Black sand and flour gold

[bia.morton]

Hi there, newbie here!
So I got a bunch little golden flecks mixed with black sand on my sniffer bottle. Used a magnet to get some of the sand off but the flour gold is still mixed with quite a bit of black sand, comparatively. How do u separate it? I read about blue bowl but I'm just starting and didn't wanna spend 140$ on it. Is that my best option tho?

Ps I know there must be a thousand posts asking the same but a few searches didn't reveal much

 

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[slikriktn1]

Make you a Miller Table(Water Table) for fine gold recovery.They are simple to make and do not cost that much depending on how fancy you want to get...I'll post a youtube vid link of one.

 

[galenrog]

I would suggest first that you look at several mining and prospecting forums. There are dozens worldwide that either originate in English or are translatable.

To pan this out manually will eventually result in panning out gold rather than heavy sand. At the very least you should screen your material so you have several small batches of gold and sand that are similar in size. Panning similar size material is far easier than panning a mix of sizes. Your local prospecting shop should be able to help you there.

Personally, I let everything that becomes difficult to pan accumulate until I have enough to recover with either sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide. Not something for the novice.

 

[arizau]

Check this video out. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/g...g-cons-panning-last-bit-blacks-sands-out.html

Welcome to the forum.

 

[bia.morton]

Arizau, very nice vid but the flour gold I'm talking about is way smaller than the one shown in the vid

 

[bia.morton]

And thanks for the welcome

 

[bobw53]

Gold panning is a weight/density game...

First thing is to go watch Mike Pungs videos. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/panning-gold/459664-art-gold-panning.html

Then remember the "Golden Rule"..... If everything in your pan is the same size, GOLD RULES.

Classify, classify, classify... No need for fancy tools and what not.. I bought a miller table a while back when I couldn't figure out how to get the small gold out.... Now
it sits, and I just use classifiers and a pan.

If your gold is tiny/flour gold... Lets say the thickness of a human hair, about .004". A piece of black sand that is .010 in diameter will weigh more than that piece of gold
and the black sand WILL knock that piece of gold out, and you'll never be able to seperate it.

Here is a pic of when I first started classifying like crazy.. That is some tiny gold, about the width of a human hair... There is no black sand there, and it was really easy to
pan because it was classified tightly. I went down 2 more steps, and found a Metric Butt Load of gold in the .0015" to .0025" size that I never even knew was there... I couldn't
even get a good pic it was so small.... I wrote it up over in the journal section if you are interested, and there is some more pics.

 

[dvdtharaldson]

Classifying is definitely the way to go. Just to give you some numbers. I use a 30 then 50 then 80 and lastly 120 mesh screen. Pan down whatever doesn't go through the screen using the wash and tap method. Then just use progressively smaller screens as noted above. Remember about a teaspoon of cons at a time. Also I am just talking about the super cons in your snuffer, or the cons left in your pan after panning or sluicing.

Best Colors,
DVDT

 

[QNCrazy]

A little trick I do after the classifying, panning, or blue bowl, I hold the sniffer bottle in my left hand and hold it with all the material collecting in the lower corner. With my right hand, I hold a magnet on the opposite side of the bottle. Usually, the magnet is powerful enough to pick up the magnetic sand but sometimes I have to gently shake or manuever the bottle to collect the sands. Once on the magnet, I slide the magnet toward the top of the bottle, take the top off, and finish moving the magnet to the opening of the bottle and out come the magnetic sands.

 

[Ragnor]

My favorite thing to do is keep them in an old tray or coffee can till I get a whole bunch of them. Then I forget about them and then eventually they get dumped out or lost somewhere.

In the past I used the dreaded mercury extraction method, it was effective...... I got a nice nugget from a pint jar of rich cons.

The more serious answer I would suggest. Since you are new to all this is to pan the cons out very slowly and carefully about quarter cup at a time. It will greatly improve your panning technique.
Also it seams to be real hard to find on the net these days but guys used to make a little miniature sluice box with rain gutter and v-rib matting for this purpose. GPAA probably still sells them I would guess.

 

[PurpleGold]

I got out today. When you get some panning skills you can clean it right at the stream and only sniffer up what you want.

 

[KevinInColorado]

View attachment 1263960

I got out today. When you get some panning skills you can clean it right at the stream and only sniffer up what you want.

Panning in the field without a 50 mesh classifier? I'd bet you lost a fair bit of the smaller gold

 

[wingmaster]

I bring my concentrates home to pan carefully and the glacial flour gold is super small here, some pieces are so small you really need to magnify it to tell for sure but when you get good enough at panning you can pan even the small stuff out. Watch out using a magnet with gold that small you can pull gold out with the black sand so if your doing it that way you might go back and pan some you pulled out just to make sure. I use a rope handled tub from Walmart to pan over and you can always go back over the material if you need to, if you don't have a lot of material to go through and don't want to spend more money I'd just pan it.

 

[PurpleGold]

Panning in the field without a 50 mesh classifier? I'd bet you lost a fair bit of the smaller gold

Possibly, but probably not. When I get down to black sand I stop washing blondes out of the pan. I save the all the black sand for later fine cleaning at home. This picture was taken at the stream with a pile of black sand still in my pan on the back side. So all the super fine stuff is most likely still in my container at home. I will classify then finish pan everything a tablespoon at a time when I got a comfy chair, music bumpin, a beer and my beautiful woman at my side.

 

[bia.morton]

Material to pan is not a problem, have a stream behind my house that is bellow an old mine haven't found anything above fine flour tho

 

[russau]

you need a dredge to go deeper!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Possibly, but probably not. When I get down to black sand I stop washing blondes out of the pan. I save the all the black sand for later fine cleaning at home. This picture was taken at the stream with a pile of black sand still in my pan on the back side. So all the super fine stuff is most likely still in my container at home. I will classify then finish pan everything a tablespoon at a time when I got a comfy chair, music bumpin, a beer and my beautiful woman at my side.

Oh, right. Actually I do about the same...I just misunderstood, sorry.

 

[TerryC]

If you are having trouble separating black sand from "flour gold", that stuff might be mica flecks, not gold. A common newbie mistake. The density of gold, even the flour, makes separating it from black sand a no brainer. Just make sure your pan technique is slow and gentle. You can turn the flat slope of the pan into a miller table by going slow and gentle. Of course, it all comes with time and experience. You'll get there. Hang in there! TTC

 

[Capt Nemo]

Speaking of that four letter word...mica!

Make sure that your water has degassed if you use city water for cleanup. The microbubbles that degas will adhear and float fine gold just enough to make it act like a mica flake. If you have something that looks like gold but floats around, suck it up with an eye dropper and drop it back in a clean spot in the pan. If it doesn't move after that, it's gold! Jet Dry won't do a thing for this problem. If your hot water is cloudy out of the tap, you have high gas content in the water. Let cold water warm up to room tempature before panning with it. Cold water can hold more gas than warm water.

 

[bia.morton]

Good to know about the water. I'll just take water from the well then. Also about the dredging comment.... Illegal in California