Ramblings of P70

[Prospector70]

Hmmmm.....

Air compressor to supply the bed. Add propane and ignition. Add damp sand. Bed heats up and dries sand. Gold falls to bottom. All season drywasher!

Clean that mercury right up too! LoL

 

[KevinInColorado]

Be sure to rerun some of the oldest stuff. Chances are your skills have improved since those old days and you'll find some stray gold hiding in there.

That said, back in about 2011(?) I saved all my -20 mesh processed cons from a whole year and ran it all on a fancy $2500 wave table. It caught 0.04 grams of gold I had missed. That taught me not to save my cons tailings...or SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT...since I still tend to do it. Haha. True confessions: I have about 25-35 pounds of -30 cons tails right now!

 

[Johnnybravo300]

I rarely ever bring anything home anymore. Just not worth messing with cons for that tiny of gold. Most of my stuff is sizeable and chunky enough that it's the majority and easy to tap out and not much tiny gold.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I rarely ever bring anything home anymore. Just not worth messing with cons for that tiny of gold. Most of my stuff is sizeable and chunky enough that it's the majority and easy to tap out and not much tiny gold.

Must be nice. Wonder how much you are throwing back...

 

[Capt Nemo]

I have 2 six gallon buckets of fully processed tailings, and another 5 that are partial processed.

 

[bobw53]

Thinking about this (work or thinking about gold? what would you choose)..

You need a Gold Cube. Run your tailings through, and then your tailings will definitely be "tailings", and can be discarded...

I know they aren't cheap, but maybe you can rent one for an hour with a 12 pack... OR!!!

On the old GPAA message board there was a guy that built/modified a mini gold cube.. Took a single tray $99, and sliced it into 3,
adding some plexiglass walls.... Instant short stack mini gold cube. I'm going to take one of my trays and build one one of
these days..

 

[arizau]

Thinking about this (work or thinking about gold? what would you choose)..

You need a Gold Cube. Run your tailings through, and then your tailings will definitely be "tailings", and can be discarded...

I know they aren't cheap, but maybe you can rent one for an hour with a 12 pack... OR!!!

On the old GPAA message board there was a guy that built/modified a mini gold cube.. Took a single tray $99, and sliced it into 3,
adding some plexiglass walls.... Instant short stack mini gold cube. I'm going to take one of my trays and build one one of
these days..

This is one mention about how to make the mini cube but the link seems to be dead. Scroll down to post #14 by Oregon Viking. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/444590-gold-cube.html

Pretty simple to make: Cut a Goldcube replacement tray into thirds (MAKE SURE INSIDE MEASUREMENTS ARE EQUAL), trace a template of the side profile and cut out 4 new ones to glue on to the trays where needed to make complete trays with sides on all three mini trays and devise a water flow system similar to a new one. The original modification included stripping the vortex mat out of the top tray too to make it a slick plate like the original. I don't think leaving it in is a bad idea. If you do you may need to encourage the feed material a little bit to get it to move but water erosion will take care of it eventually if you are patient. About the only downside is that that tray will be harder to clean up.

 

[Prospector70]

Wait.. I.. I've got to go get more cons! Dig day, yaaaay!

 

[Prospector70]

Only brought home black sand and gold in the snuffer bottle.

*edit*
And three keys, a bullet and a marble.

 

[arizau]

This is one mention about how to make the mini cube but the link seems to be dead. Scroll down to post #14 by Oregon Viking. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/444590-gold-cube.html

Pretty simple to make: Cut a Goldcube replacement tray into thirds (MAKE SURE INSIDE MEASUREMENTS ARE EQUAL), trace a template of the side profile and cut out 4 new ones to glue on to the trays where needed to make complete trays with sides on all three mini trays and devise a water flow system similar to a new one. The original modification included stripping the vortex mat out of the top tray too to make it a slick plate like the original. I don't think leaving it in is a bad idea. If you do you may need to encourage the feed material a little bit to get it to move but water erosion will take care of it eventually if you are patient. About the only downside is that that tray will be harder to clean up.

After thinking about my post (quoted above) I decided it was time to do this myself so I ordered a single tray and a small pump. I don't have it cut down yet but I did set up with the single tray and run it with a water hose and suspicions confirmed; there is no need to remove the vortex mat on the top section if one decides to modify a single tray into a mini cube. After re running the tails from the first pass I estimate the first pass on a single tray caught at least 80% of the total recovered in the two runs. From that I have decided that I will just cut the tray in half and run it as a two stacker with vortex on both trays and just re run the tails a time or two as I suspect many cube owners do anyway when processing concentrate.

Side note: I also ran a mostly black sand sample that I have been putzing with for close to a year now. The sample was just scooped black sand patches from a local wash and panning revealed it was loaded with minus 100 mesh gold; hardly any weight but hundreds to thousands of tiny particles of gold in just about a gallon of material concentrated to about a third of a cup of concentrates from the cube tray. The site is very remote from a highway and in an alien smuggling zone but, with a partner, I may go back with my drywasher and see if that will catch and concentrate it.

 

[bobw53]

and just re run the tails a time or two as I suspect many cube owners do anyway when processing concentrate.

Disclaimer.. My gold is generally pretty close to the source and only the bigger stuff is pounded flat....

I don't re-run the tails at all... I did at one point, and there was nothing there.. I don't even clean the bottom trays, I just save it...

Here is a cleanup from just the top tray from a month or so ago...

And right after that I did a clean up of the bottom trays from the last 6 months or so... It wasn't too good as far as gold qty goes,
but it was really good that not much is getting down there... and it was all floaty odd shaped stuff.

As to eliminating the slick plate... I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, in the gold cube, I don't think it will effect your recovery
at all... What it will do is double the concentrates that you will have to worry about... Anything that makes it past the top tray will
then go through the underflow hoodickey and land right at the top of the second tray..

Also a slick plate is a separation device in and of itself.. As the materials are traveling along the slick plate, they are sorting themselves,
heavies to the bottom, and lights to the top.

Another thought... Did you break the mat in? Run a whole bunch of garbage through it to take the "shine" off... Kind of like
seasoning your pan. Doc from Gold Hog had a video about that somewhere along the line.

Also, if you are just playing with a single tray at this point, you aren't getting the benefit of the underflow hoodickey between the trays,
that's really the secret to the whole thing.. A lot of times you'll find gold sitting on the lip before it even gets to the 1st mat, and some
stays down in the bottom of the underflow thing. Your recovery should go to close to 100% once you get it split and stacked.

 

[arizau]

Disclaimer.. My gold is generally pretty close to the source and only the bigger stuff is pounded flat....

I don't re-run the tails at all... I did at one point, and there was nothing there.. I don't even clean the bottom trays, I just save it...

Here is a cleanup from just the top tray from a month or so ago...

And right after that I did a clean up of the bottom trays from the last 6 months or so... It wasn't too good as far as gold qty goes,
but it was really good that not much is getting down there... and it was all floaty odd shaped stuff.

As to eliminating the slick plate... I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, in the gold cube, I don't think it will effect your recovery
at all... What it will do is double the concentrates that you will have to worry about... Anything that makes it past the top tray will
then go through the underflow hoodickey and land right at the top of the second tray..

Also a slick plate is a separation device in and of itself.. As the materials are traveling along the slick plate, they are sorting themselves,
heavies to the bottom, and lights to the top.

Another thought... Did you break the mat in? Run a whole bunch of garbage through it to take the "shine" off... Kind of like
seasoning your pan. Doc from Gold Hog had a video about that somewhere along the line.

Also, if you are just playing with a single tray at this point, you aren't getting the benefit of the underflow hoodickey between the trays,
that's really the secret to the whole thing.. A lot of times you'll find gold sitting on the lip before it even gets to the 1st mat, and some
stays down in the bottom of the underflow thing. Your recovery should go to close to 100% once you get it split and stacked.

Aren't you supposed to be working or are you still on a green chile high?

Always good to hear your perspective. No break in as I just received the tray. Good tip though and I still have to figure the best way to eliminate all the air bubbles; I did brush and spray then decided to run it bubbles and all just for fun (I got most of them). The original modification plans to make a mini cube included duplicating the top tray/slick plate by removing the staples, peeling the vortex off and worst of all trying to get the adhesive off; big pain in the a-- IMHO. When done the two trays will still just be one full tray in equivalent volume of concentrates collected by a single tray. Just as you did, I'll probably test the tails a time or two and make a decision as to whether that is really necessary in my case (most of what I am currently finding is minus 60 mesh). My only previous experience with a cube cleanup was with johnedoe and our beach gold cleanup. It was all minus 100 mesh with gold found on all three or maybe his fourth tray too(?).

Good luck to you in my home state of Nuevo Mexico.

 

[johnedoe]

Thought I would add a couple things here.
Regarding a slick plate or a mat at the top of the gold cube.... I decided due to the design of the cube that a slick plate really wasn't needed and I figure why not put that tray to work as well... So I added deep V mat to the entire slick plate.... The results were REALLLLLY good... I have a video and will try to get it downloaded so you can see this in action.

Regarding getting rid of the bubbles... There are a couple ways I found that worked really well.. 1 was get a quantity of sands and really wet them then rub those wet sands into each tray...
The 2nd was to use a spray bottle with jet dry in it and just mist the mats with that till wet... that mist gets into all the nooks and cranny's and this is the method I use now, it is quick and very effective.

Regarding cleanup.... I clean each tray into a separate container instead of cleaning them all into one tub..... A single tray worth of material is easily panned in a very short time. Also I don't worry about completely cleaning that material as I quick pan it and get 90% of the values out of it, the rest of those cons then just get put into a bucket and accumulate for a later run through the cube.... Nothing is lost or tossed... When I have a gallon or so of those cons I will run them through the cube and get what was left from the previous runs using the same process.... The final cons from that then get tossed into the bucket.. so 2 gallons of cons gets cleaned up and reduced to 1 cup that is saved and put in the bucket till it's time to run that collection again later.

I hope this make sense to you all ... If not ask and I will try to clarify any misunderstandings or questions.

Here is a video that includes the technique... At about the 2:18 mark is where he shows how to do this....
I will try and get my vid of the Deep V in the slick plate downloaded and add it later.



OK here's my little cleanup video.... lets see if it loaded and works.

 

[GrizzlyGoldTrap]

Really enjoy seeing your beach prospecting videos - Keep them coming!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Thought I would add a couple things here.
Regarding a slick plate or a mat at the top of the gold cube.... I decided due to the design of the cube that a slick plate really wasn't needed and I figure why not put that tray to work as well... So I added deep V mat to the entire slick plate.... The results were REALLLLLY good... I have a video and will try to get it downloaded so you can see this in action.

Regarding getting rid of the bubbles... There are a couple ways I found that worked really well.. 1 was get a quantity of sands and really wet them then rub those wet sands into each tray...
The 2nd was to use a spray bottle with jet dry in it and just mist the mats with that till wet... that mist gets into all the nooks and cranny's and this is the method I use now, it is quick and very effective.

Regarding cleanup.... I clean each tray into a separate container instead of cleaning them all into one tub..... A single tray worth of material is easily panned in a very short time. Also I don't worry about completely cleaning that material as I quick pan it and get 90% of the values out of it, the rest of those cons then just get put into a bucket and accumulate for a later run through the cube.... Nothing is lost or tossed... When I have a gallon or so of those cons I will run them through the cube and get what was left from the previous runs using the same process.... The final cons from that then get tossed into the bucket.. so 2 gallons of cons gets cleaned up and reduced to 1 cup that is saved and put in the bucket till it's time to run that collection again later.

I hope this make sense to you all ... If not ask and I will try to clarify any misunderstandings or questions.

Here is a video that includes the technique... At about the 2:18 mark is where he shows how to do this....
I will try and get my vid of the Deep V in the slick plate downloaded and add it later.



OK here's my little cleanup video.... lets see if it loaded and works.

U r very smart!

 

[johnedoe]

P70......
Sorry about hyjacking your thread here I'll move back on course....

 

[Prospector70]

P70......
Sorry about hyjacking your thread here I'll move back on course....

No worries, that gold you got out of the beach is AMAZING

 

[johnedoe]

Like anything else, Ya just got to use the right tools for the job at hand....
Of course it helps if your on some gold ..........

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Be sure to rerun some of the oldest stuff. Chances are your skills have improved since those old days and you'll find some stray gold hiding in there.

That said, back in about 2011(?) I saved all my -20 mesh processed cons from a whole year and ran it all on a fancy $2500 wave table. It caught 0.04 grams of gold I had missed. That taught me not to save my cons tailings...or SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT...since I still tend to do it. Haha. True confessions: I have about 25-35 pounds of -30 cons tails right now!

so do I!! I need to start running it through my Gold Cube but between still being employed and medical problems, no time or spare energy to do so.

 

[arizau]

so do I!! I need to start running it through my Gold Cube but between still being employed and medical problems, no time or spare energy to do so.

The like I gave you was to let you know this...............Sorry to hear of medical problems but good to see a post from you. Get well soon!