Guidence

[omnicron]

Hi all, new member here. I would like some advice on what I am looking at, it seems that I'm confused as to what I am seeing.. I'll start with a back story...Last friday I bought a Keene A52 sluice and went up to Grimes Creek here in Idaho and ran maybe 50 buckets of material. I dug from behind rocks, sand bars, inside and out side of the creek bends and all I ever seen was a few very small flakes in the black rubber riffles. But the green mat would have a crap load of yellow in it's riffles plus lots of black sand. I ended up coming home with maybe 1/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of cons. I classified down really small (house hold strainer) and then paned out the rest. I then took a magnet from a old dead computer harddrive and put some water in my cons then ran the magnet above the water and got all the magnetic stuff out. So I am left with this mixture of stuff, my question is in regards to this yellow stuff I am seeing...is this micro gold? If it is, boy it sure looks like alot. Here are a few pics...

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[TerryC]

Take a needle/pin and mash a flake. If it shatters, mica. If it dents, gold. Lots of old salts would love to find a pan like that! Most likely mica. Don't throw the black sand out, just yet. CRUSH it good and then pan it. You may be pleasantly surprised! Welcome to the net. TTC

[DesertNuggets]

Looks like fine blonde sand.

But it might have some fine gold in it.

Buy a 30x jewlers loupe to examine it closer.

[omnicron]

Thank you for your responses! Last night I found a post on another forum about using sugar in your gold pan and I tried it with favorable results I might add. I was able to pan down to just gold. It made it so much easier for a newbie with limited panning skill! I'm now sure it's gold but I am going to build a Miller table this weekend for ease of extraction and that should tell me for sure if it's gold or not.

[todd20030]

Sugar?

[419GottaMinute]

Not sure, bit logically, dissolving sugar in water should raise its specific gravity, allowing heavier material to be panned easier...never heard of it, bit you would want to pan into another pan to double check your not losing gold..

[omnicron]

I did pan into another pan, I did lose gold but that was due to my poor panning skills and being in a hurry...

[Goodyguy]

Speaking of building a miller table..............

Slate makes the best surface.

Here is one that I built using a cut to size piece of scrap pool table slate and some aluminum that I bent on my 30" Harbor Freight Brake.
It recirculates into two mixing tubs from Home Depot. The size is 14" wide by 30" long.

[hunter_46356]

Good Guy How thick of material will the Harbor Freight Brake handle?

[Goodyguy]

I have bent up to 1/8" aluminum but that is what I would say is the maximum for aluminum.


Here is what is listed for the tool by Harbor Freight: "Capacity: 30" wide stock x 17 gauge steel, 18 gauge galvanized steel or 16 gauge aluminum".

GG~

[omnicron]

Nice looking table! Sure wish I was still in the hvac trade, having access to power shears, breaks, lock formers, spot welders anything sheet metal related would be nice and I could build anything that could be drawn on paper.

So here is my problem, I built my miller table and it works great but not as well as I was expecting. I am getting some fine gold trapped but not this fine (powder) gold that I see in my pans. When I run the cons down the table, I see the gold glittering as it goes down the table but it's not stopping. I'll record a video tomorrow and maybe you guys can tell me if I'm seeing gold or something else. On a side note I adjusted the flow rate, the angle of the table, both and it's just not working, just for the 100 mesh and up sized stuff. Who knows maybe it's not gold...

Sunday I drove back up to Grimes Creek but a different area, one that’s already been mined, it had huge piles of tailing's As I was looking around I found some bedrock on the creek bed and some sticking out of the side of the creek. Not having anything but my bare hands and a trenching shovel I proceeded to rip this bedrock out knowing gold is trapped in the cracks. I was only able to get a quarter of bucket of material and that pic is what I ended up with. I guess that made up for the hours of intense labor! I can't wait to get back this weekend. I bought some miners moss to replace the keene green carpet that came with the A52a sluice and my Bazooka should be here this week so I can try that!

[Goodyguy]

Omnicron,

As far as your gold washing down your miller table...........
If your gold washes away with the blond sand it's not gold. Black sand should follow the blond sand and gold should be left stuck to the table after the black sand washes away. Anything that washes away before the black sand is not gold!

Also be sure to use a surfactant in your water such as jet-dry to make sure the fine powder gold breaks the surface tension of the water.
The angle does not need to be too steep (see my photo above) adjust water speed accordingly. Steeper angle slower water. Less angle faster water but not too fast.

*On your A-52 sluice, If the yield is mostly fine gold I would stick with the carpet.

GG~

[omnicron]

Thanks for the help GG! I played around with it again today and what ever it is that I am seeing washes away at the same time or seconds after the black sand...Here's a picture..

[Jeffro]

Being from Idaho I am suspecting you may be dealing with garnet sand. Very tough to deal with, almost impossible to pan flour gold out. You may want to purchase some finer screens and run each screening separately and see if that helps out some.