I saw an episode of Gold Fever where Tom Massie went to a hardware store and bought some bags of sand and ran them through a cleanup
sluice and recovered some gold. Guess it's all about where the sand came from.
My desperation plan was to visit the local gravel company where they have different materials in large defined areas that can be accessed by
loaders and such.. I thought that maybe the coarse sand pole may have gold in it and after years of loading and unloading that some of the gold would
eventually fall to the bottom of the pile and gather in the cement cracks or whatever the base of the sand bin was.
Bought a sluice, pump, and wash basin but never got around to testing my theory. Now all my equipment is at the claim so will never find out.
That's a good theory about gold collecting under the piles, but usually it is so hard packed there its hard to scratch with machinery.
The key to gravel pit gold, is in the wash water. I've had access to a wash plant in ohio for years, not a lot of gold here, but when you are talking about concentrating thousands of tons of material, it can add up.
The sand screws are the best places for gold accumulation. They are a large screw, 2 to 4' dia., in a square tub angled upward. The good sand is augered out the top, the light stuff empties off the rear, and all the heavies collect in the bottom of the box. It can be almost all black sand.
Here in Ohio we drain the boxes in freezing weather, and the cons accumulate there.
I built several sluices that I can hook to the 4" drain on the bottom of the tanks, and hose the material through. The problem has always been controlling the feed rate, too often way too much sand will come through and fill the box. Dumping it on the ground, gathering it up and then slowly feeding it through takes two days, and is a lot of work.
I'm building a much larger sluice, hoping to spread out the material for better recovery.
Here are my last two results from a pit in Ohio.
Gravel pits can be very dangerous, be careful, and Good Luck.
