Greyhawk

[greyhawk]

OK boys and girls, I'm 67 and tired of the rat race. I'm moving back to Idaho this spring to start working some claims I have there. This is hard rock, but very fractured quartz, gold is very small and throughout ore body, (no veins). one and one half miles from road end and only 1200 elevation gain.
Need to start with what I can carry in on horse.
What small crushers would work?
What type of sluice?
What type of concentrator?
How fine do I have to crush the ore down to?
Water is available.
I know this is a lot of questions, but hey, old guys need all the help they can get.Thanks Greyhawk

 

[Eu_citzen]

Try asking this in the "Hardrock" mining section, might get more specific answers there.

 

[FiresEye]

List of things needed:

Large army of child labor
Whip
Evil grin

And if you're tired of the rat race, well I can assure you after a week of hard rock mining you'll gladly say " would you like fries with that"" for $8 an hour.



This post^ is sarcastic, so sorry if you're offended, but you should do a little reading on the forums here and most of your questions will get answered. If you have anythign specific to ask, like " What angle should I set my sluice at with a water flow of Xgallons/minute" then by all means shoot, because there's some smart people here who would probably help you.

 

[apothecaryjames]

OK boys and girls, I'm 67 and tired of the rat race. I'm moving back to Idaho this spring to start working some claims I have there. This is hard rock, but very fractured quartz, gold is very small and throughout ore body, (no veins). one and one half miles from road end and only 1200 elevation gain.
Need to start with what I can carry in on horse.
What small crushers would work?
What type of sluice?
What type of concentrator?
How fine do I have to crush the ore down to?
Water is available.
I know this is a lot of questions, but hey, old guys need all the help they can get.Thanks Greyhawk

I got a lot of sluice carpet if you need any

 

[greyhawk]

Fireseye, I grew up on a ranch in Idaho Mountains with no electricity, so know a little about hard labor. This was my first post, so was just trying to have a little fun. so thank you for pointing out my ignorance. I'll keep my future posts very serious.
Greyhawk

 

[AU Seeker]

Greyhawk,

Welcome to the forum!!

Don't get too riled up. some people don't have very good manners any more!!

For a small crusher, a piece of 3" or 4" pipe with a piece of 3/8" to 1/2" steel plate welded on the bottom and a solid piece of steel rod (a piece of a truck axle is what I use) with a T-handle will work for sampling.

Like this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-inch-Sore-thu...aultDomain_0&hash=item2eb235d02a#ht_500wt_922

For bigger amounts of crushing you're talking some $ and a lot of weight, but this crusher has recently come on the market and not too expensive as far as crushers go around $300 and not that heavy either, might be right up your alley, it is hand operated (click on "order" at the top of the page for price and how to order). I'm not sure how good this crusher works, but it looks promising for packing in to remote places.

http://www.crazycrusher.com/index.html

There are some chain mills that that you could build if you handy with tools that will pulverize your ore that are either powered by a lawn mover type engine or a chain saw setup.

This is the chainsaw version.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4796820.pdf

Most material is best to crush to about 100 mesh, but it will depends on your ore and the size of the free gold, you can crush too small and lose gold by doing so, you will need to sample as you crush to determine the best size for your ore and gold.

I would go with a Popandsons type setup for a sluice, which is miner moss w/ribbed rubber matting under the moss, or a backed carpet and then different size raised expanded metal on top, start out with a slick plate area and then the moss or carpet and expanded, then experiment, experiment, experiment for the proper pitch, water flow and which expanded is dong the best for you catching the gold.

As far as a concentrator, a shaker table, a centrifuge, hard to say, it depend on the size and shape of the gold, I would think a good table would be best, but it is hard to recommend without experimenting, I would take some concentrated/sluiced material to someone that has some different concentrators to see which is best for the gold in your ore.

I hope this helps some and good luck and let us know how you do after getting setup and running some materials!!


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[greyhawk]

AU Seeker, What a great responce. Thank you fro proving there are thoughtful and considerate people on this forum. I have backpacked or traveled by horse through 1000s of miles of Idaho wilderness areas. I first paned very small amount of gold in this area 35 years ago. I have been checking all of the upstream canyons off and on for these 35 years and have finally found some hard rock gold bearing deposits.
This summer, I hope to establish if there is enough ore to mine profitably or sell to mining company. My hope is to sample more of this area this summer, and to have enough production to pay my way. Again thank you for good feed back.
Dan

 

[AU Seeker]

Greyhawk,

You're welcome, I hope the info helps with your endeavor.

If I come across or remember any other equipment that I think may help you I will post it.


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