Anyone tried this concentration method? The Two Bucket Method

[lokiie1984]

I have been looking for ways to get the most out of my dirt after i go through and pan it. I figure there is always something still in there, and i came across this video. I like the idea behind it, simple and cheap. And as someone that has almost no money ever it would certainly beat out any $100 and up system that i could never afford.

So yea i was curious if anyone has tried it. I imagine classifying the material down and doing each classification separately would still increase the performance. That seems to be the key for just about everything gold related.

I did find a post on an Australian gold prospecting forum from a number of years ago where i a guy ran some dirt that he has panned and searched and ran through all his stuff, figuring it was as barren as it would get. And yet he found at least a small amount of left over gold.

Anyway, curious to hear what others think about it.

Thanks

Edit: Here is another video using pretty much the same concept, only a lil more advanced.

 

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[russau]

I saw this some years back and figured since I had 30-40 buckets on hand that id sacrifice one for the cause. I built this and its on the same principle of the Dam Blue Bowl , the Green Bowl and Poprivits Swizzle stick. yes it worked but I wasn't impressed. I guess for a person that don't have any equipment or is waaaay out in the back woods this would be a idea to play with.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Lokiie..I believe there are numerous methods for extracting that
final bit of amoeba poop from our cons, however I've come to
a conclusion that such efforts should be saved for a rainy week.

For the small miner, the valuable prospecting time used trying to
extract that final, minuscule amount of gold would be much better
spent out in the field prospecting and mining better deposits.

If I could spend 3 hours panning, getting even a few small flakes
per pan, those flakes would add up to hundreds of times more
gold in the snuffer bottle than all the micro gold I could find in
the same amount of time.

So, now I save that stuff up, and wait for a good dump of snow
so I'll have something to keep me busy.

 

[arizau]

I tried this with some ocean beach concentrates that were all minus 100 mesh. The material in the cup did contain gold but the concentration seemed to be no more concentrated than the balance of the material. For me and for what I was running (almost 100% black sand), it did not work. The gold in these concentrates was not only smaller than 100 mesh it is mostly much smaller. Tests with larger gold may yield better results.

 

[johnedoe]

Well there's 5 minutes I will never get back..... What? you think I'm gonna watch all 18 minutes....... aw hell no.....
I did scan to the end to see what he got.... The dude doesn't even know how to pan.....

 

[goldenIrishman]

A miner has to learn at what point that enough is enough. While I agree that it's nice to get all the gold possible out of your materials, it's often not practical to try to do so. When you spend 4X as much time to get 1/100 gram from old concentrates as you would to get 1.1 grams from the same amount of fresh materials, which make more sense? The old saying of "time is money" is true for mining as well. Due to the smaller amounts of materials that a small scale miner runs on average, he/she has to use that time wisely. We can't run hundreds of yards of materials a day through a huge wash plant so we have to learn how to get the most out of what we can run. This means going for the stuff that's easy to get and saving the harder stuff for times when we can't get fresh materials to run. Winter down time (or summer if you're in the desert) is the time to rework those concentrates that the easy stuff has already been removed from. Even then you have to know when to say enough.

Granted, I'm the kind of guy that will examine black sands with a microscope to see what's left in it, but this is so I can use the information to improve how I work the materials to get the most out of them without having to spend a lot of time getting them. Don't feel alone in having limited funds for equipment because most of us are. We don't have T.V. crews footing the bill for our mining and many of us are on a fixed income. Those of us that are still working a regular job still have limited time to prospect and mine so that time needs to be productive as well. If you're mining for recreation, time is not as important a factor as it is for those of us that do this to make money.

 

[nh.nugget]

I hear ya' Irishman, I'm on a fixed income and I do it for recreation. I run my cons twice and done. If there is any thing left I must have a helluva pay streak in my driveway that's where it ends up in pot holes. Gave up on the Crisco and burlap! LOL!

 

[CO2]

I have a Sidewinder Vortex Concentrator and I don't trust it. Not only is it difficult to spin up with the stick that comes with it that just barely sticks out of the bucket, but it uses a lot of water and there's no real way to know exactly how much material to remove and how much to keep, plus when you tip it over to drain the water it obviously disturbs the stratification process with sand sliding to the edge. On top of that you have to wait for the spinning water to wind down before you can pour it out and that takes a while, plus if your material is full of silt or clay just forget about it. I like the idea and think it's an interesting concept but really, at that price range your money is better spent on an Angus MacKirk sluice.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Sounds like too much work to me! What I've come up with works well for me and I'm not wasting a lot of time "playing" with the tailing pile.

1. Dig and classify
2. Run through the sluice
3. Pan the cons down
4. Get the easy gold out
5. Stash the remaining black sands until I have enough built up and have time to work them. (Usually when it's too hot to dig out here)
6. Crush the sands down to -100 in mini ball mill (cement mixer with Cat D-12 bearings in it)
7. Run on Miller table
8. Dispose of remaining tailings.

Quick, easy and effective.

 

[chlsbrns]

I have been looking for ways to get the most out of my dirt after i go through and pan it. I figure there is always something still in there, and i came across this video. I like the idea behind it, simple and cheap. And as someone that has almost no money ever it would certainly beat out any $100 and up system that i could never afford.

So yea i was curious if anyone has tried it. I imagine classifying the material down and doing each classification separately would still increase the performance. That seems to be the key for just about everything gold related.

I did find a post on an Australian gold prospecting forum from a number of years ago where i a guy ran some dirt that he has panned and searched and ran through all his stuff, figuring it was as barren as it would get. And yet he found at least a small amount of left over gold.

Anyway, curious to hear what others think about it.

Thanks

Edit: Here is another video using pretty much the same concept, only a lil more advanced.

It works GREAT! That video caused us to do some experiments and is the reason why we ditched the sluices and now use cone bottom tanks. Now we are capturing significantly more gold. We are capturing gold that would blow off the end of the sluices.

You want to try it with material that has been panned but you should use it instead of panning. Use it to concentrate not to finish.

Watch this video. It shows how a vortex sorts by specific gravity and how any gold will be dead center on the bottom. Dead center on the bottom = in the cap that is in the bottom of the bucket.

https://youtu.be/d6Tcq6cALlM?t=4m19s

1. Dig and classify
2. Run pan fulls through the bucket to concentrate a whole pan into a small 2" cap full of cons in less than a minute. Dump the caps into a bucket to bring home.
3. Pan minimal cons down or run those cons thru the bucket to superconcentrate.
4. Get the gold out
5. Trash the rest.

If or when you pan the cons you should take notice of all of the super fine gold that floats in the pan. Its best to suction it off.

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

This is the sidewinder's interesting video
https://youtu.be/d6Tcq6cALlM?t=238

Couple more

 

[Bronze]

I just save all my concentrates for a rainy day and then run out to my prospecting club and use their miller table. A lot less headache. And if that thing doesnt catch it, it isnt worth my time.