Gold Ore

[southfork]

A little sample that was found with a metal detector. Crushed by hand then panned to wash away some of the dirt and clay? The photo is macro so real small particles, but the quartz shows and what looks like iron and free gold. I think we need a small smelter to retrieve the values trying to speed up the recovery what's your thoughts ?

 

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[crashbandicoot]

Yes I live here 24/7. Here in California a few hundred bucks for a long day working in the hot sun is not a lot of money. My son is making wages and having fun. And I worked on this sample a few hours for fun and thought other like minded people would enjoy following along .

Cool then!

 

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[Ohiogoldfever]

I for one am enjoying fallowing. Please keep posting updates. Only problem is they leave me wanting to go find my own gold mine.

 

[delnorter]

Southfork, you are sharing the most interesting gold prospecting/mining adventure on the forums right now. Within your comfort zone, keep posting you and your son’s progress. Very interesting. I’m happy for you both.
Mike

 

[southfork]

This piece was found yesterday on a new pile with a Minelab 2300. Real crusty but if you look close near center bottom there's free gold showing. Heavy little rock 100 grams it's headed for the big hammer then mortar pestle to powder it up for panning. My son found this testing a new wireless headphone setup for his 2300. Pickers out of the first crush on this rock lots of fine gold in the crush. Later on, today the rest gets the mortar and pestle then panning.

 

[southfork]

These cons have been soaking in a weak wink solution along with some crushed slag over a week. I dry the cons in a gold pan out in the sun then into the wink. Slow but the gold recovery is good.

 

[alloy_II]

Pick out the nuggets and smelt the trash.

 

[southfork]

Pick out the nuggets and smelt the trash.

View attachment 2028145

Thats just fine powdered quartz the cons are in another pan.

 

[alloy_II]

Thats just fine powdered quartz the cons are in another pan.

I'll give you $10.00 a pound for the fine quartz your throwing out.

Humor this old Canuck, smelt a batch of that quartz with lead as your collector metal. Cupel the lead button and report back here what you find.

Be my bet your fine quartz is a much higher grade than the back sand is that I'm playing around with.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Yes I live here 24/7. Here in California a few hundred bucks for a long day working in the hot sun is not a lot of money. My son is making wages and having fun. And I worked on this sample a few hours for fun and thought other like minded people would enjoy following along .

Indeed we do. It’s not often we get to follow along with a successful “strike”. Personally I love the fact that you have been mining/prospecting on your property for quite some time. and this specimen gold was laying around the whole time! I’d love to be the one that crawls through that collapsed portal and detects the interior and samples the load for the first time!!! That would be an adventure.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Gentlemen, please post by our rules......

 

[southfork]

I melted / smelted 6.5 grams from my first failed try and added 1 gram of smelt mostly gold. So, 7 1/2 grams into the cupel no flux placed that inside a crucible to protect from the force of the propane burner. Thirty minutes in the furnace I have a black button maybe a thin layer of pig iron? The bottom has a piece of the cupel and a little iron? with Gold all the way around weight 6 grams. I placed the dirty button in muriatic acid I'll check latter to see if it's having any effect. I tapped it a few time's with a hammer no effect so not Slagg Happy mining The Muriatic acid is eating the black nice little button of gold hiding in there.

 

[Goldwasher]

Thats just fine powdered quartz the cons are in another pan.

These guys would crap bricks if they got to see the pictures of the stuff the guys your son digs with. The things we dig in our neighbor hood. Wouldn't they Southfork

For gold Tramp if he comes back our area has mines that have ore with sulphides that yield ounces to the pound. Not ton.

But, yes It is very complicated to extract.

 

[southfork]

These guys would crap bricks if they got to see the pictures of the stuff the guys your son digs with. The things we dig in our neighbor hood. Wouldn't they Southfork

For gold Tramp if he comes back our area has mines that have ore with sulphides that yield ounces to the pound. Not ton.

But, yes It is very complicated to extract.

Totally insane I've been walking over this stuff for years out Arrowhead hunting. The guy's that put in the hours get the Gold.

 

[southfork]

I made this last night Breaking Bad one stamp mill. About two feet tall the drill stem stamp makes it about three feet works great powders the small rocks. Light easy to dump beats the T- Post Driver

 

[southfork]

I am far from an expert but I think it would be a good idea to crush to powder and pan down to heavies/concentrates. They can be smelted or panned first for easily recoverable gold then recollected and smelted to recover any residual gold.

Good luck.

That's what we did and it worked great a lot of steps but if you take your time great results.

 

[alloy_II]

I melted / smelted 6.5 grams from my first failed try and added 1 gram of smelt mostly gold. So, 7 1/2 grams into the cupel no flux placed that inside a crucible to protect from the force of the propane burner. Thirty minutes in the furnace I have a black button maybe a thin layer of pig iron? The bottom has a piece of the cupel and a little iron? with Gold all the way around weight 6 grams. I placed the dirty button in muriatic acid I'll check latter to see if it's having any effect. I tapped it a few time's with a hammer no effect so not Slagg Happy mining The Muriatic acid is eating the black nice little button of gold hiding in there.

In the cupel was the gold infused in lead or an amalgam, if it was lead then the heat should be applied to the cupel in a draft of air to assist with oxidation.

With your gold content sufficiently high in that button, bring it up to a red heat then sprinkle a bit of potassium nitrate over the hot surface this will burn off the base metals.

If this is a lead infused with gold cupelllation, it needs access to oxygen.

 

[southfork]

No collector metals were used no lead. The muriatic cleaned it up nice a little spot-on top needs a little more time in acid. 6.5 grams. so, the iron was ultra-thin. And the bottom still has a tiny piece of cupel that was easy enough maybe a little flux and more melt time. Now I can place on a cupel, and it won't blow away if we feel that it needs more refining.

 

[southfork]

In the cupel was the gold infused in lead or an amalgam, if it was lead then the heat should be applied to the cupel in a draft of air to assist with oxidation.

With your gold content sufficiently high in that button, bring it up to a red heat then sprinkle a bit of potassium nitrate over the hot surface this will burn off the base metals.

If this is a lead infused with gold cupelllation, it needs access to oxygen.

View attachment 2028555
View attachment 2028556

Maybe the iron in the crush? acts as a collector metal. No lead was used and no flux I'm just playing with this, but we have a nice button of gold. The burner is pulling in oxygen through the damper, and I take the lid off to inspect once in a while. Started with a 13-gram piece of rich ore.

 

[alloy_II]

Maybe the iron in the crush? acts as a collector metal. No lead was used and no flux I'm just playing with this, but we have a nice button of gold. The burner is pulling in oxygen through the damper, and I take the lid off to inspect once in a while. Started with a 13-gram piece of rich ore.

 

[alloy_II]

From the electromotive series any element will react with those below itself but not from above itself.

In the old days miners used mercury to gather the fine gold from the pan, from the list below, which elements will mercury react with. Mercury kinda acts as a filter ignoring the elements above itself.

Silver above mercury will form amalgams.

Iron above gold is attracted to gold, in fact the Spanish had a saying, Gold rides on a iron horse.

When Jason puts a bit of scrap metal into his smelt, the iron reacts when heated to react with those none noble metals below it, causing them to report to the molten flux.