Washing my Cons from yesterday and a thought

[Prospector70]

Hi Team!
This is my first year sluicing, I've got the fever pretty bad! The last two weeks I have gotten as much gold as I have collected all year (practice makes perfect right?)

My equipment:
Keene A51 sluice with the standard carpet matting setup
Blue Bowl
Christmas list: Header box, hand dredge

I'm setting up to run my cons from yesterday and that brought up a question:
How long do you usually take to run down your cons from sluicing to gold in the bottle?
Do you keep it wet or dry?
How is the best way to turn a wet bottle of gold into a dry bottle of gold? (I'm curious to see where I am at weight wise)
I've got three vials, The year so far, last weekend and yesterday. I'll post some pics later if you are interested.

Thanks for the read, and I look forward to your advice!
Happy Hunting!

 

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[63bkpkr]

To dry or not to dry that is the Wet Question

Prospector 70,
I'm usually out in the hot summers of NorCal so by the time I have my gold out for a few minutes in the hot air the water is gone. I suspect this is the best way to get it dry, mild warmth from some heat source say a 100 to150 watt light bulb either over the spread out gold or under a metal pan of gold. Spilling the gold from the pan is a safety concern as there is nothing like spilling your gold to ruin an otherwise nice day!

Pictures of your gold would be appreciated by All so bring um on!!...................................63bkpkr

Oh, excuse my lack of Etiquette, Welcome to Tnet

 

[goldenIrishman]

First off welcome to the forum! you've stopped by the right place to get good information on how to do things the right way!

As to your question on time, there's a lot of things that can come into play on that. How many cons have you built up before you do a final clean up to get the gold out of them, what kind of tools are you working with to do the clean up etc. Doing a 5 gallon bucket of cons is not going to be fast work no matter how you do them. If you're panning them down right out of your sluice it's going to be faster, but then you have to consider "Down time" from running materials through your sluice.

Drying your gold isn't hard at all. Get it out of your vial(s) and spread it out. You can heat it up (stove, light bulb etc) or let it dry on its own. Here I don't have to heat it at all and it's dry in no time. (Living in the desert does that) Just don't use a blow drier like some people have tried! You'll end up having to pan the carpets! It's also a good idea to work over a hard dark surface that will show any gold that tries to make a break for freedom. Cloth surface isn't a good idea.

As I said, I'm in the desert so things work a little differently here than in other places. 63s' hot summers are our cold winters. His winters are unknown here for the most part.

 

[Prospector70]

Last weekend (Still Riding Dirty, have a lot of blue bowling left to do), Weekend before last(mmm... chunky), and the year's total so far.


Thanks for the warm welcome and the input!

 

[rendyboats]

I'm a fan of the bucket slice from casliucebox.com I can run a five gallon bucket in about an hour.

 

[Hoser John]

No glass never as just asking for trouble. Dry rules asap,just dump in a pan man and let the sun do the work-John

 

[KevinInColorado]

I do use a glass vial even tho HJ is right. I constantly keep it in a 35mm film canister tho.

Aso I store my gold in chlorine free water since it is prettier and safer in my view...no risk of super fine gold escaping when it's under water.

To get it super clean and to dry it out for weighing, I put it in a clean soap dish ($2 each at Walmart for a dark green one and a black one) and put it right under a hot lamp. Not out in the sun due to things like wind and dust.

 

[Prospector70]

You mean the glass vials Hoser John? When you say dump in a pan, do you mean a gold pan or a cooking pan. My gold pans are all kind of scratched up I'm hesitant to do that as I know some will stick. Do do it anyway and then tap it out onto a huge sheet of paper when its dry? (Tapping gold out of something just seems so unnatural haha).
About after my 4th trip I dropped mine in the garage, it took me hours to get everything I could off the cement, now I treat them like they are full of nitroglycerine. What do you keep it in?