over nighter turns up rusty gold, update

[2cmorau]

dogs, Dave and myself arrived at the hole
Dave started in on the red layer and i worked on the crevice, moving buckets of material for most of the day and showing little gold, until the last six or seven buckets and the pieces started showing mostly from Dave's material. getting late we stored all are stuff on the bank and headed out to make camp.
Next morning started in on the hole with high hopes of end of yesterday results, again not much was showing for all the buckets we were moving, I gave up the crevice because it turned out to be dropoff of bedrock and it was turning into a slurry of a waterhole as i got deeper and no visable signs
the first two pics are what dave picked out of the box the large one is 6 grains
the next pics are of the +30 cleanout at home and the rusty nugget was 7.6 grains
thanks for lookin, enjoy
may ya'all find a rusty nugget

 

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[calisdad]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

 

[Gravelwasher]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold



Great pics!! Love seeing the fruits of the labor.

 

[gold nuggets]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

From the tone of the post, it sounded like you were quite disappointed
with the overall gold recovery. Those are some nice pickers and are just
the teasers.....the bigger stuff is close now. Thanks for sharing the pics
and the story. Gold Nuggets

 

[Hoser John]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

Luv'm all-the good,the bad,the ugly--rough,gnarly,stained and rusty they all make my world go around- tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[2cmorau]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

GN, after reading my own post, it does sound a bit boring, I'll change that
then it could be that i know there is bigger gold, cause just directly across the river i found finger-nail size peices, but then i was dredging when i found those. fin law
LOL, just got back from another over night-er, late last night. color keeps showing up
i double-up on the boxes this time, to see if i am losing gold out of the large sluice box

will post pics and results later

 

[johnedoe]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

You need to get down into that drop off you mentioned............

 

[63bkpkr]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

2Com,
What's the weather been like out your way? Day time/night time temps at roughly what elevation and any snow?

When you've got color to show for even way too much work then you've had an adventure coupled with at least some gold and of course you had a chance to get out of the four walls, I assume your house has at least 4 walls and is not a lean to.(tee hee)

thanks for the input..........63bkpkr

 

[2cmorau]

Re: over nighter turns up rusty gold

I made a couple of trips up since this last post
and as Bing would sing " the weather outside is frightful" the last over night trip was cold, on the way out of town stopped in Downieville talked with some locals about the dredging issue was told it was in the teens maybe single degits, but the dogs and the tarp i put over the tent helps greatly, plus the handwarmers
The overburden is beginning to get a little overwhelming, shoveling most off behind us to get to what i think is better material. if the winter rain continues on like it has, i think the Yuba River will be the Yuba creek come this summer and then the dropoff may be workable, right now its still at/below the watertable.
I double up on the boxes last time up and i did find a few very small specks in the second box,( homemade with Nomad and burlap with a screen on top) but most of the good stuff was in the first box abot 5 grains each trip, but loads of flour in the minus30 time to get the shaker up and running have asbout 2/3 of a 5 gal bucket

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

if gold rust how can you clean it im assuming the same way you do with silver

 

[419GottaMinute]

Rusty gokd can be cleaned witha solution of dish soap and vinegar. Put solution and gokd in jar and shake like your makung butter, or place in a small rock tumbler and run overnihht.

 

[63bkpkr]

2cmorau,
Thanks for the weather/water input. Down here in the flat land it's looking like spring and I just can not believe it. The past couple of years or more we've had some heavy storms just as winter was ending, causing a lot of snow in the mountains that did not go away till early July. IF late storms do not come then yes the rivers will be creeks. Very interesting looking spot you have there, best of luck with it...........63bkpkr

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

Rusty gokd can be cleaned witha solution of dish soap and vinegar. Put solution and gokd in jar and shake like your makung butter, or place in a small rock tumbler and run overnihht.

the rock tumbler wont break the the gold smaller?

 

[419GottaMinute]

If you put a piece in the tumbler that still have host rock, then yes, tumbling it can cause the host rock to crumble. Only put one pice in at a time. For fines, I use a plastic vial with the soap/vinegar solution and gold in it. Keeps everyrhing together in the tumbler.
I wonder if one of the ultra sonic jewelry cleaners would work better on pieces with host rock still atttached? Maybe less destructive?
Good question though, I will try to be more specific in future posts

 

[419GottaMinute]

63: mother nature is toying wirh us up here; it just started snowing..

 

[63bkpkr]

Thanks 419, I was just wondering about that as I went over the latest posts. Here in Fremont it has been raining but it is cold so I would not be surprised to see snow on the tops of the bay area hills in the morning.

In 2010 (seems like many ages ago) I found my first rusty hunk of 'what is it' in my final cleanup pan. It looked very odd like two pieces of rock glued together with what looked like rust. Upon doing some scientific study of it, that's messing around with it in other words, I managed to get a little chip off of the iron oxide coating and could see the gold shining through. I was quite pleased I'd saved that odd looking thing. I've been observant ever since when coming across other rust covered rocks. I might not have believed this reality if I'd not seen it for myself, rust covered gold..............63bkpkr

 

[Oakview2]

I have had specimen pieces cleaned by a jewler with the ultra sonic. If you have someone you deal with, they will do it for free, and it works well.

If you put a piece in the tumbler that still have host rock, then yes, tumbling it can cause the host rock to crumble. Only put one pice in at a time. For fines, I use a plastic vial with the soap/vinegar solution and gold in it. Keeps everyrhing together in the tumbler.
I wonder if one of the ultra sonic jewelry cleaners would work better on pieces with host rock still atttached? Maybe less destructive?
Good question though, I will try to be more specific in future posts

 

[Vance in AK]

2cmorau, if that's a Keene A-52 you know you are loosing all the fines right (Just kidding!!!)
Seriously, nice gold & it sounds like you are REALLY earning it!!!
Thanks for sharing

 

[Fullpan]

Funny thing about rivers and the weather - If river dries up in summer, there's a lot more bedrock exposed - If there's a high spring run-off or major flood, new gold is deposited up on high bank areas. To me, its a win-win!

 

[Fullpan]

Hey Frank - glad you got out with your two best friends! (and Dave). Nothing like dogs to keep tent bearable on cold nights. Looks like you made good
headway following the bedrock (pic #1 to pic #4) Pounding and prying with that gadbar for a couple hours ain't fun. I can't believe I never thought to
buy a SHORT shovel for that kind of close-in work What are the Downievilleians saying about dredging?