Gold cube and miller table

[bottlecap]

Now that I have a little experience with prospecting I was thinking running material through a gold cube then using a miller table to cleanly extract the cons from the cube might be a good one two punch. Any thoughts? I get really frustrated panning some of the really fine stuff, very hard to separate from the black sand without panning black sand out and probably losing gold.

 

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[bottlecap]

In my previous post I didn't mean that the cube wouldn't work as designed, meant if I couldn't find enough gold and finally gave up.

 

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[johnedoe]

Through all of this you haven't told us what your primary recovery equipment is and how you are handling the raw material.
Lets start from there and see if we can't get you on track for the cleanup and what that will require....
If your not handling your raw material correctly you are losing gold.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Through all of this you haven't told us what your primary recovery equipment is and how you are handling the raw material.
Lets start from there and see if we can't get you on track for the cleanup and what that will require....
If your not handling your raw material correctly you are losing gold.

Truthfully, we are all, always losing gold in our operations. We just try to configure things to lose as little as possible while still being able to process material with more than a spoon.

 

[johnedoe]

Maybe I should have said losing more gold than you really need to be........ I know no system is 100%.... some get pretty close though.

 

[bottlecap]

O.k. first off we can't use a sluice at the river here in Mn so primary recovery is slightly crude. I use a pro pan, run it several times without emptying it until there are a lot of cons in the bottom, after I get what I determine to be enough cons in the pro pan I run them through a 12 mesh classifier into a 5 gallon bucket, said cons are then brought home for further processing. At home I classify from the original 12 mesh to 30, then 50, then 70 then 100. Very time consuming and I hate it. The size of gold varies depending on the location I go and can even vary from one area of the river to another. Anyways after classifying I either pan it all or run it through my clean up sluice which is an alluvial sluice by prospectors choice. If I use the sluice rather than trying to see the gold and snuff it out individually I empty the entire contents into a pan and pan it. I have only ever had one semi breathtaking clean up with a little gold smiley face in my pan but that came from a river I found out is illegal to pan. Now I am desperate to find another area that has gold that good, I have tried tributaries but there isn't near the amount of gold in them there is in the main river. Very f'n frustrating. The gold from illegal river actually has shape to it and the ENTIRE river is off limits.

 

[johnedoe]

O.k. first off we can't use a sluice at the river here in Mn so primary recovery is slightly crude. I use a pro pan, run it several times without emptying it until there are a lot of cons in the bottom, after I get what I determine to be enough cons in the pro pan I run them through a 12 mesh classifier into a 5 gallon bucket, said cons are then brought home for further processing. At home I classify from the original 12 mesh to 30, then 50, then 70 then 100. Very time consuming and I hate it. The size of gold varies depending on the location I go and can even vary from one area of the river to another. Anyways after classifying I either pan it all or run it through my clean up sluice which is an alluvial sluice by prospectors choice. If I use the sluice rather than trying to see the gold and snuff it out individually I empty the entire contents into a pan and pan it. I have only ever had one semi breathtaking clean up with a little gold smiley face in my pan but that came from a river I found out is illegal to pan. Now I am desperate to find another area that has gold that good, I have tried tributaries but there isn't near the amount of gold in them there is in the main river. Very f'n frustrating. The gold from illegal river actually has shape to it and the ENTIRE river is off limits.

Well it sounds like your pretty well boxed in with the BS laws.
What is the largest gold you can expect to find?.... There is no sense in hauling stuff home that is way bigger than say maybe 2 or 3 times the largest gold you expect.
You have a good pan for production panning, and that is pretty much what it appears your stuck with..... Did you get the pan from the fossicker, Dennis Katz?... if so he is a very helpful and knowledgeable guy.

Anyway maybe just classify a couple times in the field 12 and 50 mesh.... that will reduce a good bit of your work load in the field and when you get home you can do the finer classifying. I don't think a gold cube would be money well spent at this time with what you are working with....JMHO.

Sorry about the requirements you are stuck with ... It sucks for sure.

The only other thing I can think of that might improve your take for time spent would be sniping and if your creek/river has bedrock showing.

Hope this helps a little.... Wish ya luck

 

[bottlecap]

Well it sounds like your pretty well boxed in with the BS laws.
What is the largest gold you can expect to find?.... There is no sense in hauling stuff home that is way bigger than say maybe 2 or 3 times the largest gold you expect.
You have a good pan for production panning, and that is pretty much what it appears your stuck with..... Did you get the pan from the fossicker, Dennis Katz?... if so he is a very helpful and knowledgeable guy.

Anyway maybe just classify a couple times in the field 12 and 50 mesh.... that will reduce a good bit of your work load in the field and when you get home you can do the finer classifying. I don't think a gold cube would be money well spent at this time with what you are working with....JMHO.

Sorry about the requirements you are stuck with ... It sucks for sure.

The only other thing I can think of that might improve your take for time spent would be sniping and if your creek/river has bedrock showing.

Hope this helps a little.... Wish ya luck

The largest gold I have found would be around the 30 mesh size then there is the super fine stuff that's -100. I just hate classifying that small at the river, it is really time consuming. I once tried just classifying straight down to 30 mesh at the river but I was afraid I was going to wreck the classifier screen plus it kept getting clogged with just one pro pan worth of cons. I am getting a little discouraged about the cube. I think it would be sweet to run all my stuff through it at home then just have that small amount to classify. I think in two weeks I am taking a road trip but haven't figured out where yet. Yes it does suck about the law on that river, especially because I know people that have been approached by park rangers/DNR and they let them off the hook because they could clearly see there wasn't being any damage done. Basically if you get some crab ass he'll make you dump cons and leave, get a nice guy and he says have a great day.

 

[johnedoe]

Save the 100 mesh for doing at home..... you just need to concentrate moving as much as you can as fast as you can in the field and reducing it as much as possible.

I think I can process more material quicker with my EZ Pan though.... check out the video I posted... the only difference in my panning is I don't take it down to the fine cons like the vid.... I bring it down to about enough to just cover the bottom then just add more material , I can do that for an hour or more without worrying about losses.

 

[Jason in Enid]

O.k. first off we can't use a sluice at the river here in Mn so primary recovery is slightly crude. I use a pro pan, run it several times without emptying it until there are a lot of cons in the bottom, after I get what I determine to be enough cons in the pro pan I run them through a 12 mesh classifier into a 5 gallon bucket, said cons are then brought home for further processing. At home I classify from the original 12 mesh to 30, then 50, then 70 then 100. Very time consuming and I hate it. The size of gold varies depending on the location I go and can even vary from one area of the river to another. Anyways after classifying I either pan it all or run it through my clean up sluice which is an alluvial sluice by prospectors choice. If I use the sluice rather than trying to see the gold and snuff it out individually I empty the entire contents into a pan and pan it. I have only ever had one semi breathtaking clean up with a little gold smiley face in my pan but that came from a river I found out is illegal to pan. Now I am desperate to find another area that has gold that good, I have tried tributaries but there isn't near the amount of gold in them there is in the main river. Very f'n frustrating. The gold from illegal river actually has shape to it and the ENTIRE river is off limits.

Build a hydraulic concentrator. You can leave it completely submerged and run it from a a HD bilge pump so it will 100% noise free. Put a course screen filter over the top, just shovel onto it, scrape, repeat. No need to dump unless it becomes solid black sand. You shovel, it concentrates.

 

[bottlecap]

Build a hydraulic concentrator. You can leave it completely submerged and run it from a a HD bilge pump so it will 100% noise free. Put a course screen filter over the top, just shovel onto it, scrape, repeat. No need to dump unless it becomes solid black sand. You shovel, it concentrates.

Do you have an example of one? Can they be purchased?

 

[bottlecap]

Save the 100 mesh for doing at home..... you just need to concentrate moving as much as you can as fast as you can in the field and reducing it as much as possible.

I think I can process more material quicker with my EZ Pan though.... check out the video I posted... the only difference in my panning is I don't take it down to the fine cons like the vid.... I bring it down to about enough to just cover the bottom then just add more material , I can do that for an hour or more without worrying about losses.

I completely agree with processing as much as possible when time allows. See my theory is with the amount of free time I have most of it isn't really free, I have 100% custody of my son and I have brought him with collecting cons a couple times but they end up being short trips and I have to always keep an eye open he doesn't fall in the river, it's just stressful. My point is that when home I have more time than actually free free time where I can go do what I want for a few hours without him. I'd rather get the most out of my collecting time than spend any of it with the fine details. When I go for it I go for it, I run that pro pan for an hour straight no breaks, sit down and burn a marb then right back at it. We don't have a ton of gold here so running lots of cons is key. I'll go to a spot, do a test pan, and if I see color I immediately go into "production" mode.

 

[bottlecap]

I just LOVE seeing that bit of yellow in the corner as the final bit of black sand washes away.

 

[bottlecap]

Against all advisement I just ordered a cube.

 

[johnedoe]

Against all advisement I just ordered a cube.

Well maybe you will get to go someplace where you can really put it to use......
By the way the big reason I haven't bought one is I can't justify the expense for the returns.... they just don't pencil out.
Besides I have a system for fine beach gold already......

 

[Jeff95531]

O.k. first off we can't use a sluice at the river here in Mn so primary recovery is slightly crude. I use a pro pan, run it several times without emptying it until there are a lot of cons in the bottom, after I get what I determine to be enough cons in the pro pan I run them through a 12 mesh classifier into a 5 gallon bucket, said cons are then brought home for further processing. At home I classify from the original 12 mesh to 30, then 50, then 70 then 100. Very time consuming and I hate it. The size of gold varies depending on the location I go and can even vary from one area of the river to another. Anyways after classifying I either pan it all or run it through my clean up sluice which is an alluvial sluice by prospectors choice. If I use the sluice rather than trying to see the gold and snuff it out individually I empty the entire contents into a pan and pan it. I have only ever had one semi breathtaking clean up with a little gold smiley face in my pan but that came from a river I found out is illegal to pan. Now I am desperate to find another area that has gold that good, I have tried tributaries but there isn't near the amount of gold in them there is in the main river. Very f'n frustrating. The gold from illegal river actually has shape to it and the ENTIRE river is off limits.

And so it goes in my neck of the woods here in Kalif as well. Not a fan of classifying either...it's either there or it ain't.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Do you have an example of one? Can they be purchased?

Here is a tiny version of what I'm talking about....

 

[bottlecap]

Cool concept Jason, never seen anything like that before.

 

[bottlecap]

Well maybe you will get to go someplace where you can really put it to use......
By the way the big reason I haven't bought one is I can't justify the expense for the returns.... they just don't pencil out.
Besides I have a system for fine beach gold already......


View attachment 1324125 View attachment 1324126

Hey nice gold!! I can't justify the expense at all with logic, financially, or any other way. Honestly though I have spent money on MANY things that were unnecessary and would have NO ROI at all. Take a hobby like fishing, it's big around here, most guys have a 20,000 dollar boat, what are they getting back? Well ENJOYMENT of their hobby of course!! Other than fun, they might get a meal of fish once in a while but it takes a lot of walleye dinners to pay for a new Lund with a nice new 4 stroke on the back end. Same with 4 wheelers, motorcycles, all sorts of stuff. I just sold my fur from winter trapping anyways so I had a small amount of disposable income. Honestly if I end up getting too discouraged I will sell the cube, it's o.k. to lose a little once in a while to have some fun. Plus like I said I want to take a road trip in two weeks for a long weekend nut still researching destinations. Would like to cube on the trip.

 

[johnedoe]

Hey nice gold!! I can't justify the expense at all with logic, financially, or any other way. Honestly though I have spent money on MANY things that were unnecessary and would have NO ROI at all. Take a hobby like fishing, it's big around here, most guys have a 20,000 dollar boat, what are they getting back? Well ENJOYMENT of their hobby of course!! Other than fun, they might get a meal of fish once in a while but it takes a lot of walleye dinners to pay for a new Lund with a nice new 4 stroke on the back end. Same with 4 wheelers, motorcycles, all sorts of stuff. I just sold my fur from winter trapping anyways so I had a small amount of disposable income. Honestly if I end up getting too discouraged I will sell the cube, it's o.k. to lose a little once in a while to have some fun. Plus like I said I want to take a road trip in two weeks for a long weekend nut still researching destinations. Would like to cube on the trip.

I know what your saying...... I don't have a boat because it is easier for me to just go to one of the commercial boats and buy from the fisherman.... nice fresh salmon and cheaper than a boat... plus it help support the local fisherman....

Gold equipment... well what I don't make I will buy if I can find it used and cheap....

Had plenty of motorcycles too.... just sold the last one.... knees are not what they used to be and I don't need to fall over at a stop sign......

Anyway, hope you get to go to some good gold country and put that cube to use.....

If you do want to sell it in the future let me know. Maybe we can work out a deal.

Happy hunting.....

 

[bottlecap]

Do you guys think I can use my battery charger for the cube? It has a 6 amp setting but I see the pump has a 5 amp fuse and 3.3 amp draw.