Black Sand Samples

[alloy_II]

Samples from two different areas, once the weather improves - smelting will begin the top sample certainly shows promise, both by weight and microscope image.

For those interested in smelting the attached file is about the various flux's used and their purpose.

 

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[alloy_II]

By ball milling the black sand it's reduced in volume then by adding the flux everything is thoroughly homogenized.

 

[alloy_II]

A couple of grams from the ball milled black sand since gold does not oxidize the colloidal gold is easily captured in the camera flash.

Flash's using LED light sources do not have the proper wavelength

 

[gold tramp]

I got to ask a silly question What are you attempting to do here?
Gt....

 

[alloy_II]

This is the black sand that I'm going to smelt, which is something I've never done before.

I've watched tube vids posted by Jason from Mount Baker Metals, he uses lead or bismuth as the collector metal.

This obviously works but as I've learned this evening not the most efficient. As the molten lead pools on the bottom of the crucible it's almost useless.

Lead oxide a powder mixed into the flux, best yet it's free. The positive plates in a lead acid battery are filled with lead oxide.

Excuse the copy and paste, I'm well aware some are offended by my use of it.

This is redox chemistry and has nothing to do with valence

Source: Credits to the late, Dr. A.K. Williams, Ph.D

Of course you remember the other pages where we talked about redox (oxidation/reduction).

You also remember that I told you that if you were to understand anything about metallurgy/chemistry you had to have a concept of redox. If you forgot, go back and read it again.


O.K., as our mixture starts to get hot the flour starts to try to burn but it can’t. Why not? Well, there just ain’t no oxygen available.

At the melting temperatures of these materials there is no air (oxygen) in the furnace. At these temperatures, the flour is crying to burn. So what does it do? It’s desperate. It finds the only oxygen available to it.

That is, the oxygen that is contained in the lead oxide (PbO).


The flour becomes a reducing agent. In other words it strips the oxygen from the lead oxide and burns to carbon dioxide. Well, that leaves the lead with no oxygen.

The lead has been reduced to metallic lead instead of the salt, lead oxide.

This is a rather traumatic change for the lead. One minute it was a happy contented salt of lead, a paint pigment. Now it is a heavy metal.

As a metal it is now heavier than any of the quartz or carbonate so it has no option, it heads for the bottom of the crucible.

Now the lead was reduced in very tiny droplets that now sort of "rain" down through the melt. As they pass through the thick, viscous melt they amalgamate with any gold, silver, or platinum metals that they encounter.


The lead/precious metals are now in the bottom of the crucible with the sand/carbonate/impurities "glass" floating on top.

This mixture is poured into a mold and allowed to cool. You now have a lead "prill" containing all the precious metals.

The prill is cupeled as described above to determine the precious metal content.

 

[gold tramp]

Can't you see the gold in your pan when you panned the black sand?
One can easily see values in the black even microscopic will show a yeller tail...
If so just put a small bb of Hg in and save all the time of that other method..
Unless it's just an experiment...
I usually just use the Hg until I get a big enough ball to smelt...
I think I said before i just a pan assay if it's got yellow I grab it it no matter how small the amount, it all adds up at smelting time...
Gt.....

 

[alloy_II]

Ball milling the flux along with the black sand turned out to be a bad idea. The borax has enough moisture content in it to make putty which stuck to the inside of the mill chamber.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to make tongs for the crucible also find a scrap lead acid battery for the lead oxide.

The recycled lead oxide should be made into a powder then rinsed several times with distilled water to remove any remaining acid. Then dried before using.

 

[DizzyDigger]

I usually just use the Hg until I get a big enough ball to smelt...
I think I said before i just a pan assay if it's got yellow I grab it it no matter how small the amount, it all adds up at smelting time...

So, if I understand right, the mercury sucks up the gold and you make a
ball of it. By "smelt", do you mean bake it in a retort? How big would it
have to be before you smelted it? Small marble?

Just wondering how that might work with the superfine gold littering
my beach. I've often thought about just going out and scraping up all
the black sand on the bars, then running that through a 100 mesh
classifier. There's gold in it, but it's the kinda stuff you see with the loupe.

 

[gold tramp]

I have a contrivance (amalgamator) it has 3 balls molded together clover shape, they set into a heavy iron bowl, its like mortar n pestle.
One puts his Hg into bottom of this iron bowl holds about 1 lb then add concentrated materials heavy with gold and some water the machine turns at a very low speed it grinds the Conn's into the Hg. After about 30 minutes shut down and remove the cons, leaving the Hg pooled at the bottom of bowl add more cons repeat till you cons are all runoff.
The cons you have removed have floured hg in them, Which has to be removed also the pregnant pool of hg has to be cleaned, I use my panning wheel for this step, it gets cons cleaned from the Hg. you know how panning wheel works.
Next you need filter off pregnant Hg I use air press. After air press you'll end up with a ball of gold has a small amount Hg on it, stuff will be crumbly and very little Mercury on it, next step one can use nitric wash or retort to get that last bit hg off gold. Then it's to the smelt that's melting into a button or hopefully a bar of gold.
Hope this give you an idea how it works.
When I amalgamate I will put some pics down at the all things hardrock thread..
Gt.....

 

[alloy_II]

Everything you needed to know about black sand.

 

[alloy_II]

Couple of pages from a 1905 report on black sand, its mind blowing.

Full report attached.

 

[delnorter]

Interesting information in the black sand report you referenced and linked alloy_ll. On the page (6) listing values of mineral present in California counties is Del Note Co., South Fork of the Smith River. I’m aware of the presence of platinum in this stream and have collected quite a few small (what I believe are) platinum nuggets. I didn’t realize there was that much per volume. I have them somewhere. I’ll try to find them and post a picture.

Mike

 

[alloy_II]

Interesting information in the black sand report you referenced and linked alloy_ll. On the page (6) listing values of mineral present in California counties is Del Note Co., South Fork of the Smith River. I’m aware of the presence of platinum in this stream and have collected quite a few small (what I believe are) platinum nuggets. I didn’t realize there was that much per volume. I have them somewhere. I’ll try to find them and post a picture.

Mike

In the report they had also received samples from British Columbia, unfortunately they did not include the results in this publication.

The amount of gold and platinum is recorded in troy ounces - in 1905 metal values.

I could only wish that my sample shows enough gold to make it worth while to process.

They had set up a smelter, I was thinking cyanide leach but have since learned platinum shows resistance to a cold leach.

if an assay of the button produced from smelting were to show it was primarily gold then I would just consider the platinum a loss. And go with cyanide.

Imagine 191 troy ounces of gold with 3.36 troy platinum per metric ton of lack sand.

 

[alloy_II]

So, if I understand right, the mercury sucks up the gold and you make a
ball of it. By "smelt", do you mean bake it in a retort? How big would it
have to be before you smelted it? Small marble?

Just wondering how that might work with the superfine gold littering
my beach. I've often thought about just going out and scraping up all
the black sand on the bars, then running that through a 100 mesh
classifier. There's gold in it, but it's the kinda stuff you see with the loupe.

I do not use mercury nor do I recommend others use it.

Source:

For example, 9 million Swedes have approximately 30 t of Hg in their teeth, resulting in 300–500 kg Hg lost to the environment annually.

Nearly one third escapes the amalgam separators at the dental clinics.

Mercury also escapes into wastewater via feces due to abrasion in everyday chewing and when drinking hot beverages.

 

[delnorter]

 

[gold tramp]

I do not use mercury nor do I recommend others use it.

Source:

For example, 9 million Swedes have approximately 30 t of Hg in their teeth, resulting in 300–500 kg Hg lost to the environment annually.

Nearly one third escapes the amalgam separators at the dental clinics.

Mercury also escapes into wastewater via feces due to abrasion in everyday chewing and when drinking hot beverages.

If you are a miner , Hg is one of the most important tools in your arsenal for gold recovery. Heck I would have to quit hardrock if I couldnt use it, as I can't afford the chemicals to leach....
Gt....

 

[DizzyDigger]

I do not use mercury nor do I recommend others use it.

Appreciate the thought. Were I to choose to use it, every safety protocol
would be followed.

 

[alloy_II]

My mistake for believing everything i read on the internet, correction the paste used on the lead acid positive plate is lead dioxide.

Lead dioxide will not work for smelting.

 

[gold tramp]

Light, the more expensive microscopes use polarized light to examine ore samples to bring out hidden features.

Then we have specialized machines that measure the wavelengths of emitted light. Optical emission spectrometer for metal analysis.

A DIY Spectro photo meter.

Jadeite Dishes Glow Under a Black Light, Full article.

During WWII when uranium was in demand prospectors would search for sources using black light.

Anyhow there's plenty I do not understand about light, what I do know is that gold is used to make cranberry and ruby red glass. Both of which are highly collectable items.

Precious metals do not oxidize so the camera flash reacts to the presence of gold. If you whetted black sand show no evidence of gold, forget about smelting.

The top image, black sand from a know gold placer area, bottom image ground up quartz from a known platinum area.

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I'm still trying to figure out what you are trying to accomplish here, why don't you just find something that has actuall values that you can see in the gold pan..
Not tryin to be a smartass but really this stuff you are talking of is a little off the wall...
Maybe I'm just the odd man out and don't understand...
Gt....
If you need some black sand with values so you can see what it's all about pm me...

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Added a bit more to the first melt, this gold is from black sand where none was visible.

Time to get serious and do the big smelt with a collector metal.

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Please keep us updated. My area has very fine gold though lots of black sands with visible gold under microscope. I’ve often thought about smelting a few piles of cons. Who knows what could be found.