Throwing the baby out with the bath water -- CONCENTRATES

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

We don't use a sluice. It's a love hate thing. We hate them because they lose gold and we love them because they lose gold. We use a vortex in a cone bottom tank to get our cons and then we use a cone bottom tank with water, mercury, hydrogen peroxide, pine oil and our secret ingredient to boil the cons. It's a twist on froth floatation. What won't float out of the tank gets caught by the mercury.

Well sure. Your vortex is just another form of hydraulic separation, probably with better control on the fluid dynamics that most sluices, certainly in creek set ups. Moving up to high banker or recirc can help with control for them. Do you classify on the front end? Have you ever checked the effluent from the vortex for mineralogy?

Your secondary system is already treatment of the cons - chemistry

Is there much left in your post treatment cons?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

How to Research for Treasure Hunting and Metal Detecting From Lead Generation to Vetting - Grab it through Amazon!

[KevinInColorado]

ConceptualizedNetherlandr I love the science you are brining to the discussion!

That 77% recovery is a tricky thing. The remaining gold was locked up in my heavy non magnetic super concentrates after separation of all visible gold. The magnetic material was already separated (and found to hold minimal/no gold).

I do hope Diz finds a way to get the hidden gold out of what I gave him. Of course I have produced a bunch more since my delivery thru Jesse to Diz so I am getting around to thinking its time for me to have a try at this myself.

I will try all the tricks folks talk about on here, crushing, thermal shock and acids...one of these days. Digging is more fun so I'd rather go back to my secret honey hole or out on a friendly group dig but one of these days!

 

[goldog]

Ok , After a bunch of math what's the bottom line? Kevin, are you saying you've collected 50 lbs of non magnetic super cons? Is that what contains the2 .6 OPT? Theoretically that's about a buck and a half a lb. A couple hundred pounds and you're talking

 

[KevinInColorado]

Ok , After a bunch of math what's the bottom line? Kevin, are you saying you've collected 50 lbs of non magnetic super cons? Is that what contains the2 .6 OPT? Theoretically that's about a buck and a half a lb. A couple hundred pounds and you're talking

Yup, exactly.

 

[DizzyDigger]

C
I do hope Diz finds a way to get the hidden gold out of what I gave him. Of course I have produced
a bunch more since my delivery thru Jesse to Diz so I am getting around to thinking its time for me
to have a try at this myself.

Kevin, haven't had much luck pulling gold from those cons. It's not that
it's not there, but the best I can do with it at the moment is to run it on
the miller table, which you have already done I believe.

Had to give up on the St. Jude's project, as I can't get enough gold together
to make it worthwhile. Quite a few have asked about sending cons, but very
few have followed up. My health is also in the pooper at the moment, so there
is little time to spend hours a day at the miller table.

I still haven't processed about 2/3 of what you sent me, and if you'll
PM me your address I'll ship it back so you can work at getting the good
stuff out.

 

[KevinInColorado]

No need to ship it back, keep it until you are healthier and just enjoy the process. FYI, my only finish equipment is a 10" black pan...no miller table or such. You may have to crush or soak in acid (brick cleaner) or use heat shock to crack open the gold. I'd like to think my panning skills mean you won't find much on a miller table!

Get well soon and then have fun with that material!

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Thanks Kev, the idea here is just food for thought/me thinking out loud. I'd like to hear from the peeps than have been identifying minerals to know what the occurrence is in the placer deposits.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

The smaller the mag the smaller all the other things you are retaining, good thing! Do you know what mesh? For example if you screen the fines, at what point does the Mag no longer show up?

100 mesh; both the + and the -

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

100 mesh; both the + and the -

Now there is a NUMBA I can start to work with. So in your case the mag is bigger than 100 mesh, but I don't understand the +/-.

 

[SunshineMiner]

He is saying he gets magnetite both Above 100 mesh, and even BELOW 100 mesh, im assuming that the 100 mesh is the finest most of us use to be honest..

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

So then, no sort of limiting factor.

 

[Skiddum]

so I'm new here. me my wife and a buddy of mine have been hitting the local rivers and canyons. really notfinding much. goldif we do its usually small 50 to 100 mesh. some bigger. but over the last couple months we've found tons of black sand. my wife likes to show it off to her friends and make it stand up with the N52 magnet. but I built a propane forge last year. could I use it to see if we there's more gold in it. just smelt it down with some flux. or is there more to it than that.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Now there is a NUMBA I can start to work with. So in your case the mag is bigger than 100 mesh, but I don't understand the +/-.

It passes through a 100 mesh screen, so it smaller (-) or it doesn't, so it is larger (+). I have already done prior classifying with larger screens on cons. I don't classify on the river; I use a bazooka.

 

[KevinInColorado]

so I'm new here. me my wife and a buddy of mine have been hitting the local rivers and canyons. really notfinding much. goldif we do its usually small 50 to 100 mesh. some bigger. but over the last couple months we've found tons of black sand. my wife likes to show it off to her friends and make it stand up with the N52 magnet. but I built a propane forge last year. could I use it to see if we there's more gold in it. just smelt it down with some flux. or is there more to it than that.

Worth a try!

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

so I'm new here. me my wife and a buddy of mine have been hitting the local rivers and canyons. really notfinding much. goldif we do its usually small 50 to 100 mesh. some bigger. but over the last couple months we've found tons of black sand. my wife likes to show it off to her friends and make it stand up with the N52 magnet. but I built a propane forge last year. could I use it to see if we there's more gold in it. just smelt it down with some flux. or is there more to it than that.

For sure you want to first remove all the magnetic material and anything you are sure is not gold.

 

[Skiddum]

K I have a blue bowl DAM. and the Black magic full length. but haven't used either yet on just black sand. I use the blackmagic on my cons. I've wanted to use the blue bowl to after the black magic but just haven't yet. but we have all this black sand and reading this thread I thought about smelting it down with some Flux see if anything separates from the sand. if it does it probably wouldn't be much cause we only have a 10 inch pan full. like and 8th of an inch full all the way around the bottom. it's smaller than 100 mesh it fits right through it.

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Just for grins I ran this simple model backwards for a 1 cm diameter nugget (10.1 grams), and figured what size quartz sphere would have equivalent SA/M, not going to find this on your sluice, but roughly indicative of similar size materials you will find in an area where that nugget drops out of the river flow. 7 cm. I guess this means you gotta dig the big stuff and 'warsh' the gold out of it. Want even bigger nuggets, gotta sift through some big stuff.