TheNewCatfish
Sr. Member
- Mar 4, 2011
- 344
- 125
I have seen all kinds of expensive machines and tedious methods for separating gold from black sand. Magnets. recirculators. bottle shaking... All of them work poorly. But on a recent trip to Colorado. i was astonished to see one technique that actually produces great results at a reasonable price. A fellow pulls out a 6.5 hp wet vacuum machine. uses duct tape to connect a flexible 3/8 inch clear plastic hose to it. Wraps the hose in a series of large loops and sticks the end in a bucket of concentrate containing water. Using the adjustment knob on the vac. he increased the power of the machine until the black sand travelled forward around the top of the loops and the fine gold slid backwards to settle at the bottom of each loop. Final result... Nearly all the sand in the wet vac and the fine gold left in the hose. Very little of the gold was sucked into the wet vac. I panned the sand just to see for myself. The cost of constructing the devise is negligible. Some plastic tubing and duct tape... you can rent a wet vac for a few more dollars.
