Sheet in stream to catch gold

[reptwar1]

Anyone ever heard the stories about old timers stretching sheets across streams to catch fine gold dust? I have read it on several sites but now cant find any of them. Reason Im asking....just got off the phone with a guy that did something similar and caught just over an ounce of gold in 2 weeks. The guy then told me that his contact with USGS informed him that every 24 hours, $16,000 in suspended flour gold flows past the town that we live in. That price was in the 60's when gold was $30 an ounce. Allow me to adjust for current gold prices... Ready?...$541,560 EVERY 24 HOURS!! Now you see why I'm interested lol

 

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[russau]

WOW that is cool BUT id hate to get caught using this method !

 

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[Goldwasher]

Rivers have been used as a source of income forever....If there was that much value "floating" by daily and an easy way to reap its rewards it would be in place already.....A bucket line with vasoline in a river that size.....will recover maybe.001 per day.....Your gonna pull that bucket and find mucky vasoline that's about it.... Stick to the deposits in those old river courses your more likely to actually recover gold you can see!

 

[reptwar1]

Lol russau, it was in the 60's. I would never attempt it nowadays!!

 

[fowledup]

For some reason I keep getting this mental picture of a bunch of SIerra Fund idjits running up and down the motherload river banks splashing and dragging peace sign and multi-colored sheets thru the water in their quest for the elusive mercury and gold they seek. This could be the highlight of their new green iniative approved mining technique! LOL! Carry on guys, not poking fun at you just the idjits out here, best of luck with the experiment, and tie that sheet off real good as the gold can get very heavy!

 

[reptwar1]

Lol I have a sand and gravel plant right down the road. I wonder how I could use that to my advantage

 

[nh.nugget]

Myself I'd set up a sluice for a day to heck with all the high tech stuff. run some dirt if it's flowing it's settling!

 

[reptwar1]

Nhnugget you do have a point

 

[chlsbrns]

Gold that is so small that it suspends in water doesnt really settle in moving water. Very little of it at best. A sluice captures very little 75 micron (-200 mesh) gold. It may capture some but the majority will run off the end of the sluice. 75 micron gold can not even be seen by the naked eye by most people. Gold smaller than 75 microns would be even harder to capture with a pan or sluice and cant be seen by those with perfect eyesight. You need to use unconventional methods to get suspended gold from flowing water

 

[reptwar1]

I do agree with that. Probably impossible to get any quantities to speak of though?

 

[reptwar1]

Any thoughts on this sandbar?

 

[reptwar1]

Only a couple months ago, the river was at flood stage, and all of the sand was below water

 

[chlsbrns]

I looked at the river on google earth. There are sandbars everywhere some that have been there long enough to be called islands with growing vegetation. Im sure they would all contain gold but how big is the gold?

To process sand as opposed to water you need some sort of equipment. Shovels, a dredge a pump or something to move the sand. You could use a conventional sluice with a long extention at the end that is basically a long slickplate coated in vaseline/vegtable oil ect. Its a lot more equipment and labor than just coating sheets of whatever coated in vaseline/vegatble oil and sinking them for a period of time.

 

[reptwar1]

Point taken. As far as the sheet coated with vaseline, how far out into the river should I take it? Would it be ok at a depth of say 4'? I think I'm going to get out my t-post driver and t-posts and stretch a sheet between the two

 

[chlsbrns]

If it was me I would use lawn/leaf bags as I mentioned earlier after I tested the water to see if there is gold

 

[reptwar1]

10-4

 

[reptwar1]

After saturation, wont they fall apart?

 

[chlsbrns]

Heavy plastic bags? Saturated?

At most I would leave them underwater for a week and would be happy to have any amount of gold. Its just a test. If it captures any gold at all I would move on to something capable of processing much more such as the gravity dredge into a drum

 

[reptwar1]

Ok the only lawn bags ive seen were paper lol makes sense now. Also, Ive heard about a detergent that water treatment plants use to coagulate and drop heavy metals from water...any thoughts?

 

[chlsbrns]

Yes ive used them in water that was recircluated and had concentrations of gold but not unconcentrated flowing water. They are called flocculants/coagulants.

To process river water you would need a whole plant like your city uses and the cost of the floculants would be more than any recovered gold

 

[reptwar1]

Ok thanks