Separates gold from black sand!

[bedrock bubba]

Anyone know about this?A mining friend told me it works real good.

Its called 'Basic H' a product of Shaklee.

 

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[Bodfish Mike]

looks like the ingredients has Surfactants -- so the gold won't float.
I learned about Surfactants right here on Tnet.
I use "ONE" drop of Jet dry on the final clean up when panning and it works great.
Mike.

 

[Bonaro]

A surfactant is a wetting agent, it breaks the surface tension of water. All detergents like dish soap contain it or you can buy straight surfactant in a bottle of Jet-Dry. A little goes a long ways. A wetting agent is a big help when recovering fine gold. However, you need to understand this only improves your fine gold recovery. I will NOT make your cleanup valued at $50 turn into a cleanup valued at $80...more like $55

 

[Goldwasher]

$50.25

 

[arizau]

Anyone know about this?A mining friend told me it works real good.

Its called 'Basic H' a product of Shaklee.

"Separates gold from black sand!" (the title of this thread).....No, not likely unless the product contains oil. If it contains oil then it is possible that gold, being oleophilic, could be attracted to it and float to the surface with it thus separating it from the black sands. The oil film with gold attached could be poured off then the oil could be dissolved with a solvent or simply burned off to free the gold for collection. That said the product is likely a surfactant, as others have said, and just more or less insures that the gold does not float due to surface tension and thus be subject to loss/floating out in the panning process. Surfactants do not separate the gold from black sand....proper panning does.

Good luck.

 

[bedrock bubba]

looks like the ingredients has Surfactants -- so the gold won't float.
I learned about Surfactants right here on Tnet.
I use "ONE" drop of Jet dry on the final clean up when panning and it works great.
Mike.

I've used Jet Dri for many years, and it works good! But we still don't have anyone with Basic H experience!

 

[jdlev]

Total noob here, so forgive my ignorance. Why don't you guys just use a rare earth magnet to pull the black sand out of the pan? I've used a magnet for black sand just since it seems to be effective. I thought maybe some gold could get trapped w/ the black sand if you were pulling out clumps of black sand, but haven't seen any when I've done it - though admittedly, that could be a pay dirt problem, lol.

I've had a tough time getting fine gold to settle out. I'll look in the pan and when there's maybe 2-3 tablespoons of material left - mostly sand and some black sand, I'll see what looks like little bits of gold around the pan. Since I'm still new, I'm probably 90% sure it's gold. They fools gold seems to float and be 'stirred up' much more easily, while the gold kind of 'lunkers' around the pan. I think maybe I'm using too many waves or too rough waves when I'm pulling off the top material? Maybe my ebay pans suck? I've tried to get better at it by using the sluice fox to wash the gold into a pan along with some other concentrate...of course, between the time I try to pan and getting down to the fines, the pan decides to eat any gold it finds, lol. Pan gremlins... Actually tried fabricating a gold wheel w/ my 3D printer, but that was a flop. Maybe my process of classifying down from 1/2" to 1/8" to 1/16", then to the sluice, then to the pan is wrong? I've kept all the fine concentrate to continue practicing. It'd be nice to actually make sure I'm doing stuff right!

I found a few small specs of gold that can really be described more like a cross between a filament or hair rather than flakes or solids (at least I think it's gold). Now that I think about it, the stuff I've found might just be from pollution in the creeks around here. They almost look like they could be used in computer components. I know trace amounts of gold are used as conductors in some electronics and with as many broken bottles and other trash I've seen in the creek, I guess it's a possibility. I'm in Concord, NC btw.

Anyways, any tips or advice for this noob would be much appreciated

 

[dave wiseman]

Do you put your magnet inside a plastic bag and then pull the magnet away..the black sand drops off.

 

[Hamfist]

You don't even need a magnet. Just a classifier, a pan, and a little practice. It takes forever with a magnet and you lose fine gold unless you repeat the process several times.

When panning fine gold, you do need to use a surfactant, like Jet Dry, because the gold will easily float without it. This is a quick preview swirl & tap of -50 mesh material. It separates quite easily when it's all the same size.

 

[Goldwasher]

haven't used a magnet for years.

it's just an added step that will slow down the process.

Classifiers and a pan or blue bowl if your running a lot of material and have a lot of cons

 

[jdlev]

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll def. try the suff. Hopefully that'll help improve my results. Thanks for the tips!

 

[jdlev]

....anddddd, I failed miserably, lol. I'll try to get a short video of my typical panning so you guys can give me a few more pointers.

 

[63bkpkr]

Surfactant is the United States terminology for a wetting agent, the British have a more descriptive term which is Surface Active Agent. The surface active agent wets the surface of an object to release any bubbles (air) from the object which allows the object to do whatever it would do in that particular liquid, in this case it would allow the fine gold to sink to the bottom of the pan..................63bkpkr

Oh and like the advertisement used to say "A little dab will do ya", use as little as possible of the Surfactant. ("Eye Wash" now comes in teeny tiny squeeze bottles with a teeny tine dispensing hole in the delivery stem. When the eye wash is all gone, pull the stem off, rinse the insides out really well and add some surfactant to your new surfactant dispenser, replace the stem and cap and you are ready to dispense smaller drops)

IMHO the dispensing hole for the original Surfactant bottle is sized so the customer uses more than they really need to (like do you really need that large gob of toothpaste to brush your teeth with? Like NO!) Use less and buy less frequently and still get the proper job accomplished.

 

[jdlev]

Got a quick little video of the 'cinderella' sluice

 

[jdlev]

Here's what the cinderella sluice had left behind



And finally, my poor attempt at panning...

 

[jdlev]

I guess this means I've been doing everything perfectly!

Well, that...or the thread just got buried Any tips after checking out the videos from above?

 

[Hamfist]

The biggest thing that I can see is that the water is rushing into the pan too quickly and washing the lighter material back towards the center of the pan. Kind of a two steps forward, one step back situation. I'd say dip it in more slowly so the water only disturbs the material on it's way out. That might speed things up for you. Also play with using the smooth side of the pan whey you get down to the heavies.

Everyone seems to have their own method, so just keep doing it and see what works for you. You've probably watched a bunch of videos on panning, but I think Doc at Gold Hog illustrates one of the better methods specifically for separating fines in a couple of his videos. Jeff Williams has some good ones on fundamentals. The Garret Detectors panning video with Freddy Dodge is very good for learning the basics of panning as well.

I use different methods for different sizes of material. -50 mesh material moves around in a pan differently than +50/-20

The more you do it, the better you will get.

 

[arizau]

I guess this means I've been doing everything perfectly!

Well, that...or the thread just got buried Any tips after checking out the videos from above?

I saw no black sand collection at all in the panning video....you need to find a better source of feed with BS in it in order to practice separating/concentrating it since gold collects with it. It should have only taken seconds to determine that there was no BS in that sample and you will see that for yourself with practice from better samples....The first stage of panning is pretty aggressive (to clear obvious waste) until you begin to see black sand in the crease then slow down to get to the gold if any.

Describe your sluice.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

[jdlev]

Thanks guys

So describe my sluice...lol...I guess it kind of depends on the days of the week. For a long time, I was a very avid home brewer and still have a pretty nice setup out in my garage - so I've got plumbing parts galore I can scrounge. I also thought it was kind of funny the number of similarities there were between homebrewing and sluicing.

My main sluice that I use most of the time is the sluice fox - some el cheapo plastic segmented sluice with a wide feed into your basic triangle riffles. That flows into 2 sections w/ larger 45 degree riffles that clip into place over miner's moss. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's a great deal or a hunk of junk. It 'looks' like it catches gold, but as you saw from my material...it's all extremely fine. Anyways, that's the boring sluice.

I enjoy inventing problem even moreso than I do actual mining. I can't look at something without trying to figure out better ways to build or reinvent the wheel. At the moment, I have an abundance of plexiglass that I haven't used for anything...so I acutally built a 30" x 5" plexiglass sluice with a few different riffle designs - rounded, 45s, flat, etc. It actually worked really well - but leaked like a sieve, lol. Had it operating out of a recirculating system that I'd build from a HD tote that's probably 3'x2' coupled to a chugger homebrew pump connected by some quick connect silicone hoses. Homebrewing and gold mining - I'm telling you guys, it's a match made in sparkly, shiny, glittery heaven

I've got a makergear m2 3D printer, and have been wanting to try a few new riffle designs. I've been interested in a much more 'loopy' design - picture 3/4 circle w/ open top back end, and have been wanting to try a more flowy design w/ more flow stoppers and pools built in. If any of you guys would like me to print up any design ideas you've kicked around...I'd be happy to do so

 

[N-Lionberger]

You should 3D print a copy of the "dream mat" LOL! A prospector from France if I remember correctly 3D printed a set of riffles for a cleanup sluice and posted pictures to a DIY prospecting gear facebook group, some of the riffles looked vaguely like the dream mat which caused the maker of the dream mat to jump in and totally lose his bananas he accused the guy of stealing food from his children. Check out the Gold Well it has some interesting geometry that may do well with 3D printing.