first run completed with nugget bucket catching from blue bowl

[zemetrius]

this was just the first 2 pieces i seen. got more to process. confidence is high.

 

[Underburden]

If I understand right, your running your nugget bucket cons through a blue bowl. Always run your blue bowl material twice just to be sure you get all the gold. Been there-done that.

 

[zemetrius]

the material i have from the claim i go to, i have it classified down to 50 mesh, from there i cleaned it as best i could (found a video of a guy washing material. i do it his way) this "clean" material i run through the blue bowl into the concentrator bowl of the nugget bucket. the material that is in the bottom of the bucket, this i run on the next batch of material. the stuff from the concentrator bowl, i put onto the flat lid of a round bowl i "borrowed" from my wife, this material i put outside to sit and bake in the nice HOT sun and let it dry out thoroughly, when dry i will put it into a holding container for later gold extraction using a nice little gold extraction tool i put together (macgyver would be proud of me) i have tried wet panning this really small stuff, i feel like i am losing more than i am getting, dry panning seems to kind of work better for me.

 

[zemetrius]

this is a single "piece" of gold on the tip of my homemade extraction tool.

the tool itself, if an odd thing, i have always been told and read that gold cannot be picked up with a magnet. my tool may be an exception to that rule, or maybe not. it works, that's all i know.

 

[zemetrius]

this is my gold extraction tool. yup its a syringe we got from the vet, when we had to give a kitten that we no longer have medicine anyway, it was the only available thing i could find that was small enough to use, i superglued a steel BB to the tip of the syringe, then i took a piece from a white plastic bag, in the center of the piece from the bag i put cleaned black sand (not a lot) then i put the BB tip into the black sand and wrapped it with one of my wife's hair ties, this give the tip of the tool a center point for picking up gold, from the pic above this post you can see that it does grab small single pieces of gold, it does not work on bigger pieces of gold (i tried it already) but it does work to extract single pieces from dry material, it did not work on fine gold in water.

 

[Duckshot]

Very innovative!

I like new invention, even if all you find out is what doesn't work.

For small gold in water you might try a plastic pipette. Not only will a pippette pick up gold, it can be used to flush black sand away from the gold in the pan.

 

[Goldwasher]

wouldn't it be better to process through the nugget bucket, then run the cons to get the gold out in the blue bowl?

A blue bowl and gold pan would be the final steps. The only thing your gold should go into after the blue bowl is a snuffer and vial.

 

[zemetrius]

after i cleaned my 50 mesh material, i ran it through the blue bowl, the material then was caught in the nugget bucket and concentrated (very nicely i must say) but unfortunately this presented me with a new problem (see pic, this is a sample i took from the nugget bucket concentration bowl) the flour gold? was much more concentrated but it is still very thoroughly mixed in with the blond sand (all black sand was removed prior to going through the blue bowl and the nugget bucket) removing the gold particles from the sand is (at this time) beyond my skill at panning. i have experimented with tiny very, very, VERY small amounts of this material in all 3 of my pans (including the gold glaw) every attempt so far to pan the gold out of the sand ended up with particles of gold trying to escape from the pan (not floaters) but mixed in with the sand. my every attempt so far to separate the gold from the sand has failed, to date the only way i have been able to get (any) gold out of the material was to get it out a "piece" at a time with my extraction tool, while this works on a basic level, i DO NOT want this to be my sole way to get the gold out of the material. i presume others have encountered this problem, i would BE very interested in each of their methods for getting the gold out of the material.

 

[mofugly13]

You got the black sand out but NOT the blonde sand? HOW? And theres gold still in the blonde sand?

Did you use a magnet?

I'm thinking you need to back up a few steps.

The gold, as fine as it may be, should still concentrate to the bottom crevice of the pan of you're doing it right.



Maybe I'm not understanding something here.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Mercury

Heavy Pans

 

[Underburden]

Geesh, don't mention Hg to a newbie. he's having a hard enough time with panning basics.

 

[zemetrius]

i have a very nice magnet that uses Neodymium Magnets, great for pulling out the black sand. as to the gold in the sand concentrating to the sidewall of pan during the panning motions, this is not happening, not sure of the way of this. even when i tried to pan just a very tiny sample, it remained mixed in with the sand, no matter how small the test sample was, when i tilted the pan, the sand moved, and the gold within moved with it.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Improving your panning skills will make your life much easier.
You will also find yourself not needing expensive gadgets.

You might be chasing mica or pyrite if it's floating around with the blond sands.
That's kind of what I see in that last photo. "All that glitters is not gold" (in my best Dan Seals voice)

 

[zemetrius]

not sure if its actually floating, but its pretty well mixed in with the blond sand. and i agree that i need to improve on my panning skills, living in desert (las vegas area) makes it hard to find any free flowing streams/rivers, this limits most of my panning towards the less wet side of things. ok so i watched a couple of video's about using mercury to recover gold, i am......uncomfortable with working with mercury and nitric acid. finding a more suitable way than mercury and acid is more to my likings, it may stretch out a process that is shortened by using toxic and quite dangerous materials, but i am ok with that.

 

[et1955]

after i cleaned my 50 mesh material, i ran it through the blue bowl, the material then was caught in the nugget bucket and concentrated (very nicely i must say) but unfortunately this presented me with a new problem (see pic, this is a sample i took from the nugget bucket concentration bowl) View attachment 1733293 the flour gold? was much more concentrated but it is still very thoroughly mixed in with the blond sand (all black sand was removed prior to going through the blue bowl and the nugget bucket) removing the gold particles from the sand is (at this time) beyond my skill at panning. i have experimented with tiny very, very, VERY small amounts of this material in all 3 of my pans (including the gold glaw) every attempt so far to pan the gold out of the sand ended up with particles of gold trying to escape from the pan (not floaters) but mixed in with the sand. my every attempt so far to separate the gold from the sand has failed, to date the only way i have been able to get (any) gold out of the material was to get it out a "piece" at a time with my extraction tool, while this works on a basic level, i DO NOT want this to be my sole way to get the gold out of the material. i presume others have encountered this problem, i would BE very interested in each of their methods for getting the gold out of the material.

Panning is your ultimate way to do finish work and getting your gold this is 6 grams I pulled out with my electric highbanker but I had to separate it from 5lbs. of black sand and garnets. If you use a magnet make sure to repan the black sands, gold can be captured in the black sands pulled out by the magnet.

 

[N-Lionberger]

You don't need a running stream to pan you can use a tub of water. I'm a little perplexed here, what I am reading is that you are going out to a club claim and digging up sand and bringing it home, classifying to 50 mesh and then run said material through a blue bowl with the tailings going into a nugget bucket? The blue bowl concentrates are dried in the sun, the magnetic sand is removed and then you dry pan this material? This is all backwards, you dry pan on location to sample which material is worth running, if dry panning isn't your thing you can pan in a tub of water to find where the gold is in the dirt, when you find dirt that seems reasonable you run it with a drywasher or a recirc system. The blue bowl is almost the end game.

 

[goldenmojo]

I'm a little perplexed here, what I am reading is that you are going out to a club claim and digging up sand and bringing it home, classifying to 50 mesh and then run said material through a blue bowl with the tailings going into a nugget bucket? The blue bowl concentrates are dried in the sun, the magnetic sand is removed and then you dry pan this material?

That is just what this industry needs, more innovation!

 

[arizau]

i have a very nice magnet that uses Neodymium Magnets, great for pulling out the black sand. as to the gold in the sand concentrating to the sidewall of pan during the panning motions, this is not happening, not sure of the way of this. even when i tried to pan just a very tiny sample, it remained mixed in with the sand, no matter how small the test sample was, when i tilted the pan, the sand moved, and the gold within moved with it.

After reading about all your previous attempts to separate your "gold", I am going to offer this: I assume you are identifying what you think is gold in full light. Have you tried looking at those same particles in shaded light? Just wave your hand back and forth through the light to shade the mix while viewing. I'm guessing that if you try that that most if not all of those same particles will lose the gold color. The "light test" for gold is almost infallible in that gold retains it's golden color in full and shaded light while non gold particles blank out/lose the yellow color.

 

[Goldwasher]

this is almost giving me a headache

Dude you are doing this whole thin BASS ACKWORDS.

If I was going to a spot in the desert to get gold (placering, discounting metal detecting) these is the basic steps I could take. We are going to assume it is a known producing spot.

1. process bulk material. two options
a. most complicated recirculating= recirculating wet proccessing set up
b. easiest= drywasher

2. reduce cons.
a. most complicated =smaller recirculatiing wet processing. i.e. small sluice , gold wheel or gold cube
b. most frustrating and slower =nugget bucket
c. easiest= tub pan several sizes of classifiers

3. Finish processing preferably at home
a.fastest= blue bowl, wheel, gold cube or finishing "miller" table running batches of classified cons as segregated classifacation screen size
b. slower but with practice just fine and effective in seperating almost all gold from the heavies= a tub, gold pan several small mesh classifiers and a snuffer bottle.
panning a small amount of cons at a time of material segregated by screen size. In seperate batches.

4. After years of experience you will get most of your gold out of your pan with a snuffer. Before you leave your digs. Then run the more difficult stuff back home once you have enough to make it worth while to bother running it.

Obviously you don't have to listen..keep doing it whatever way you want if it is "fun"

But I will flat out say. My way is better. And will get you more gold. (if it is there)


Promise

 

[Duckshot]

Good advice Goldwasher.

Imo one don't really need a nugget bucket or a blue bowl once they get enough practice panning. But I'm a recreational prospector. It's therapeutic.