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.

 

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[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.

 

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[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.