Making your own mats

[seafox]

fellow in montana used lego blocks to make a mold and silicone calking to make mats. a 10 by 10 inch base plate has about 32 times 32 ~ 1028 little posts making catch pockits and the blocks very the level ands make drop riffles. their are two formulas of silicone calk one mixed with dawn dish soap and one mixed with corn starch. I tried an acrilic silioconized calk but added to much corn starch and then added water. made a nice batter which is slowly drying out in the pot in a fridge. likely will toss it. got silicone for second try 3.35 at the family doller store for 9 oz.
the elastomarics cost about 25 a gallon or 80 for 4.5. they are acrillic latex. true liqiid rubber epdm from rubberits is 29 fo0r a quaRT nD 80 FOR 5 GALLON. intrestingly they sell a cround rubber to bulk their product. any thoughts would be aqpreciated. looking at the cost for epdm I apreciate the cost charged from manufactures like gold hog for their matts. wonder if elastomaric mats or even latex paints given enough dryng time would work.

thankyou for your thoughts

 

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[Underburden]

Too much work just to re-invent the wheel.
See line #1 in my signature.

 

[Oddjob]

you can make toilet paper too, but I am not risking my hand or gold with either.

 

[blackchipjim]

I think if you were an engineer with experience in hydraulic theory and came up an improved riffle design it would worth just buying rubber compounds.

 

[blackchipjim]

Wheels were made of stone once no?

 

[Underburden]

The red flag in that post was the insertion of the words LEGO BLOCKS)

 

[N-Lionberger]

I have some plans laying around somewhere for a reciprocating sluice box/centrifuge system that utilized rubber riffle components made from a room temp vulcanizing rubber. I don't see anything wrong with LEGO's I have used them in the past for making boxes for making rubber molds for glass casting.

The simple matter of fact is some people enjoy reinventing the wheel and there isn't **** wrong with it. Some of us like to experiment with riffle designs, I have plenty of experience of people attacking me for trying new things in my dredge. Calling out safety problems is one thing but calling out on DIY is a waste of everyone's time, if you don't have anything good to say don't say anything at all is my opinion.

 

[Darth Placer]

I agree, if you feel Legos have the right profile for what you are looking to accomplish..... go for it.

I use Vortex conveyor belting in all of my equipment... all those small voids make a huge difference in the fine gold recovered at the end of the day.

My take on this is the fellow from Montana is trying to take a drop riffle design (very effective) and merging it with the belting I use in my dredge/highbanker/sluices (also very effective) Works well on the Gold Cube too.

Unless you try it you will never know. Never knock a guy for trying.

The guy that made the first wheel from stone I'm not sure about, as history from the long long ago is a but hazed. He might have done some prototypes with logs.... maybe watermelons.

Don't get me wrong I have seen some really bad ideas posted on different forums.... I don't feel this is one of them.

At the end of the day it comes down to the cleanup results. I haven't seen them but do like this idea and think it is one worth pursuing, this is a low cost method to try an idea out.

Seafox my thoughts are to make the drops one Lego short width long(4 dimples).... and 4 short widths on the top flats (16 dimples). Depth of the drop 1 or 2 Legos deep. Wouldn't write off the underside of the Lego either... it has some interesting patterns.

Please do post some results however good or bad. Have a feeling they will be good on this one. Get to work!!!!

 

[RTD-Tech]

Because of the shape of legos, it might be hard to pull your mat from the mold after it set. You might want to spray the mold with silicone mold release spray before pouring the rubber.

http://www.amazon.com/Sprayway-SW946-Silicone-Spray-Release/dp/B0018NBE8A/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1548531951&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=silicone+mold+release+spray&dpPl=1&dpID=41rQy1h1xkL&ref=plSrch

Something like this might help.

 

[mike(swWash)]

Using the regular size lego's and some of the large lego blocks would make an interesting profile. one section small indents next section larger indents... repeat.
I say go for it, sounds like a good winter experiment to me.

 

[Grizz12]

What about using that spray on flex seal stuff, will that work??

 

[Capt Nemo]

Might want to stagger the bricks a little, otherwise there's spots in the mat that might not catch anything.

 

[Joanne]

I really don't know about making gold mats, but I do have a couple of quick thoughts on the topic.

I believe it all comes down to what you are interested in. If you are focused on getting gold out of the ground, then buy a good mat and get shoveling. Let the mat pay for itself and put money in your pocket. If you are actually interested in making your own mats as part of the hobby, then go for it. Mess with different profiles and see if you find something that works for you. Nothing wrong with wanting to "make your own". On something as crucial as gold recovery, you will need to spend quite a bit of time making sure that your home crafted mat is actually effective at catching gold.

I've spent so much money in my lifetime trying to save money....

Joanne

 

[Bonaro]

All I know is...if Lego Mats show up on the market....people will buy them and predictably, they will swear by them

 

[seafox]

wonder how much the room vulcani-zing rubber costs

I have some plans laying around somewhere for a reciprocating sluice box/centrifuge system that utilized rubber riffle components made from a room temp vulcanizing rubber. I don't see anything wrong with LEGO's I have used them in the past for making boxes for making rubber molds for glass casting.

The simple matter of fact is some people enjoy reinventing the wheel and there isn't **** wrong with it. Some of us like to experiment with riffle designs, I have plenty of experience of people attacking me for trying new things in my dredge. Calling out safety problems is one thing but calling out on DIY is a waste of everyone's time, if you don't have anything good to say don't say anything at all is my opinion.

I tried the silicone with corn starch last night and didn't have enough starch to get it to non sticky puddy , thus could not roll it out with a pipe but used stick as best I could. one tube of calk from family doller at 3.35$ 9 oz did about 4 inches pf mat 10 inches wide. N-Lionberger. that sounds intresting about casting glass was it liquid glass poured in or powdered glass fused after filling mold and what about the rubber burning?

 

[seafox]

I really don't know about making gold mats, but I do have a couple of quick thoughts on the topic.

I believe it all comes down to what you are interested in. If you are focused on getting gold out of the ground, then buy a good mat and get shoveling. Nothing wrong with wanting to "make your own". On something as crucial as gold recovery, you will need to spend quite a bit of time making sure that your home crafted mat is actually effective at catching gold.

I've spent so much money in my lifetime trying to save money....

Joanne

Joanne. of all the wise things i've ever read thinak your point about spending so much over a life time trying to save money gflat out tops the list.

I am not exactly buryed in cash I built my own sluice out of scrap alumian and cut mats out of conveyer matting that was worn out and discarded. in 17 I had a set up that measured 35 feet long with 42 square foot catch area. the top was a crash box ( distruction chamber as coined by doc at Gold Hog ( oh I admire that fellow and am amazed at his inventions) ) that held a full5 gal buckit of material. I swerled the water around to self feed and the gold caught in matting under the distruction chamber mostly paid for my trip home. I have matting under the grizzley and home made conveyer belt matting some with slots cut with a radial arm saw and some with slices of mat glued on top ( even tried to do both grin) at the bottom had a 5 foot long by 18 inch wide flair section. had two lengths of Sluices with gold hog matting in them. I love the stuff but at 35$ adverage plus shipping per 1.5 square feet that would be 350 + $ in matting alone. know a guy who would leave a several hundered doller sluice on his claim but the matting was just too easy to carry off.

so far I tried acrilic calk and corn starch didn't set very well cracked and got tossed. last night tried silicone calk and for about 4$ got a 10 inch wide by 4 inch long piece of matting. and it set up ok but I was short on corn starch and expect it to hard to bemold. today tried a 9 doller 12 ounce can of rust olium leak seal rubber. likely take 2 to 4 days s to set. will post resultsa as they come in. the area covered in my mold with the rust olium wasa about 10 wide by 18 long but was not full thickness so plan to back it with more silicone/cornstarch putty in a few days

intrestingly the 9 oz caalk tube held about 14 cubic inches of silicone. when they say equell amounts of silicone and corn starch mixed together I wonder if it is wt or volume. listening to docs vidio on the new wave mat he said the 6 by 36 big mat was like 5.5 pounds. lot of material

in looking over choices beside silicone. elastomaric roof coating runs about $25 30 a gallon and covers 100 sf to a thickness of 5 sheets of type paper. epdm liquid rubber runs about 4 times more expensve at at least 29$ per gallon

 

[seafox]

it does give one a place to play with legos!

A local second hand lego store sells at about 13$ a pound so a standard 2 by 4 post block costs nickle. and making my own mats gave me an excuse to buy some and play around. they also sell damaged aand strange pieces in bags for as low as 2$ each. its fun and maybe like coloring books for adults maybe good theropy. the blricks have got a lot more diverse since I was a kid and have 1/3 normal height bricks . its intresting thinkling what will catch the gold and my theory is sorta to try everything and have lots of choice. building on 10 inch square bases ( 6$) they have 1028 posts sticking up and have settled on one full height and one /third height blocks with the side walls maybe a forth inch deeper. making the mats in batch sections will glue to cheep carpet runner matting (36 wide by foot long I think was 5$ or could used conveyer matting ( heavyer)) well waiting for spring

 

[N-Lionberger]

I was using a technique that involved making a slurry of powdered glass and water that I would fill the molds with, I would freeze them and then very carefully transfer it to a kiln and fire it up.

Where are you that you have used lego stores?

 

[seafox]

Store is called blocks and things in sunset ut. Funny thing is that the building used to be a sporting goods Army Navy Surplus Store it was called Sunset Sporting Goods which when I was a kid was actually in the next town north of called Roy that seems really interesting that the frozen slurry could thaw and fuse with out running away a techniquee I studied involved making a wax mold coating it in plaster of Paris letting it dry in baking out the wax then putting powdered glass in and heating it so that it didn't totally liquify but would just fuse and so the colors would still remain distinct

 

[seafox]

Never got too involved in the glass idea but read a book Dick Francis novel called shattered about a glass artist and how they had to aneal the sculptures to keep them from shattering afterwards