Blue Bowl Concentrat Seperator Question

[Samauri-Ray]

Hello All,

I got my blue bowl and have it plugged in and going well. Perfectly balanced / level and it appears to be working well.

I have been messing with the flow and not sure what to do. Do I turn it up some what high? When I do I see concentrates climb the cone, but it looks like some of my gold is also moving.

I have turned it down and have been letting it run for several hours. I see color at the edges.

What is the optimum time that takes the gold to separate out? I watch the videos and they appear to see it separate pretty quickly, but they are also editing the videos.

Anyone that can give me any input on flow speeds and how aggressive the water needs to flow and time it takes to separate, that would help a lot to let me know if I am doing it right.

Thanks

Ray

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

Ray, the adjustments vary for everyone. It all depends on the gold....what size? coarse or flat shape? How close is the size classification of the fed material? You just have to play with it until you're confident it's working the way you want. Obviously, you don't want your gold climbing all the way up the cone.
Jim

 

[winners58]

I run 30 mesh between 1/2 to 3/4 down from the top
50 mesh between 3/4 to 1 inch down and 100 mesh over an inch down
I get stuff that is below 100 mesh I can see it when it clumps together on the lip
it looks like lot but it really isn't, for me life's too short the -100 con's go in a coffee can.
Blue Bowl Instructions

 

[rodoconnor]

Ray , classification is most effective step you can do with a bowl. Like Jim says, you'll kinda get a feel for the speed. Assuming you're in a closed system you can [ and should ] rerun your tailings. That should give you an idea how fast to run it. Good Luck

 

[Reed Lukens]

Here's a playlist that shows everything on the blue bowl. Basically you want it to run out the sands while you watch it, while leaving the gold. The first thing to do is change out the hose valve to a gate valve. You don't have to get into it like the videos but you can't beat this set up

 

[johnedoe]

That's the vid I was looking for.... ya beat me to it Reed....

 

[gldguy1]

The maker of that owns a mining supply shop by my house, he told me to add some dish washer rinse aid like cascade to keep fine gold on the bottom

 

[johnedoe]

yup.. It's called jet dry.

 

[gldguy1]

Yeh jet dry is what I have haha cascade is the actual soap my bad lol

 

[agolddigger]

I'd also add that you should catch/re-run your concentrates (or just pan & look for color).

Eventually you'll probably get it dialed in enough where this isn't necessary but in your situation I'd be checking multiple times to make sure I was losing anything.

 

[johnedoe]

I think I would just go with the Gold Hog Multi Sluice.... Faster, and probably almost as efficient.

 

[mikep691]

A lot of different factors come into play with the blue bowl. As been mentioned, classification, and characteristics of your gold are key. My gold comes from the Northeastern Sierras, and is relatively consistent. I run all my black sands through a tight mesh tea strainer (larger cons go in the can for later). I keep my water level steady at about 3/4" below the rim, add material tablespoon at a time, and let it go. This is a winter time project so it's no rush for me. Everything is set up in my living room so I can monitor it's progress and still watch the game (or gold shows). I also added a length of UBS pipe below the funnel to drop the black sands straight to the bottom of my bucket. This keeps that material in the bucket and not recirculating back into the bowl. My gold seems to form a line just before where the water inlet is rather than at the base of the funnel.

 

[Tonto]

I think I would just go with the Gold Hog Multi Sluice.... Faster, and probably almost as efficient.

I'm thinking about selling my blue bowl because everything has to be perfectly level. Black sands are unpredictable as to weight, and constant water adjustments must be made. I end up running it through a clean up sluice, and double check by panning the tailings. I'm not losing enough to be concerned, plus running a blue bowl is time consuming.

 

[QNCrazy]

I love my blue bowl. It all comes down to classification. When I am working at the dig sight, I spend a little extra time on panning ensuring I am only bringing home super concentrates, basically bringing home nothing but the black sands and gold.

It takes me no more than 1-2 hours at home to work my concetrates through the bowl. I agree with Reed on the gate valve. It's easier to regulate than the ball valve it comes with.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I'm thinking about selling my blue bowl because everything has to be perfectly level. Black sands are unpredictable as to weight, and constant water adjustments must be made. I end up running it through a clean up sluice, and double check by panning the tailings. I'm not losing enough to be concerned, plus running a blue bowl is time consuming.

Smart move. You can get thru your concentrates faster by just classifying and panning!
1. Wet classify to +30,30-50,-50
2. Remove magnetic material by attracting it up thru water in pan while waving magnet back and forth so random nonmag particles are washed out.
3. Pan each size separately
4. Suck out gold, put in green ceramic soap dish or bowl
5. Swirl &/or backwash to remove last of the "non-gold"
6. Enjoy the pretty gold

...whole process takes less than an hour. Maybe 20-30 min once you get practiced at it.

 

[Cjones]

I have a blue bowl, it's to slow for me. I am looking at one of these Gold Webb ? Gold Concentrator. No classifying and extremely quick from what I heard. Looking for a bit more info on them. They are claiming 100% gold retrieval.

 

[russau]

Nothing captures 100% of the gold!! it probly did capture their % of gold that they ran for its size BUT adding dry fine gold (like he did) to that WILL cause it to float or be blown out into his bowl. Simple device that seems to work pretty neat. screening your material , and running them separately would be a benefit. I didn't see the price of it BUT..........

 

[Reed Lukens]

I didn't see a lot of super fine-100 mesh gold in his sample video... Even the fines looked pretty coarse.

 

[cyberdan]

I am looking at one of these Gold Webb ? Gold Concentrator.

I can not find any info on this product other than the video. There is no link to price or order page. I will look harder. I have a miller table now. Either the black sand I have has no fines in it or I am not operating it correctly. but no gold yet.

 

[cyberdan]

There is no link to price or order page. I will look harder.

I found the owner of the web page and sent him an email asking for more info.
The video has only been up for one month.