Concentrater?

[riverrat373]

I have watched a few videos on YouTube about the Blue Bowl concentrator and am curious if anyone here has any experience using this machine? Is there a concentrator for $350 or less that works as well or better?

 

[Hefty1]

Where did you get a price of 350.00 for a blue bowl?

 

[Gravel Hog]

RCM Quicksand Concentrator under $100 works well and is very easy to use and pack. http://gotnuggets.com/qucoforgore.html

I also use a modified mini highbanker set up as recirculating for my dredge concentrates which are classified to -20. It takes it down to a quarter of a cup from 5 gal. bucket or more.
After that a small easy finish pan, a good drying in the sun, and some light magnetic separation and its ready to go to Orocal.

 

[russau]

Where did you get a price of 350.00 for a blue bowl?

Hefty i think you misunderstood his post.

 

[russau]

the cheapest, easiest concentrator i can think of is your sluice. take all the matting/screens/riffels out and clean the sluice. maybe use a fine scotchbrite to "condition" the surface of the sluice. then give it a couple of coats of Chalkboard paint and let it dry real good. then use a peice of chalk to "condition" that surface and use screened cons on it with a (recycled water that has jetdry in it)1/8 deep water stream that dont have ANY waves/ripples/ or disturbances in the water. just a very smooth flat surface of treated water to remove any surface tension. feed it slowly and let the water do the work for you. if done properly youll have clean gold left at the head of your sluice. always rerun your cons to double check your operation. if you find gold in your tailings, rerun them at a lower angle of your sluice or slow your feed down.cant get any cheaper/easier than that.

 

[Hefty1]

Where did you get a price of 350.00 for a blue bowl?

Hefty i think you misunderstood his post.

Ok sorry there Riverrat, I was wondering about that

 

[jmoller99]

The Blue Bowl requires it be very level and you will be playing around a lot with the water level and velocity to match it to your concentrates (you have to pre-screen to at least 30 mesh or smaller). It works well but its not at all fast to do. I use mine to recover very fine gold - add some dish washer detergent to break the surface tension, otherwise the little stuff floats away. Also, get a brass water valve to replace the plastic one it comes with.

There is a lot of very fine gold in many streams in Colorado - getting it out is a lot of work.

What type of gold are you trying to concentrate? There are lots of different sluice designs that are often optimized for different conditions. Learning more about what has come out an area will help you figure out what might work best for that area.

 

[riverrat373]

Where did you get a price of 350.00 for a blue bowl?

I saw the Blue Bowl kit for about $130. My budget is up to $350.

 

[Hefty1]

Depending on what comes with that kit, there is nothing better than the blue bowl.
Might be slow, but worth the wait

 

[Hoser John]

#1 throw away the instruction,put at least 1' between the control valve and the bowl so the flow entering is a perfect O and not a lopsided C when entering,feed wet and up against the side on the opposite side from the inlet,keep it leval and to the brim and good for a gallon of cons per prescreened at 40 mesh or so smaller and good to go. Used for longer than most folks here alive--except Russau as he and I are older than dirt!!!!!! John

 

[highdesertranger]

riverrat i use mine to clean up -30, -50, -100. works great for cleaning the fines. i wouldn't use it for a volume concentrator, to slow if you have alot of material. i use a gold screw for that. pan everything +20, run the -20 though the screw then screen at 30 pan the plus and run the rest in the blue bowl. highdesertranger

 

[Hoser John]

$75 on GPAA forum so forget that other price and get it on-John

 

[ohiochris]

From what Ive read on the bluebowl and other concentrators of the type is that they work pretty good down to a certain size of gold in the material , gold smaller than that still gets swept out with the rest. Classifying the material in a bucket full of water takes care of most of the "concentration" part , after that you need "seperation" more than concentration , which is tough for the really fine gold.

 

[Hoser John]

They are made for tiny miniscule gold only under 50 mesh. Used'm for over 28 years and haven't found anything better,cheaper or easier to use. Great for mercury recovery too-John