Odd prospecting failure tools?

[Nitric]

Ok warning It's 2:30 Am, and I'm still up! So this is just for fun!

We hear about the usual stuff that works, rocker box, sluice, etc.. Are there any never heard of or rarely talked about inventions, or big flops for gold prospecting or gold recovery? Any big equipment? How about any dumb tools you may have made that didn't work out? Or even scam devices! I was looking for very early failures, but this could be anything. Even scam devices sold for prospecting/mining over the years.

I'm sure there are, and I did a quick search, didn't really find much, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

One of my own failures, years ago, when I first started playing around......I took a 5 gallon bucket, put a leaf blower on top(brand new), And bought fittings vacuum Hose like what's used in work shops(the heavy duty stuff). Thought and thought about this thing! Had hours in figuring it all out.Making a plate that mounted to the leaf blower and bucket lid, etc... Get it all together, I'm proud I built a contraption to suck gold!! I'm the man! I have a gas portable gold wet vacuum! Who needs anything else, I'll just suck the gold and fines up!! The light stuff will just wash out the other hole and hose! Right?

Ya, I missed one very important detail! In vacuum how is the water supposed to leave out the other hose? It works! For 5 gallons of water which takes a few seconds to fill. I feel stupid even telling this story! And to this day Have no idea why I never even thought about it. I guess I was just in a hurry to build something! And I have no problem telling my mistakes! But we don't have room on the site for all of them!

On the plus side? It's not a total waste! It can be used as a dry vac.to suck gold out of cracks if I ever needed to do that. Who knows where? But I have one! I also have some other ideas of how to make it work wet, but I'll get to that some day!

 

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[russau]

yep I also built one of those vacs BUT never completely finished it and finally lost interest in it and using it to boot because of my physical condition at that time. And its even "worser" now. I ended up giving it to a friend that was wanting to build one. I never heard if he got it completed. I even gave him the blower. I like to piddle making things and I did accomplish something just building what I had..........The bright side of this story is that it helped me get somemore things out of my packed shop and giving me more room to put something else in its place and putting me right back into the jammed up situation I was in before!

 

[Goodyguy]

The portable dry vac is a great tool, I use mine a lot for snuffering dry and simi dry cracks in bedrock along creek beds when the water is low. Mine is made from a 10 gallon wet or dry vac and gas powered leaf blower.


GG~

 

[Nitric]

One thing that I did make that worked and I took the idea of off the net. and played with the idea from there. Is a piece of plastic gutter and ribbed tool box mat formed and glued to the inside of the gutter(with heat) about 10 foot long. Mostly because I just used what ever length it came in.
Using a utility sink at the end. Dropping the water and lighter stuff into it. Then it drained in to two buckets piped together. a boat bilge pump in the second bucket. It worked for Ohio's fine gold! It took some playing around with a valve to control water flow, and the angle. I did manage to pull the real fine gold out. It was all just for fun and to build something. I'm sure a blue bowl or the product that Gold Hog( sry, for got the name of it) sells would work a lot better!

I think after all that in Ohio! I had more fun building stuff and playing with the fine garnet and Black sands!

 

[Hefty1]

Nitric....you mentioned the Blue Bowl. You should have seen the pile of scrap bowls that my father had stacked up in the corner of his shop. Before he got it right, the way he wanted it before he had it patented. Not to mention all the different sizes he tried that didn't work. One hell of a pile to recycle.

 

[rodoconnor]

Nitric....you mentioned the Blue Bowl. You should have seen the pile of scrap bowls that my father had stacked up in the corner of his shop. Before he got it right, the way he wanted it before he had it patented. Not to mention all the different sizes he tried that didn't work. One hell of a pile to recycle.

What was it Edison said " I haven't failed. I just found a thousand ways a light bulb won't work." A family friend invested a couple of hundred K with some con men that had a Rube Goldberg device to extract Au from sea water. Didn't work out to well.

 

[gollum]

HAHAHA Same thing Tom Kollenborn said about hunting The Lost Dutchman Mine. "I might not have found it, but in fifty years of hunting, I did find a lot of places it wasn't!"

.......oh. ....and everything in the LRL Section! HAHAHA

Mike

 

[Oregon Viking]

Nitric....you mentioned the Blue Bowl. You should have seen the pile of scrap bowls that my father had stacked up in the corner of his shop. Before he got it right, the way he wanted it before he had it patented. Not to mention all the different sizes he tried that didn't work. One hell of a pile to recycle.

Your father invented the Blue bowl?

 

[Goodyguy]

Rarely do I have a total concept fail.
Most are just unforeseen modification changes needed to enhance performance.

One such modification I had to make was during an attempt to use a gas powered weedeater motor to run a trommel. The clutch would always overheat due to the necessity of running the engine at slow speed which kept the centrifugal clutch from becoming fully engaged. Ended up using a gear motor instead which was many times better with no exhaust fumes to deal with.

One total concept fail I suffered was a vibrating goldpan idea that didn't pan out.
I'm sure there are many more but I have repressed those memories.

GG~

 

[gollum]

I was married for a while, but even though I kept making those modification changes, but it didn't help. HAHAHA I am now single (now=since 1989) and happy!

Mike

 

[Goodyguy]

Ok warning It's 2:30 Am, and I'm still up! So this is just for fun!

We hear about the usual stuff that works, rocker box, sluice, etc.. Are there any never heard of or rarely talked about inventions, or big flops for gold prospecting or gold recovery? Any big equipment? How about any dumb tools you may have made that didn't work out? Or even scam devices! I was looking for very early failures, but this could be anything. Even scam devices sold for prospecting/mining over the years.

I'm sure there are, and I did a quick search, didn't really find much, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

One of my own failures, years ago, when I first started playing around......I took a 5 gallon bucket, put a leaf blower on top(brand new), And bought fittings vacuum Hose like what's used in work shops(the heavy duty stuff). Thought and thought about this thing! Had hours in figuring it all out.Making a plate that mounted to the leaf blower and bucket lid, etc... Get it all together, I'm proud I built a contraption to suck gold!! I'm the man! I have a gas portable gold wet vacuum! Who needs anything else, I'll just suck the gold and fines up!! The light stuff will just wash out the other hole and hose! Right?

Ya, I missed one very important detail! In vacuum how is the water supposed to leave out the other hose? It works! For 5 gallons of water which takes a few seconds to fill. I feel stupid even telling this story! And to this day Have no idea why I never even thought about it. I guess I was just in a hurry to build something! And I have no problem telling my mistakes! But we don't have room on the site for all of them!

On the plus side? It's not a total waste! It can be used as a dry vac.to suck gold out of cracks if I ever needed to do that. Who knows where? But I have one! I also have some other ideas of how to make it work wet, but I'll get to that some day!

Thought of you when I saw this......Hobo Dredge

 

[Clay Diggins]

Your father invented the Blue bowl?

Yes Hefty's Father invented the blue bowl.

Hefty wasn't raised on Wheaties he was raised on Gold Nuggies.

Heavy Pans

 

[Capt Nemo]

Here's my recirc fluid bed evolution.



(left) Model 1

Model 1 had pressure problems as the 800 GPH bilge pump could only keep 1/2 the bed properly fluidized. (120 jets) The bed started working a little better as spray bar holes became plugged. The tail of the bed was the most active due to water hammer. This bed did run wild material and did catch some gold. The angled float dam would sink any floating sand (or gold), but would cause some back up as material was run. Higher sides were needed. Also the horizontal jets would create a layer of black sand about 3/4" above the bottom, with no movement below. The spout at the tail aids in dumping cons into bucket at end of run, and make the bed long enough to set on one bucket and dump into the tailings bucket in the pan.

(mid left) Model 2

Model 2 was cut down to 6" wide with downward angled jets. The downward angle dropped the black sand layer to the bottom. Water hammer was still a problem, and also too many jets at 80. Again the float dam works but backs up. The scouring action of the float dams makes them problematic along with the backups.

(mid right) Model 3

Model 3 was again cut down lengthwise to 40 jets. The long spout would not move material out very well, and cause backups from sand buildup. The valve would barely be cracked open to keep the bed fluid, so a bigger bed can be used.

(right) Model 4.1

Model 4 ran transverse piping with cleanout stubs. Went with 3/4" feed to 1/2" spraybars with 66 jets total. Only the head facing side of the spraybars had jets, so that any gold moved would move toward the head and not the tail. Jets were aimed at the bottom of the tube in front of them. Water hammer was again a problem. Model 4.1, I rebuilt piping to add pressure equalization. I also raised the sides, but didn't raise them quite high enough, and overflow can still happen with sand building up on the spout. Field test ran reasonable, but you have to watch how quickly you feed it. The 1/4" acrylic is a little thin for the weight when full, and 1/2" is needed. Pressure is good with the 800 GPH bilge pump, and I run with the valve at about half. Pre-classifying everything is slow when going to window screen, and alone I could run about 16 6 gal pails in 8 hours. It's still a good little prospecting bed, but I want something I can shovel directly into. Here's some of the finest gold it caught.



Model 5 is a highbanker. Still working the bugs out, but I'm another day or two in the shop away from being ready for a field test. A test sample caught all the gold that entered the bed with the old piping, but I again had water hammer problems, and had to modify. Have more bugs with the header box.

 

[Hefty1]

Your father invented the Blue bowl?

US Patent No: 4,428,830

 

[Oregon Viking]

US Patent No: 4,428,830

That....is very cool!!

Picked up a used one......

 

[Clay Diggins]

In the mining industry in America there is a term for one off mining equipment. If it doesn't fit standard designs and there is only one being used it's called a doodlebug. Doodlebugs are all about getting it done with available equipment and clever innovation.

A doodlebug can be anything from a custom made dragline dredge to a water pump cobbled together from a tractor engine and a bilge pump. Several mining equipment inventors have included doodlebug in the names of their mining machines.

The most common use of the doodlebug name in my experience is in patched together dragline dredges. These are often just small wheeled or tracked dragline cranes (or backhoes or face shovels) used in combination with a purpose made floating processing unit consisting of a small shed on pontoons with a sluice and pump setup inside.

The dragline works from solid ground digging a channel for the floating processing plant. The dragline buckets are dumped into the feed hopper grizzley on the floating processing plant which then dumps the tailings to the rear and fills the area it is floating forward from. The two separate machines can run through a lot of material while maintaining their own small mining water pond . This is the smaller type of operation that creates the worm like furrows you see from the air in gold placer areas. Only the wash plant needs to float so a much smaller pool of water needs to be maintained than a full size drag or bucket line dredge.

Here's a picture of the Calari Doodlebug dredge operating in very little water on Lynx Creek, Arizona.


A full size dragline dredge wouldn't even fit in the float pond there but with a little doodlebugging and keeping the dredge itself on shore. The Calari Doodlebug shown was profitable for several years in the 1930's. You can see the Calari Doodlebug tailings along Lynx Creek just South of Hwy 69 in beautiful Prescott Valley, Arizona. Not surprisingly those extensive tailings are known as the Doodlebug Diggings. Here's a Map of the area.

A doodle bug similar to this one made good money below the Homestake mine in South Dakota in the 1970's.

Just about anything that wasn't store bought or standard procedure has been considered a doodlebug in the mining business for well over 100 years. Many of you have doodled your way to a doodlebug and didn't even know it.

Heavy Pans

 

[Hefty1]

That....is very cool!!

Picked up a used one......

View attachment 1306845


View attachment 1306846

That's cool also...looks like one of the ones before he passed in 92. Does it have D.A.M. Ind stamped on the upper rim? Well in the mold on the rim.
Yes I see it.
After my father passed my (urrrggg) step mother sold the Blue bowl and molds to Frank at Pioneer in Auburn Ca.

 

[solarsmith]

made my own jaw crusher. works very well. 500 lbs and hr
made my own ball mill. works very well and have now made it into a 2 stage sag mill. 300 lbs an hr
made my own flotation cell, concentrates gold at 3 times the head grade on one pass and concentrates copper at 20 times head grade in one pass. am now finishing a hybread flotation column . expect it to work very well .
made my own magnetic sluice. an instant 1 % up grade to my ore. works well was free to build.
also my own version of mine track that uses t fence post 2by 4s for ties and realy cheap v grove wheels. this one works very well. just finished a 8 wheel flat car that can hold 22 5 gal buckets with out stacking any of them . each wheel rated at 600 lbs you do the math.
also a 12 volt swing arm cable winch for hauling ore buckets up the shaft. works great can do 60 buckets on one charge to 2 truck batteries .
still to make, a device that removes water from tails (drain?)
Bryan In Denver Colorado

 

[Nitric]

awesome replies! I can't like anything right now! Computer crashed and i"m in, here using a basic program for an OS. Basically! (insert smiley here)

The like option doesn't work! .....Yet!

 

[Clay Diggins]

awesome replies! I can't like anything right now! Computer crashed and i"m in, here using a basic program for an OS. Basically! (insert smiley here)

The like option doesn't work! .....Yet!

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Heavy Pans