Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I occasionally use a large rock tumbler as a rod mill. My local lapidary club has a large multi drum rock tumbler set up they built.

Yes, I've heard sometimes that can work. I even have one myself, but the drum is six sided with a rubber interior. I doubt mine would work except for tumbling rocks or brass.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Yes, I've heard sometimes that can work. I even have one myself, but the drum is six sided with a rubber interior. I doubt mine would work except for tumbling rocks or brass.

Yup my tumbler drum is lined with rubber as well, mind you though I’m using it to reduce my black sands down as they contained locked in fines. Combination different size steel rods turns it down pretty fine. The gold flattens and the sands crush down to finer particles makes getting my placer fines out easier.

 

[desertgolddigger]

southfork, I've kept reading about the min jaw crusher you have. It states, regardless of seller that "This machine has NO PLUG and needs to be connected to the air switch for use by yourself." An air switch needs an air compressor, and this makes no sense if the machine runs on 220 volts. An air switch apparently is use in some types of garbage disposals.

I got the impression from what you wrote, all you needed to do is add a 220 volt plug, and plug it into your 220 volt outlet. I sure am confused.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Good morning All. I got the feeling I needed to reprocess some of my large sluice tailings to see what I could find. I used my electric sifter to sift a small pail for 180 mesh minus material.

After sluicing, I panned it, and again, found just hundreds of specks of gold. This is getting ridiculous.

I've decided not to haul anything away until I process one five gallon bucket to death.

That means hammering rock until it's 1/4 inch and smaller. Next is the chain mill. Then the electric sift to get 180 mesh and smaller. Finally is grind everything else to a paste in the ball mill, and run things through the sluices.

Basically, nothing leaves until its 180 mesh or smaller

After this mornings surprise test, I guess I've been losing at least two thirds of my gold.

I hope I've finally learned how to maximize my gold take. With the equipment I have, it'll take much longer to process the ore.

 

[southfork]

southfork, I've kept reading about the min jaw crusher you have. It states, regardless of seller that "This machine has NO PLUG and needs to be connected to the air switch for use by yourself." An air switch needs an air compressor, and this makes no sense if the machine runs on 220 volts. An air switch apparently is use in some types of garbage disposals.

I got the impression from what you wrote, all you needed to do is add a 220 volt plug, and plug it into your 220 volt outlet. I sure am confused.

I just unplug my 220 welder and plug the jaw crusher in I bought the plug at Home Depot. The crusher came with a push button switch wired to the motor I just added a plug. No air switch I'll try and take a photo latter I'm cooking quartz at the moment.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I was able to get both chain mill housings fixed by the local weld shop. Justin does great work. He was able to wrap outside of each with 3/8 steel in the areas of both that were showing wear on the insides, or were cracked. He also filled in the worn areas on the inside with stainless steel. How he got things to stick, I haven't a clue. He said the infills will wear very little because of the material used.

He's got one heck of a garage shop. One thing I noticed was a 4x4 foot table. It was a plasma cutter, and I'm guessing that's what he used to make the cover plates on my mills housing.

I also purchased a good cement mixer with strong electric motor and with a thick housing. But it will have to be fixed, as the rubber gasket provided wasn't thick enough to provide a good seal. The mixer leaked everywhere along the gasket. I tried adding a gasket sealer, but ended up with one leak. My next fix will be basically steel epoxy all around the inside seam. Probably take a week to get the whole seam filled, as it takes 24 hours to cure.

Anyway, The old mixer basically died from 10 years of use. The motor was puny, 1/4hp, and the thing could only handle one 60 pound bag of cement at a time, and that was a strain. Left it along side then road, and it was gone the same day.

Another week of fixing things, and I should be back up and operating.

 

[Gold:Au]

If you are processing sands rather than gravels, this paper may be of interest.

The tl;dnr version is that they made a simple rod mill attached to a cement mixer drive to process classified sands. Literally a handful of minutes in the rod mill crushed the non-gold to a smaller classification, and flattened the fine gold to a larger one. The result was poured through a mesh which captured the now flattened gold.

I assume that rock tumblers are made hexagonal to agitate the contents, while a rod mill would probably be better off being worked a little more gently, but there is no reason why you could not make a sealed cylindrical rod mill container to fit within the hexagonal tumbler. I use glass jars for small projects in my cheap tumbler at home, and I have recently started using tiny jars to experiment with grinding down particulates which allows me to put six jars in the one tumbler, each with a different ball size and contents.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I'd love something like a rod mill, but the cost is prohibitive for someone like me. Most expert gold miners call someone like myself a "Hobby Miner", and that's basically what I am due to location of my house, and my personal income. So I manage as well as I can with minimum equipment, a small 53x9 inch sluice, a ribbed mat gutter cleanup sluice, a couple electric flour sifters, a couple chain mills, and now a fairly robust cement mixer ball mill.

The sands I am now processing through the ball mill are those created from hand hammering with 2# sledge hammer, and the chain mill. The ore was gotten from an old timer waste pile that I found contained fair gold. Through the processing, I found the waste sand I thought was worthless, actually was a source for more gold, enough to triple my daily take.

As my operation is super small, and labor intensive, I'm now lucky to get a few hundredths of a gram. I know I will never make money. Guess that's why people like me get labeled "Hobby Miner".

So, looking at neat equipment like shaker tables, hammer mills, conveyors, and all those others is just a informational adventure, never something I'm ever going to get to use. The topper is my age of 75. I'm just too old to handle more than I am right now.

 

[Gold:Au]

I was going to say that the link shows just how easy it is to build a rod mill at home, but there is welding and steel involved so maybe it should be left to the younger and fitter blokes.

But a few lengths of steel rod in a rock tumbler may be an effective way to process a handful at a time as a means of assaying your working areas.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I was going to say that the link shows just how easy it is to build a rod mill at home, but there is welding and steel involved so maybe it should be left to the younger and fitter blokes.

But a few lengths of steel rod in a rock tumbler may be an effective way to process a handful at a time as a means of assaying your working areas.

I've already ordered another batch of 1 and 1 1/4 steel ball mix, as well as adding a new size 1 1/2 inch for my cement mixer ball mill. That's 60 pounds of steel balls rolling around (not bouncing nor banging) to grind down 40 pounds of sand and water mix. Instead of the nearly six hours I had to run the mini cement mixer, I hope this setup will do so in 2 to 3 hours.

I'm done experimenting, and going with what I know works. I just need to finish sealing the two halves of my leaky cement mixer. If the steel epoxy doesn't work, I'll have my local welder, weld the two halves together but based on the information gleaned on the web, this type of epoxy is ideal for my use.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I use rods because I can get steel rod cheap at the scrap yard and use my bandsaw to make them fit in my tumbler drums. A heavy duty cement mixer full of steel balls I would guess is more effective.

 

[Gold:Au]

I use rods because I can get steel rod cheap at the scrap yard and use my bandsaw to make them fit in my tumbler drums. A heavy duty cement mixer full of steel balls I would guess is more effective.

Depends on your requirements.
I only have experience with large ball mills, but have recently been exposed enough to rod mills to study up on them a little and it looks like a rod mill will give a more consistent particle size over a ball mill.
And I would suspect a rod mill is a little more gentle on the mill lining.

 

[desertgolddigger]

You Guys might not want to get near me EVER.

Why?

Have you ever seen someone lose four motors in less than three months.

My list of dead motors are: Worxs 800cfm corded leaf blower for my drywasher

Both my gas powered leaf blowers for my drywasher

1hp motor for my chain crusher

This morning the Worx died in the middle of my rerun of drywashing concentrates. Wanted to rid myself of at least one pile of dirt. Now I wait for my replacement Worx from Amazon.

Sometimes I think I'm jinxed.

At least I finally got one thing figured out. I couldn't disconnect my trailer from the truck. Discovered that my truck and trailer both need to be level front to back in order for the ball grabber to release the cup that holds things in place. Had to use a jack under the front of the trailer to get things to release. My driveway slopes from a hump near the street downwards towards the house. I live in a one foot flood zone, so I need that barrier. and the retaining wall along the street to prevent water from coming into the house. At least one thing seemed to go right today.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I got what I ran through the drywasher this morning weighed. It was basically thin flake and wire gold. I got 1/10th gram from stuff missed on the initials panning simply because that wire and thin flake gold always seems to get by the first time.

 

[southfork]

You Guys might not want to get near me EVER.

Why?

Have you ever seen someone lose four motors in less than three months.

My list of dead motors are: Worxs 800cfm corded leaf blower for my drywasher

Both my gas powered leaf blowers for my drywasher

1hp motor for my chain crusher

This morning the Worx died in the middle of my rerun of drywashing concentrates. Wanted to rid myself of at least one pile of dirt. Now I wait for my replacement Worx from Amazon.

Sometimes I think I'm jinxed.

At least I finally got one thing figured out. I couldn't disconnect my trailer from the truck. Discovered that my truck and trailer both need to be level front to back in order for the ball grabber to release the cup that holds things in place. Had to use a jack under the front of the trailer to get things to release. My driveway slopes from a hump near the street downwards towards the house. I live in a one foot flood zone, so I need that barrier. and the retaining wall along the street to prevent water from coming into the house. At least one thing seemed to go right today.

Gold mining is tough on the body and equipment

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

You Guys might not want to get near me EVER. Why? Have you ever seen someone lose four motors in less than three months. My list of dead motors are: Worxs 800cfm corded leaf blower for my drywasher Both my gas powered leaf blowers for my drywasher 1hp motor for my chain crusher This morning the Worx died in the middle of my rerun of drywashing concentrates. Wanted to rid myself of at least one pile of dirt. Now I wait for my replacement Worx from Amazon. Sometimes I think I'm jinxed. At least I finally got one thing figured out. I couldn't disconnect my trailer from the truck. Discovered that my truck and trailer both need to be level front to back in order for the ball grabber to release the cup that holds things in place. Had to use a jack under the front of the trailer to get things to release. My driveway slopes from a hump near the street downwards towards the house. I live in a one foot flood zone, so I need that barrier. and the retaining wall along the street to prevent water from coming into the house. At least one thing seemed to go right today.

You Guys might not want to get near me EVER. Why? Have you ever seen someone lose four motors in less than three months. My list of dead motors are: Worxs 800cfm corded leaf blower for my drywasher Both my gas powered leaf blowers for my drywasher 1hp motor for my chain crusher This morning the Worx died in the middle of my rerun of drywashing concentrates. Wanted to rid myself of at least one pile of dirt. Now I wait for my replacement Worx from Amazon. Sometimes I think I'm jinxed. At least I finally got one thing figured out. I couldn't disconnect my trailer from the truck. Discovered that my truck and trailer both need to be level front to back in order for the ball grabber to release the cup that holds things in place. Had to use a jack under the front of the trailer to get things to release. My driveway slopes from a hump near the street downwards towards the house. I live in a one foot flood zone, so I need that barrier. and the retaining wall along the street to prevent water from coming into the house. At least one thing seemed to go right today.

Please remind me again why one would use pneumatics rather than hydraulics when you have the concentrates home?

 

[southfork]

You Guys might not want to get near me EVER.

Why?

Have you ever seen someone lose four motors in less than three months.

My list of dead motors are: Worxs 800cfm corded leaf blower for my drywasher

Both my gas powered leaf blowers for my drywasher

1hp motor for my chain crusher

This morning the Worx died in the middle of my rerun of drywashing concentrates. Wanted to rid myself of at least one pile of dirt. Now I wait for my replacement Worx from Amazon.

Sometimes I think I'm jinxed.

At least I finally got one thing figured out. I couldn't disconnect my trailer from the truck. Discovered that my truck and trailer both need to be level front to back in order for the ball grabber to release the cup that holds things in place. Had to use a jack under the front of the trailer to get things to release. My driveway slopes from a hump near the street downwards towards the house. I live in a one foot flood zone, so I need that barrier. and the retaining wall along the street to prevent water from coming into the house. At least one thing seemed to go right today.

What happened to your chain mill motor. My motor gets hot sometimes and quits I let it cool push the reset and off I go.

 

[desertgolddigger]

What happened to your chain mill motor. My motor gets hot sometimes and quits I let it cool push the reset and off I go.

The motor started alternating slowing, then speeding up, then just quit. I checked my house electrical system, ran other equipment on the same circuit, and it wasn't my electrical. The motor doesn't even run now.

 

[Gold:Au]

The motor started alternating slowing, then speeding up, then just quit. I checked my house electrical system, ran other equipment on the same circuit, and it wasn't my electrical. The motor doesn't even run now.

Does it spin by hand? Assuming the load is OK, it sounds like a bearing issue.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Does it spin by hand? Assuming the load is OK, it sounds like a bearing issue.

If it's mechanical, I can't fix it. This is probably why most mechanical things I own, break. I only Have the information given me in the instructions for maintenance, and I follow them precisely. But apparently, there are other things the maintenance instructions doesn't say, and that's probably one reason my mechanical things break. The people who write these instructions probably figure that if you buy it, and use it, you know everything about it.

Anyway, I just end up replacing the failed item. I got a new motor at Harbor Freight, but found that it has less help when it comes to working on it. Thank goodness for YouTube. The video showed how to wire it to the power cord. New motor doesn't have an on/off switch, so I had to purchase one with proper amp rating.

I'm waiting for the bad weather to end so I can work on all my downed equipment. We got plastered yesterday, with minor flooding. Destroyed all the dirt work I'd done. Now I need to wait for a month of hot, dry weather before getting back to things.