Final Cleanup Equipment

[Lycof]

Trying to decide which way to go... I understand that each has it's pro's and con's. What are your thoughts?

Slate Miller Table
Blue Bowl
Black Magic
Other

 

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[bcfromfl]

What grade/mesh of concentrates are you working with? Do you have a lot of -100 mesh gold to recover? High concentration of black sands? All these questions will have bearing on which way you go.

 

[et1955]

What type of material you are running, beach or placer?

 

[Lycof]

-100, beach, black sands and hopefully placer, if I can do a good spot.

 

[bobw53]

I bought one of those Black Magic Fine Gold recovery thingies... Its been sitting on the back porch for the past 2 years or so.

I was classifying 20,40,60, and it took forever to run on the Black Magic thing.. It was quicker to pan it..

Then I got my hands on some 80 and 120 screen.... And found out that "Hey, I was missing a bunch of TINY gold".. Then
I got some 250 and 400 screen, and realized I was missing even more gold... TINY TINY stuff.

Once you classify it, which you pretty much have to do for every clean up device on the planet.. Its so easy to pan, that I found
there is no point in playing with a cleanup device.

When I first got the small screens I wrote it up in the journal section, if you're interested.
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/prospectors-journals/437396-complete-newb-but-im-having-quite-adventure-i-havent-found-much-yet-4.html

Here is some little gold I played with a few weeks ago.. -120 to +250. .0025" to .004", somewhere around the thickness of a human hair..
It pans out real quick and easy when its classified tightly. Biggest problem is that tiny stuff can float out SOOO EASILY. I've taken to keeping
a bottle of 409 with my panning equipment, and if I start to get floaters, a quick shot of 409 settles everything back down.

Its not completely cleaned up, since its not enough to deal with... I'll just let it sit in the pan, and add to it as time goes on, someday there will
be enough of that tiny stuff in that pan to be worth extracting. There is actually quite a bit more in that pan that didn't show up very
well in the photo.

 

[AU79 Prospector]

Check out the gold hog multi sluice. A GREAT piece of equipment, minimal classification (only down to 1/4) and will catch more gold with less effort than the other methods. It comes down to the matting (which works great for fine gold). You have to work with about 2 tablespoons of super cons after in a pan, but that part is pretty easy. The other methods work fine as well, but you have to classify a lot more and run the material very slowly.

Check this video. This a huge cleanup of ULTRA FINE Alaska beach sands gold using the gold hog multi sluice . If you can catch that stuff, you can catch anything. And they were running BUCKETS of the cons... a blue bowel would take days to do the same thing.

 

[bcfromfl]

I second the comments on panning above. Watch a couple of Doc's videos where he demonstrates panning with a "bump" and a sniffer bottle. It takes a little practice, but works well.

Another method, if you don't have a large quantity of screened material, is to dry it, and blow the black sand away from the gold with breaths of air.

 

[Bodfish Mike]

Saw this at a gold show and was impressed he was running beach cons.
http://www.royalmfgind.com/index.php/products/product/316/gold-prospecting
It will take lots of -60 gold to recoup the cost. With that said I agree with Bob just use a pan. Wish I knew what the matting is on this as I would make my own.

 

[Lycof]

Bob, I have never seen a screen smaller than #100. I am going to have to look into that. It is the smallest that I have. I even bought 4 inch versions of the 50 and 100 that cap top and bottom and twist lock together.

AU79, I have watched every video that Doc has released at least 5 times. I Expect to be buying the Raptor2 this winter. And the Multi in the spring. Only problem is that I am more trying to clean a few specs of gold out of black sands, not a few specs of black sands out of a lot of gold.

BCF, that's interesting, i just worry that i would blow too hard and shoot if out of the pan lol

Bodfish, I am in Washington, there will never be any recouped cost. I don't even expect to make gas money back up here.

 

[bobw53]

Bob, I have never seen a screen smaller than #100. I am going to have to look into that. It is the smallest that I have. I even bought 4 inch versions of the 50 and 100 that cap top and bottom and twist lock together.

The dirt cheap set of 5 or 6 inch classifiers I had came as 10,20,30,40,50,60... Kind of useless. So I bought screen and glued it in
over the larger mesh sizes I didn't need. Now I have 20,50,80,120,250,400

McMaster Carr.. Search "Wire Cloth"... They even give the wire size and more importantly the OPENING size..

https://www.mcmaster.com/#wire-mesh/=18t6rfy

 

[Oregon Viking]

Here you go 60-325 mesh.

https://www.riogrande.com/Product/Stackable-Sifting-Pan-Set/350070

 

[bcfromfl]

If you use the dry/blow method, place the dry concentrates on a white sheet of paper.

 

[gldguy1]

I use the blue bowl with no issues so far at all

 

[Lycof]

Here you go 60-325 mesh.

https://www.riogrande.com/Product/Stackable-Sifting-Pan-Set/350070

oooooh........may have to order this one

 

[smokeythecat]

I have almost invisible gold in my creek and in the creeks nearby going for 20 miles in any direction. Invisible gold isn't a whole lot of fun. I keep losing it.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I like my blue bowl. It was ok at first, really started having fun with it when I got one of those Spin it Off doodads.

 

[flinthunter]

oooooh........may have to order this one

I just purchased the set from them 2 weeks ago. They shipped the next day and I am very happy with the classifiers.

 

[Lycof]

I like my blue bowl. It was ok at first, really started having fun with it when I got one of those Spin it Off doodads.

what is this doodad that you speak of?

 

[AU79 Prospector]

Saw this at a gold show and was impressed he was running beach cons.
http://www.royalmfgind.com/index.php/products/product/316/gold-prospecting
It will take lots of -60 gold to recoup the cost. With that said I agree with Bob just use a pan. Wish I knew what the matting is on this as I would make my own.

I will second this. I bought one myself last year. I use it during the winter time to re-run my sub 20 mesh cons to pick out all the flour gold from all the black sand. Works well enough... but its not cheap (I'm guessing the blue bowel is more affordable)

Best of luck in your choice!

 

[Hoser John]

I've used my good old blue bowl(D.A.M. Industries) for over 30 years now and never found anything else to compare for recovery except a ball mill and too much chemicals, time and work-John