Gold Ore

southfork

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Jun 15, 2014
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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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southfork

southfork

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Assembler

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May 10, 2017
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My son Seth and I worked all day crushing all the rocks he hauled up to the house for me to play with. The dust was flying I'm glad we had a stiff breeze we crushed classified panned some and ran all the fines through the sluice. I have a bucket of concentrates to clean today.
Glad to see that you are still enjoying the hunt and the process.
This will always keep you two going together and that is priceless.
 

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southfork

southfork

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First pan out of yesterday's crush we pulverized around 30 pounds of ore. Still have a half bucket of fines to run and a little coffee can of bits and pieces to regrind that I screened out of the 30 pounds. We ran it too fast and didn't get a good grind the crusher was packing up because we didn't let it clear before tossed another rock in. I said we because I had help lol. Happy Father's Day.
 

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Tesorodeoro

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Jan 21, 2018
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First pan out of yesterday's crush we pulverized around 30 pounds of ore. Still have a half bucket of fines to run and a little coffee can of bits and pieces to regrind that I screened out of the 30 pounds. We ran it too fast and didn't get a good grind the crusher was packing up because we didn't let it clear before tossed another rock in. I said we because I had help lol. Happy Father's Day.
Wow. Outstanding! Interesting how it’s balling up!
 

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southfork

southfork

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Wow. Outstanding! Interesting how it’s balling up!
That was a small baggie full of ore samples that made the detectors scream you could see visible gold on all the pieces. The rest of the 30 pounds of ore was micro gold but produced a good pinch. Three guys worked a good part of the day breaking rocks everyone shared in the results. I was number 4 but I had a shady spot and a chair watching the chain mill and sluice.
 

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Mountaineer2020

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Hey Southfork absolutely diggin the ore you're finding and your low budget inventive methods of getting the shiney from the gaunge. I run a chain mill too and have the same issue you have with the screen clogging up. If the ore is completely dry and I run a shopvac to the screen I can usually run without having to take the cover off and clean. BUT I don't have that horrible problem you got with gold balling up and clogging my screen! Ha! Did want to mention that in spite of the manufacturer's directions I have run a wet system through the mill. Welded up a hose holder at the input and a bucket holder tipped at about the right angle for the vibration of the machine to jiggle the ore in at a slow but steady rate. It worked all right, still clogged up but not near as often. The mesh tended to be a bit more coarse because the water seemed to push the ore through the screens faster than gravity and air. I couldn't find a picture of the wet setup but here's the dust deputy/shopvac setup. Thanks for postin those finds! Very encouraging.
 

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southfork

southfork

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Hey Southfork absolutely diggin the ore you're finding and your low budget inventive methods of getting the shiney from the gaunge. I run a chain mill too and have the same issue you have with the screen clogging up. If the ore is completely dry and I run a shopvac to the screen I can usually run without having to take the cover off and clean. BUT I don't have that horrible problem you got with gold balling up and clogging my screen! Ha! Did want to mention that in spite of the manufacturer's directions I have run a wet system through the mill. Welded up a hose holder at the input and a bucket holder tipped at about the right angle for the vibration of the machine to jiggle the ore in at a slow but steady rate. It worked all right, still clogged up but not near as often. The mesh tended to be a bit more coarse because the water seemed to push the ore through the screens faster than gravity and air. I couldn't find a picture of the wet setup but here's the dust deputy/shopvac setup. Thanks for postin those finds! Very encouraging.
I found that if I just let it run and toss a rock in now and then it doesn't clog. When the dust stops I feed it and it works perfect not made for production but for hobby mining just right . Feeding the mill slow let's it turn everything to powder I have a small pile of large sand to rerun this morning from feeding the mill too fast.
 

RTR

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Nov 21, 2017
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That was a small baggie full of ore samples that made the detectors scream you could see visible gold on all the pieces. The rest of the 30 pounds of ore was micro gold but produced a good pinch. Three guys worked a good part of the day breaking rocks everyone shared in the results. I was number 4 but I had a shady spot and a chair watching the chain mill and sluice.
Like the looks of that quarts/gold specimen ! Hope ya didn't crush it
 

desertgolddigger

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May 31, 2015
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Southfork, I sure hope you don't pulverize those specimens in your previous photos. Those are beautiful, something a collector would purchase for way more than the gold value. I'd really love to get something like one of those, but unfortunately I'm what one person told me I live on the borderline of being considered poor by today's standards. At least I'm not homeless.

Those photos almost want to make me explore the open pit hard rock quarries on our claim. I wonder if there might still be fine gold in the sides of them just buried deeper in the sides. There's sure a lot of white quartz in them.
 

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southfork

southfork

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Southfork, I sure hope you don't pulverize those specimens in your previous photos. Those are beautiful, something a collector would purchase for way more than the gold value. I'd really love to get something like one of those, but unfortunately I'm what one person told me I live on the borderline of being considered poor by today's standards. At least I'm not homeless.

Those photos almost want to make me explore the open pit hard rock quarries on our claim. I wonder if there might still be fine gold in the sides of them just buried deeper in the sides. There's sure a lot of white quartz in them.
I'm still working on specimens I love to see what's hiding inside of gold ore. The older mines still have plenty of gold in those tailing piles, but it takes special equipment and hard work to extract the gold. I was out crushing sluicing and blue bowling a good part of a day for a couple of grams. But I love mining under a shady oak we were out early with a single jack smashing big rocks into little pieces for the rock crusher. The specimens I've been posting are all from waste rock piles found with a metal detector.
 

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southfork

southfork

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I put a Dream Mat micro in the blue bowl and ran the fines from the catch bucket. I'm happy with the performance I was losing micro gold, and this really speeds up the cleanup you can run faster and still save the flour.
 

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southfork

southfork

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Trying to smelt some dirty gold crushed and blue Bowled with the dream mat. Still having problems with the heavy black sand concentrates. I smelted the concentrates out of the blue bowl with a little Borax in a cupel. Needs to be run again with a longer smelt time. 11 grams of precious metal
 

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Tesorodeoro

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Jan 21, 2018
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Too hot to pulverize rock I gave myself a break I'm playing with the camera. Fresh out of the Whink 7 days maybe? 26.5 grams.
That is a superb specimen that will bring big money. I’d be very conservative with your asking price. You don’t find ones like that often.
 

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southfork

southfork

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Jun 15, 2014
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California
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Trying to smelt some dirty gold crushed and blue Bowled with the dream mat. Still having problems with the heavy black sand concentrates. I smelted the concentrates out of the blue bowl with a little Borax in a cupel. Needs to be run again with a longer smelt time. 11 grams of precious metal
I smelted the button again loss a half of a gram but nice and bright now.
 

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