Question About Miners Moss

[flinthunter]

Here in Illinois our gold is almost all super fine. I've got an old Keene sluice and I'm thinking about putting all Gold Hog mother lode mat in it with 10 mm thick miners moss on top. I plan to run a punch plate about 1 1/2 inches above the miners moss. Does anyone think this will work or am I wasting my time?

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Using it at the end of my 2 inch dredge is a consideration to try and catch the super fine gold that might blow out with the smaller heavies. We have a lot of gold that we need a loupe to see.

That’s seed gold. Get used to it and move more pay dirt instead of messing around with trying to catch gold that likely will not add up to anything on the scale. You WILL NEVER catch all the gold in a gravity sluice type operation. Concentrate on catching the bulk of the recoverable gold gradation. The fancy special matting will likely only result in you having to change the pitch and water volume of your box only to find out your doing about the same as before you spent hundreds of $$ on rubber. Your mileage will vary. “Small heavies” blowing out your sluice box..? What’s that size gold?

 

[N-Lionberger]

That’s seed gold. Get used to it and move more pay dirt instead of messing around with trying to catch gold that likely will not add up to anything on the scale. You WILL NEVER catch all the gold in a gravity sluice type operation. Concentrate on catching the bulk of the recoverable gold gradation. The fancy special matting will likely only result in you having to change the pitch and water volume of your box only to find out your doing about the same as before you spent hundreds of $$ on rubber. Your mileage will vary. “Small heavies” blowing out your sluice box..? What’s that size gold?

I know this is an old thread but I hate the term “seed gold” it’s only going to abrade further down in size it’s not going to magically get bigger washing along a stream or hiding in a waste pile, if a person wants to perfect their recovery why knock ‘em? It’s not your mine. Also I’m sorry but the fines do in fact add up, you worked hard for that stuff why throw it away!?

 

[achanceforgold]

I know this is an old thread but I hate the term “seed gold” it’s only going to abrade further down in size it’s not going to magically get bigger washing along a stream or hiding in a waste pile, if a person wants to perfect their recovery why knock ‘em? It’s not your mine. Also I’m sorry but the fines do in fact add up, you worked hard for that stuff why throw it away!?

"fines do in fact add up"

Haile Gold mine in S.C. process only fine, and microscopic gold. It's rare they find a nugget.
They produced $165 million in Gold the first three months of this year.
So yes, fines do add up.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

I know this is an old thread but I hate the term “seed gold” it’s only going to abrade further down in size it’s not going to magically get bigger washing along a stream or hiding in a waste pile, if a person wants to perfect their recovery why knock ‘em? It’s not your mine. Also I’m sorry but the fines do in fact add up, you worked hard for that stuff why throw it away!?

Well first of all - the term “seed gold” is a joke. It’s what you do once you figure out that you cannot design a box to catch “small heavies” AND gold that is so small it requires a magnifying glass to see while running 2” minus gravel through a suction dredge box. You joke about it and accept the idea that you need a magnifying glass to see your losses. How do you overcome this loss? You run a little longer, move more material, move better material. That’s my opinion anyway. I’m no expert.
Shoveling beach sand into a sluice is a different setup in my opinion than a dredge box. I know the beach miners find quite a bit of really small gold.

I don’t feel I was “knocking” anyone.

I’m well aware that the majority of gold in the world recovered is not visible to the human eye.

They are not doing this in a 2” suction dredge sluice box.

Maybe your comment on this old post will generate an update.

 

[Assembler]

Well first of all - the term “seed gold” is a joke. It’s what you do once you figure out that you cannot design a box to catch “small heavies” AND gold that is so small it requires a magnifying glass to see while running 2” minus gravel through a suction dredge box. You joke about it and accept the idea that you need a magnifying glass to see your losses. How do you overcome this loss? You run a little longer, move more material, move better material. That’s my opinion anyway. I’m no expert.
Shoveling beach sand into a sluice is a different setup in my opinion than a dredge box. I know the beach miners find quite a bit of really small gold.

I don’t feel I was “knocking” anyone.

I’m well aware that the majority of gold in the world recovered is not visible to the human eye.

They are not doing this in a 2” suction dredge sluice box.

Maybe your comment on this old post will generate an update.

I'm no expert with that being said if one has to get out the magnifying glass after a few hours of running a dredge to see the values then one should dredge somewhere else in order to cover the running costs and time.