🤔 Now I'm Thinking "Kitchen Mixer" In Relation To Gold-Bearing Material...........

[nuggetshooter323]

In another post, someone mentioned kitchen mixers, so it got me thinking. This is where my wife would be rolling her eyes and asking me how much money I'm going to spend now. 🤣
I wonder if one of those paint mixers that you use on a cordless drill would concentrate enough material at the edge if you slowly added the material to a five-gallon bucket of water? Kind of like a field improvised Blue Bowl to whittle down your concentrates before you run them.

 

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[Assembler]

The centrifugal motion will spread out / spin out heavies.

Your wife may not like using a kitchen mixer though.

 

[sir_stillwater]

The centrifugal motion will spread out / spin out heavies.

Your wife may not like using a kitchen mixer though.

So what I'm hearing is put riffles on the sides of a 5 gallon bucket and a cordless drill and a concrete/paint stirring attachment...

 

[Assembler]

So what I'm hearing is put riffles on the sides of a 5 gallon bucket and a cordless drill and a concrete/paint stirring attachment...

The riffles is counter productive as they make to much turbulence.

 

[nuggetshooter323]

Just a 5-gallon bucket, maybe half full of water, cordless drill with a paint stirrer/auger attachment. Start stirring the water with the drill/auger and add material. I'm thinking 1/2" or 1/4" classification of the material and getting it spinning into a good vortex. The material at the edge should be the richer material. This may only be worthwhile if you're panning only, running a small sluice, or you forgot your pan.

 

[Assembler]

Just a 5-gallon bucket, maybe half full of water, cordless drill with a paint stirrer/auger attachment. Start stirring the water with the drill/auger and add material. I'm thinking 1/2" or 1/4" classification of the material and getting it spinning into a good vortex. The material at the edge should be the richer material. This may only be worthwhile if you're panning only, running a small sluice, or you forgot your pan.

You can also do this same method after you have some concentrates on the bottom of your sluice.
One can also use a much finer screen to classify the material then use this method and just pan the outer material on the bottom of the bucket as a method of speeding up the process over all. Just use a trowel to scoop out the unwanted material before panning the bottom material.

 

[Assembler]

You test to find out what screens to use and come up with a system that works for your area you may find that this can work fairly quickly. The South American pans also have there place.
If some of the values are still attached to say the iron you will loose that however the speed may be worth it compared to normal panning.

 

[arizau]

Just a 5-gallon bucket, maybe half full of water, cordless drill with a paint stirrer/auger attachment. Start stirring the water with the drill/auger and add material. I'm thinking 1/2" or 1/4" classification of the material and getting it spinning into a good vortex. The material at the edge should be the richer material. This may only be worthwhile if you're panning only, running a small sluice, or you forgot your pan.

No need for anything other than a stick and some elbow grease.....pretty easy to stir up a vortex. The heavies will settle on the bottom so drain and scoop off the overburden, add more dirt and repeat. Want something more advanced but still basic? Google "two bucket fine gold recovery" and watch the video. Crusty old guy but his process works pretty well for fine gold. Be sure to classify to something less than 1/4".

Good luck.

 

[Assembler]

No need for anything other than a stick and some elbow grease.....pretty easy to stir up a vortex. The heavies will settle on the bottom so drain and scoop off the overburden, add more dirt and repeat. Want something more advanced but still basic? Google "two bucket fine gold recovery" and watch the video. Crusty old guy but his process works pretty well for fine gold. Be sure to classify to something less than 1/4".

Good luck.

Correct you have noticed that almost any stirring action will work.
I still like the idea of a drill and mixer attachment that can add some extra action of the particles bouncing off each other that can help loosen some values loose.

I would strongly suggest using much finer then 1/4" screen after washing the larger rocks first. Each area is different so some testing is needed.

 

[Assembler]

One can run a lot of material in the bucket before removing the bottom 5/8" - 3/4" or so. There is no need to empty except at the end of the day or longer if you like. You will likely find different size values from the center to the out side edge. The bottom material is to be hand panned.

 

[sir_stillwater]

The more I read and think about it... I'm thinking even a low speed agitator with a classifier on top of (with the classifier having a "corkscrew elevator" action) and a sublevel corkscrew throughout the whole bucket with a small offset from the bottom where heavies can deposit that slowly brings the light materials to the surface up & out of the bucket/container so you could just dump material in nonstop. As heavies accumulate at the bottom of the fluidbed the gangue will be raised high enough to get caught in the corkscrew and be transported up and out.

Dial in the speed right and heavies should constantly remain at the bottom while the gangue gets pushed up the corkscrew, the rotating action of the assembly above the classifier will wash the oversized material and slowly push them out of the bucket so it's a shovel-and-go system. Would probably need some kind of transmission/down-gearing between the sublevel corkscrew so the material above the classifier has time to actually wash the rocks before being discarded as the sublevel corkscrew needs to run at a higher speed to keep the classified material moving up and out of the bucket...

I'd have to draw a picture to explain it better, but the classifier section would be smaller than the diameter of the bucket just enough to allow the main corkscrew to force classified material out between the gap of the container wall and the classifier.

I feel like this would be a good solution for low-water situations that require recirculation. Cleanup would be as easy as pouring out the cons and refilling with water.

Call it... "The Gold Blender"

It's kind of the same principle the blue bowl works on, but with mechanical separation and inverted, except doesn't require nearly as much water.

Just to clarify, the corkscrew would be a solid heavy spindel like a cam shaft, not a bunch of disks... You'll have to forgive my lack of drawing skills