Calling all "clay" haters!!

[Wishbone]

Calling all "clay" hater's!!

Being a new miner, I've always been fascinated at the love/hate relationship between miner's and clay. They do the dance of joy when they find a layer of clay with a bounty of gold sitting right on top, or breaking through the false bedrock of clay and finding the payload there.
Only to curse the very same clay as they fight to combat it's relentless grip on gold and anything else that it comes into contact with! Even the most patient miner's cringe at the dreaded word "CLAY".
Here is what I have found so far.
There are many type's of clay. Which I AM NOT going to talk about because in terms of "fun", I'd rather stick an ice pick in my ear, then get that boring. I have found out that there are things that miner's add to clay, in an attempt to:
1. Settle the clay in the water faster in recirculating systems, to avoid pump burnout and run cleaner water.
2. Make clay release it's grip on our beloved gold and other valuables.
It's the first one that I need help with (to start with)! I want to run a recirculating system with a few tub's, and need advise on settling the clay in my water. I don't want any dangerous chemicals, and right now the best advise I have been given is 1/2 Borax, mixed with 1/2 Calgon Water Softener. The reason why I think this is good advise is because they are both, readily available, cheap, and safe to use.
Is there anyone out there that doesn't fear the dreaded CLAY, I really could use some advise, please!

 

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[kcm]

I know in landscaping, sand is often used to help lessen the effects of a heavy clay soil. So what about putting clay in a 55 gal. drum or large trash can, adding at least as much sand, add water, then use a drill with a paint stirring attachment to mix well. Then you can run through your recirc system. Is a lot of effort, but might work for your needs. This is the only non-chemical way I can think of.

 

[Alex Burke]

Calling all "clay" hater's!!

If you are using a recirc you are still going to have to change out the water and put the water somewhere every 10-20 buckets depending on the material.

It's really not worth putting anything in your water as even if you dumped it away from the river it could be a problem if everyone used a "surfactant" as a surfactant doesn't find gold ever and is really a cleanup tool imo. I think your better off just washing the dirt, maybe get a drill I've used one to break up clay. Still didn't find much haha.

Maybe someone else has better advice for clay. If I misconstrued and you were talking about working clay material at home with easier disposal options then go for it throw it in the washing machine I just remember talking to LEO's and was glad I didn't think jet dry was going to get me that much more gold that day

Edit I meant to mention using a two catch tray method to settle the silt may help your recirc run longer between changes, and a window screen size mesh or probably smaller cut up and tied/attached over the pump helps I think.

 

[Wishbone]

I know in landscaping, sand is often used to help lessen the effects of a heavy clay soil. So what about putting clay in a 55 gal. drum or large trash can, adding at least as much sand, add water, then use a drill with a paint stirring attachment to mix well. Then you can run through your recirc system. Is a lot of effort, but might work for your needs. This is the only non-chemical way I can think of.

I'm so glad you said that KCM! I thought about a cordless gun and a mud mixer too. I was thinking about sifting my clay water with a dollar store cloth sifter(s) when I transfer it into another bucket. Then I'm suppose to leave the sifted clay that I've saved on a metal sheet on my claim, to dry out in the hot sun, so it deteriorates, or get's old, or it breaks down, or summth'in, I dunno...lol...it get's old and you can pan it (I'm told). I'm also going to put a rain barrel on the claim, sort of like the 55 gal drum you suggested. Now I can see why "IT GETS PERSONAL" between clay and miners...lol!

 

[goldenIrishman]

In my mind there are three types of clay.
1. that with gold
2. that without gold
3. the Clay that's been such a HUGE help to many people on this forum.

 

[Alex Burke]

In my mind there are three types of clay.
1. that with gold
2. that without gold
3. the Clay that's been such a HUGE help to many people on this forum.

Yeah it's kind of weird nobody hates Clay on this forum I clicked on the thread like what you got a problem with Clay? I'll clean out your bar! inside joke OP

 

[kcm]

Another idea that I'm curious why I never see mentioned - when using a recirc system, instead of waiting for all of the silt to settle, try investing in a flushable micron-filter. Use a small pump to draw water through the filter, pump back into the recirc tub, then dump the other contents when it's no longer practical for the filter to work efficiently.

The filter could be some sort of cloth filter or a backflush-type metal filter.

 

[Wishbone]

Another idea that I'm curious why I never see mentioned - when using a recirc system, instead of waiting for all of the silt to settle, try investing in a flushable micron-filter. Use a small pump to draw water through the filter, pump back into the recirc tub, then dump the other contents when it's no longer practical for the filter to work efficiently.

The filter could be some sort of cloth filter or a backflush-type metal filter.

Shear genius!!

 

[goldenIrishman]

As something of an expert on re-circ systems, a micron filter would actually cut down your run time because it would clog up really fast. The main object of running a re-circ system is to conserve water, something that's important out here in the Arid-Zona desert. Much of the ground out here is nothing more than dried powdered clay in many spots and it doesn't take long for you to be "pumpin mud". That fine grit can be murder on a 12v bilge pump if you don't take care of them by rinsing them out with clear water after use. The best method I've found so far it to have multiple tanks with siphons between them to transfer the water. The more tanks the better as they give the silt a chance to settle out before you pump the water back up to the sluice system. I can run for about a week before I have to do a clean out on the water system. It's usually a sticky, smelly job and I've made some 5 gallon adobe bricks over the years.

 

[kcm]

Shear genius!!

Thanks Wishbone. ...Now if I can ever make it to the gold fields, I might be doin' ok.

I'm still learning this stuff and figuring out what I can along the way. Hoping to get my feet wet (so to speak) later this summer - but looks like maybe towards the END of summer!

 

[Wishbone]

As something of an expert on re-circ systems, a micron filter would actually cut down your run time because it would clog up really fast. The main object of running a re-circ system is to conserve water, something that's important out here in the Arid-Zona desert. Much of the ground out here is nothing more than dried powdered clay in many spots and it doesn't take long for you to be "pumpin mud". That fine grit can be murder on a 12v bilge pump if you don't take care of them by rinsing them out with clear water after use. The best method I've found so far it to have multiple tanks with siphons between them to transfer the water. The more tanks the better as they give the silt a chance to settle out before you pump the water back up to the sluice system. I can run for about a week before I have to do a clean out on the water system. It's usually a sticky, smelly job and I've made some 5 gallon adobe bricks over the years.

GoldenIrishman if you can run approx a week before clean up, then I want a system just like yours! You must have picture's of your system, or even better a video of it in action. Could we see them please (heavy on the please)!! I'm kind of getting excited about all the new and excellent idea's that I am getting from my helpful mining friends, so cooool!
This is the holding tank system I am currently thinking about setting up:

 

[Goldwasher]

Break it up well before you run.. if you sample and it doesn't have color don't run it.

Clay balls running through a sluice are constantly shedding thier outer layer....clay doesn't "grab" gold and take it like you will hear...how could it?

Keep in mind clay is very fine material that was once suspended and wouldn't have had much gold in it at that point...once it's a layer if gold comes along it will/could stick

Top layer scrape and run....no gravels= skip it.

 

[kcm]

Found this post elsewhere on Tnet:


Re: dealing with clay material at home... problems (posted in Nov. 2010)

There is another way of looking at this, I think. Clay is a problem to the placer miner in two ways: when trying to separate PM's, the clay often refuses to fully disintegrate; leaving little clumps that rob PM's from the sluice. Later, the clay refuses to settle out of water the miner wishes to return it to the stream; giving him a bad name with the environmentalists.
Why does clay behave as it does? Clay particles, suspended in water, may behave in two different ways. The electrostatic charge on each particle may cause both attraction and repulsion. In an acid environment, the particles are attracted into clumps in a state referred to as "flocculation". In an alkaline environment, the particles are repelled by each other in a state referred to as "deflocculation". This explains why the clay you assumed was broken up into soup was still robbing gold from your sluice; presumably in the form of "micro-clumps".
The science of how deflocculants work is somewhat complex but for the most part the addition of a deflocculant raises the Ph of your recirculating water to the point where clay literally comes apart into its sub-micron particles. The addition of a deflocculant also greatly speeds up the breakdown of clay lumps into soup prior to sluicing.
Some of the more common deflocculants are sodium and potassium carbonate (check out washing soda at the store), sodium and potassium hydroxide, sodium silicate, phosphates and polyphosphates and sodium and ammonium oxalates.
Once the gold bearing clay is reduced to a repulsive slurry, there is another step one could take. It is generally agreed that clay is defined as being below 5 microns in particle size. A micron is 1/1000th of a millimeter and I seriously doubt any of you are attempting to sluice gold anywhere near that small. If one knew the particle size of the smallest pieces of gold (let's say 150 mesh) one was attempting to recover, a vibrating screen or screened centrifuge could be set up that would allow the clay particles to pass through, say, a 200 mesh screen but would retain gold and anything else larger than 200 mesh (or whatever size screen you selected).
Adding a flocculant to the tailings water would, of course, clump all of the clay back together and leave you with clear water. There is a product marketed called "Clay-B-Gone" made just for this purpose.
Regards
Bob

 

[Wishbone]

Break it up well before you run.. if you sample and it doesn't have color don't run it.

Clay balls running through a sluice are constantly shedding thier outer layer....clay doesn't "grab" gold and take it like you will hear...how could it?

Keep in mind clay is very fine material that was once suspended and wouldn't have had much gold in it at that point...once it's a layer if gold comes along it will/could stick

Top layer scrape and run....no gravels= skip it.

While learning about clay, that is the #1 tip that I have received, thanks Goldwasher. DO A TEST on the clay first. I bet that advise has saved many a rookie like me, lot's of back pain from digging a big hole for gold that isn't there....LOL....sometimes us rookie's get so excited, we don't really stop to think about stuff like that.

 

[nh.nugget]

What I do on my home recirc. system. I use two tubs one to catch the tailings one for my pump. The one for tailings I drilled a hole in the side about an inch down and used a fitting from a pool to attach a piece of pool hose to siphon the water from the top of the tub down to the second tub. Taking the water from the top lessens the amount of sediment then suspend your pump about half-way down in the second tub. That helps keep the sediment in the bottom, not in the pump. You still have to change out the water just not so often.

 

[Wishbone]

What I do on my home recirc. system. I use two tubs one to catch the tailings one for my pump. The one for tailings I drilled a hole in the side about an inch down and used a fitting from a pool to attach a piece of pool hose to siphon the water from the top of the tub down to the second tub. Taking the water from the top lessens the amount of sediment then suspend your pump about half-way down in the second tub. That helps keep the sediment in the bottom, not in the pump. You still have to change out the water just not so often.

A lot of people use a system like yours nh.nugget, because it works good I assume. The reason why it's not right for me is because I put my nice and light empty plastic tube's on a blanket in the truck (or van) and then fill them all with a garden hose. I fill them to the top so there is little movement (or shift) in the water while driving, and the thick moving blanket soaks up any spillage. If you have lid's that don't fit tightly, DUCK TAPE...lol...or you'll be waiting for your clay to settle while your van dries out.
Me and my partner never have to "lift" the water tubs. We just back the truck into where we will be working, and it's out and down, out and down. I'm small and weak, so I have to do it this way.
So I can't have holes in my holding tubs. And the PVC transfer tub's aren't stackable (I think), are they??

 

[chlsbrns]

Acetic acid aka vinegar will break down clay into a fine grit. Hydrochloric acid will do the same. Search the USGS. I would think they have bulletins about it.

To keep your water clearer or less cloudy add corn starch. It will drop clay particles to the bottom. Its a natural flocculant.

 

[kcm]

On your lids, you might also consider using stretch wrap, then taping the lid(s) in place or using re-usable nylon straps. No need for ratchet straps - was thinking more along the lines of the straps that have spring-tensioned teeth that bite into the strap.

Could also use larger trash cans or the cheaper plastic storage bins from Wal-Mart.

 

[Aufisher]

I found some of my first gold in blue clay so I love it! I'd like to meet the other Clay some day to shake his hand and say thanks! He's a huge + for this forum as well as others.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Found this post elsewhere on Tnet:


Re: dealing with clay material at home... problems (posted in Nov. 2010)

There is another way of looking at this, I think. Clay is a problem to the placer miner in two ways: when trying to separate PM's, the clay often refuses to fully disintegrate; leaving little clumps that rob PM's from the sluice. Later, the clay refuses to settle out of water the miner wishes to return it to the stream; giving him a bad name with the environmentalists.
Why does clay behave as it does? Clay particles, suspended in water, may behave in two different ways. The electrostatic charge on each particle may cause both attraction and repulsion. In an acid environment, the particles are attracted into clumps in a state referred to as "flocculation". In an alkaline environment, the particles are repelled by each other in a state referred to as "deflocculation". This explains why the clay you assumed was broken up into soup was still robbing gold from your sluice; presumably in the form of "micro-clumps".
The science of how deflocculants work is somewhat complex but for the most part the addition of a deflocculant raises the Ph of your recirculating water to the point where clay literally comes apart into its sub-micron particles. The addition of a deflocculant also greatly speeds up the breakdown of clay lumps into soup prior to sluicing.
Some of the more common deflocculants are sodium and potassium carbonate (check out washing soda at the store), sodium and potassium hydroxide, sodium silicate, phosphates and polyphosphates and sodium and ammonium oxalates.
Once the gold bearing clay is reduced to a repulsive slurry, there is another step one could take. It is generally agreed that clay is defined as being below 5 microns in particle size. A micron is 1/1000th of a millimeter and I seriously doubt any of you are attempting to sluice gold anywhere near that small. If one knew the particle size of the smallest pieces of gold (let's say 150 mesh) one was attempting to recover, a vibrating screen or screened centrifuge could be set up that would allow the clay particles to pass through, say, a 200 mesh screen but would retain gold and anything else larger than 200 mesh (or whatever size screen you selected).
Adding a flocculant to the tailings water would, of course, clump all of the clay back together and leave you with clear water. There is a product marketed called "Clay-B-Gone" made just for this purpose.
Regards
Bob

Wasn't too sure I wanted to read this thread when I saw the title.

Goldwasher put out the best advice - if you are working in a wet environment the clay is unlikely to hold gold. The Blue Lead is an exception and I'm sure there are others but the key is to sample before you run material.

In our desert environment and for dry deposits the dry clay balls do hold gold from being gravity processed. Short of a ball mill or other mechanical process the only workable option is to adjust the pH so the clay self destructs. The post in blue above gives you the secret. Unlike Jet Dry or dishwashing soap pH adjustment leaves no chemical residue to screw up the environment.

Washing soda, also called soda ash, (Sodium carbonate, Na₂CO₃,) is cheap and very available. With a pH of 11 it doesn't take much to work. Mix it into your process water slowly or it will turn into a rock that takes longer than you could imagine possible to dissolve. If your process water is really cold you may need to heat a bucket of water and dissolve the soda into that water before slowly adding it to your process system. The clay breaks apart when the Calcium and Magnesium ions change charge. This is an immediate process but if you have hard caliche in your clay mix you may sometimes need to presoak the material for a minute or two to get the pH changed throughout the clumps.

If you dump your recirc water before the washing soda is all used up the ground neutralizes whats left almost immediately. The "evidence" of your pH control self destructs.

The end result is some very muddy water. You could add acid to get the clay to clump back together but the resulting chemical soup makes for a disposal problem. Alum can be a better flocculant if you can operate a closed system - that gets expensive. A simpler non chemical solution is lots of settling area. We run about 4 acre feet of settling ponds to allow a three hour run once a day four days a week. With 8 hours of mucking per week and fresh water replacement for the lost water this works well. Anything smaller and our processing time would be severely shortened or the muddy water would cause unacceptable losses.

In a smaller system Jet Dry will help some with settling but the simple act of mucking will stir the water up again pretty quick. A raised settling system with bottom drains for mucking is a better solution but it gets pretty water intensive. No matter what you do with clay the final muck will remove water from the system at anywhere from a 1 to 1 (one gallon of material removes one gallon of water) on up to about 1 to 5. Where in that loss equation your operation is can make the difference between success and failure.

Each mineral deposit will have different ground chemistry and different challenges. Most of our desert soils have a pretty high clay content and water can be hard to come by and expensive. These simple facts are why the desert southwest still has so many small rich gold deposits just waiting for someone to come along and figure out how each can be mined profitably. Water is the key to those answers. Ignore the water equation and you will have little chance of success. Learn the chemistry of any deposit, calculate the cost to mine it and you might just find a small operation can make some pretty good money.

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