be out getting more than mess with it, I've heard of making a drip leach using a 5 gallon buckets.

Thx Winner58,
I normally would be doing the same. In this instance, what may be present is a high concentration of this fine gold.
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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Goldwasher, good observation! "
If what you describe is gold , you already know how to get it as you've seen it." This is true, and the reason why I'm thinking a "setteling" process is the direction I need to go. I'm not decided, just sayin'...
 

Goldwasher

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My bad... I skimmed too much I saw mercury...tumbler fine gold etc...

Missed the part where we were telling a guy with little experience (no offense Tahoe) to start playin with sulpheric acid and mercury...Well encouraging I guess since it was his Idea:laughing7:

I thought it was about putting strips and cons and mercury in the tumbler for amalgamation.

Not what to do after.

Fun stuff like Nitric acid......warm sulpheric...combining with mercury...then adding metal to that solution to get a little bit of fine gold....

Sounds like so, much more fun than actually going out and prospecting for weight.....

Sorry Bonaro... I did miss that part and you are right.

Tahoe...You are not there yet.

You are close enough to many places where you can find much bigger funner gold to chase.

And maybe at the worst have to deal with some gold that has mercury attached. Much easier to deal with.

Typically for a guy out prospecting gold that is so fine it needs something beyond gravity and basic tools it's not worth it.

Unless your one of those poor guys that lives in like Iowa and only has glacial gold....even then using mercury isn't a game changer.

I never use mercury for recovery.
 

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Tahoegold

Tahoegold

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Goldwasher, no offense, I am a newbie without experience. And I am grateful to be here getting this info. Here's the Pics. By the way. I know for sure this is gold dust. I can clearly see it in the sunlight. You know, there's nothing like the glint of gold. Definitely not mica.
OK, I know this is a tiny amount. I panned about 5, 12" pans of 1/2" classified material. I am sure some were a little overloaded and not enough water. Never the less, it is the amount of dust compared to the amount of small gold that is intriguing. This is what I snuffed up with the gold pieces. I didn't even bring anything else back. So, this is just from a small line against the edge of the pan. I intend to use buckets and classify some more material and bring the concentrates back to see how much is really in this deposit. Well, there you have it. Ultra fine GD.JPG Ultra Fine GD 2.JPG
 

winners58

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I bring my sluice concentrates home and screen them to 16 to 18 mesh whatever the kitchen strainer is. (pan the bigger stuff).
multiple 5 gallon buckets of Con's then run them through my recirculating sluice, I now use GoldHog washer mats.
takes it down to super concentrates, then screen them to 30 mesh, then use my Falcon clean up pan,
you can screen -50 and -100 or save it up to play with in winter.

watch the Mike Pung and Steve Wilcox series on Fine Gold recvovery
start with the "Fine Gold Challenge"
https://www.youtube.com/user/MrGoldcube/videos
 

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