using a sonic jewelry cleaner for gold recovery from black sands

[salone]

Good Day All,

We are a small alluvial gold mine operating in the Sula mountains in Sierra leone, West Africa. Like many of you, we have a lot of black sand concentrate after panning from the sluices. There was an article on this site a couple of years back ( Sep 07 ) on the subject of black sand cleanup. One contributor, wpareig from PA mentioned using a sonic jewelry cleaner to good effect for micron gold after grinding sands to -400 mesh. The thread seemed to dry up and am wondering if a solution or a flux was used in the process. Any clues or ideas please. Also thinking of small scale smelting, but having problems sourcing the flux ingredients, namely borax, saltpetre, soda ash and silica. We do classify these sands and run +30 mesh through gold wheel twice and the -30 mesh through a blue bowl; first time snuffed and then sands fractured and re-ran. All black sands remaining also passed with rare earth magnet. There is some recovery but sloooow and we have a pile of black sands - didn't throw away ! Also interested in sourcing a small. portable roller / hammer mill. Does anyone have contacts for suppliers in US or elsewhere - hours on the net here have yielded zero, except for industrial sizes.

Most of our workings are on the banks and river bed, but rains looming and that will keep us down for a few months as from July /August. If anyone would like to see some pictures of our site, will gladly oblige on return.

Thanks for any feedback that may come

 

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[Hoser John]

Just get a great cement mixer---steel balls--mercury and off you go--you already have the equipment to recover the mercury. Ultrasonics are great to clean gold but the same effect is accomplished with a bit a caustic soda with your mercury in the mixer when you tumble the sands--tons a au 2 u 2 -John

 

[salone]

Hi John,

Jumpiing from 1 site to another eh. yes I have thought of a mixer for some bulk processing, BUT prefer not to go down the mercury route if possible. Know the pro's and cons but negative mainly due to the local conditions. I attach below the original comments as per the sonic cleaner. To me still seems interesting, if can clean ground black sands that well, but as said not sure if using flux / solution. Obtaining many things here is a wish and have to be imported and then time consuming. Don't know bout your side but if back in UK and want to buy a quantity of saltpetre, as an example more than eyebrows will be raised !

Thank you for the comments and wishing you a panful of gold and more too.

Adrian


Re: black sand clean up
Reply To This Topic #25 Posted Apr 30, 2008, 05:35:51 PM

Quote from: wpareig on Sep 09, 2007, 09:33:19 PM
I'm not as experienced in the chemical end as some who have responded, but, I'll tell you how I separate my ultra-fine gold from black sand.....

I bought plans for a roller mill that is about the size of a five gallon bucket (maybe a little bigger) that I run all my black sand through once I get all the gold out of it that I can..... I bought the plans on eBay and they claimed that it would reduce to about 600 mesh. In actuality it only reduced to just under 400 mesh, but since I have to use a microscope, that's small enough for me....

I bought a professional "sonic" jewelry cleaner on eBay for $80.00 and I put my black sand in it about 1/2 cup at a time (it holds a little over a cup and a half) and keep adding the crushed black sand every hour or so, letting the excess flow over (add by the table spoon into the center, as soon as it goes flat add another table spoon)...... The sizmic action keeps the heavies in the -400 mesh material moving to the bottem... I ran about 4 - 4 1/2 gallon of rich black sand and ended up seeing gold on top when I stopped. The gold actually filled the container......

The black sand that was left I proessed in a rock tumbler w/ about 1/4 oz. of mercury for about 2 hours / load (this is a 45lb. tumbler)... I heated the nitric acid in a pyrex dish and added the butten from the mercury press to it and after the smoke cleared I had hardly any gold...... I usually got a nice gold butten when processing with mercury and nitric acid.... What I found is that crushing your black sand below 400 mesh and using the sonic jewelry cleaner removed almost ALL gold in the black sand..... I probably would have had to run at least 50 gallon of black sand to even get a 1/4 oz. of gold after what the jewelry cleaner settled out....

What's in the jewelry cleaner isn't pure, there's still black sand (unless you keep adding until all you see is gold, but then I'm sure you would still have a tiny bit & you would loose gold in the overflow) plus other impurities like platnum, silver, copper, zinc etc., but it's as pure as you'll ever get it.....

That's just how I process mine, lots of other people on here have other great ideas that may work as well (I just don't use chemicals anymore, not worth it for what I miss)..... If I could get my roller mill to chush the material below 600 or 800 mesh I think I could get 100% (or close to it) of the micro gold with out chemicals...

Good luck and hope your pan is always lined in Gold....

Coyote....

I'm sorry, I haven't been on in a while. I noticed a few PM's and question as to the type of Ultra sonic cleaner I use..........

I use 2 models, both for the same reason.... De Gassing Properties. I had been using the one I got from ebay & found the company had a model that worked even better for me.... Both not only de-gas but both have very controlled heating properties (for some reason I get better recovery from the heated solution than running cold....

They are (my favorite) the Elmasonic S in Autodegas / degasing mode @ 37khz & 65o C. on sweep / degas and the x-tra 70 H at a frequency of 5.6 A and temp of around 65 C. on continious....

 

[Hoser John]

GOOGLE floatation cell--you use air and differing surfactents(pine oil and many others) to float the gold out of suspension. The is also the molten lead cell also where cons are introduced into molten lead . My big problem is--would you constantly overflow an electrical appliance with water sand mix all over it Don't sound quite right to me?? Am I too sleepy this am Got the ol' brain almost workn' this am-thanx-tons a au 2 u 2 -John my plate is extremely full right now---but--I'll play with my us cleaner soon

 

[salone]

Hi John,

Googled the above and head is fizzing. A lot of information overload for essentially a farmer like me ( yes farming and mining in the Country ). I think I'll have to stand back awhile and absorb. Thanks for the leads. An interesting site I also came across - www.shoreinternational.com loads of gear for further processing but out of my league finacially at present.

Adrian

 

[Hoser John]

All it takes is one great paystreak to go from the bush league to the bigtime. Info overload?? I've been mining in one form or another since 57 and I learn something new almost everyday a mining---which is righteous!!! It sounds like you have a great life to me--very earth grounded--from producing food from the earth to grubbn' for gold--what could possibly be better?? I was born into a nursery family and raised/sold MANY millions of plants and grubbn' in the dirt for my whole earth!!Tons a au 2 u 2-John

 

[salone]

Could not be happier than when boots are muddy and hands dirty. Come from generations of farming stock. The mining is meant to enable us to re-invest a fair proportion back to mechanized farming. The concession area is scenic and full of wonders. Keeping kith and kin in UK fed and watered, plus the labour is presently only concern. I prefer the dredge as not so desructive as are the bank alluvial diggings, my green side, and there is some good fishing too ! Home for me is Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sierra leone ( last 10 years ), and I guess a home in England, although Irish/Scot. Life plays many tricks on us but in all contented and not being too greedy, enjoy what it throws at me - most times. Mainly grow corn, soya, rice, cassava ( yuca ) and tree crops, plus small vegetable gardens - ginger, tomatoes, okra, spinach, yams, melons etc. If we hit a paystreak, can't think I will change too much - am not a man for the cities

 

[Hoser John]

I had to turn down a huge dredging op in Tanyanyika--please excuse spelling--country renamed again I believe. It seems them hippos had a bad time condoning miners in their river and sliced and diced a few dredgers and I was to replace the boss who dredged to prove to the workers that the "BAD" hippos were gone--oops-ripped him up. I ain't chicken but---when push comes to shove a $100k don't do any good to a dead man--congrats-tons a a au 2 u2 -John

 

[salone]

I was raised in then Tanganyika, now Tanzania ( mainland joined the island of Zanzibar 1964 ). Hippos mainly down the south side of Country; we had lions to contend with and all the other big cats on the farms then, plus the elephants etc etc. Luckily where we are operating now in Sierra leone no hippos or such large creatures - would love to see them though and yes hippos are a mighty wild and strong animal. Plenty of monkeys though, if you keep quiet. The divers main complaint is electric eels on some of the deeper parts of the river - and I can vouch that they give one hell of a shock

 

[Hoser John]

wHEN i READ THIS STUFF i'M VERY GRATEFUL TO HAVE MINED THE us FOR SOOO LONG. mEXICO AND bRAZIL ARE MY ONLY OUTTA COUNTRY OPS AND no lions AND SUCH EITHER. sAW A TV SHOW HERE CALLED MYTHBUSTERS AND THEY HAD ELECTRIC EELS AND THEY PUT OUT MASSIVE CURRENT. i TAKE IT THEY LIT UP YOUR WORLD?? UNDERWATER?? TONS A AU 2 U -jOHN---------oops sorry for messup on caps--can't retype-- arms hurt too bad