I know a lot of people who have amassed a lot of black sands. They have read that there are 'hidden values' in those sands and they worked hard to get it so they are loathe to give it up easily. Some people say they got ounces of gold from their old black sands, others say it's not worth messing with, just toss it out and go process more material. They keep promising themselves that one day they'll get all the microscopic gold out of it or find a easy way to unlock all those hidden values. They search through forums and look for magic simple and cheap ways to get it out, only to come up with a leaching process, acid or expensive separators. So the material just sits there and becomes something for the wife to nag you about.
So is there a simple way to get at the microscopic gold? I think the answer is yes. And at first glance it is a bit counter-intuitive.
Put it back through your gold collection equipment...
Let me explain. Although I make a new kind of sluice that is very good at collecting fine gold, just about any good sluice will gather some too. That's why you saw microscopic bits of gold under your loupe when you examined what was left in your pan.
The reason YOUR sluice captured it is because it had the proper density and geometric profile necessary to remain in your sluice and not be washed out with the other fine gold that you never captured to begin with. And so, since it stayed in your sluice the first time, if you put it back through your sluice again there is a very high probability that it will be captured the second time through. Actually there is an even higher likeliehood for a few reasons:
First, that it is probably classified now (no big rocks tumbling through the sluice to help kick it out) Second, that the amount of time it will remain in the sluice will be much shorter due to the fact that you probably only have a small quantity of material to process and will take 1/2 hour or so compared to that 'all day run' that you did to collect it to begin with.
So what I do is I keep all the material I have panned (the more you pan the more you are likely to lose fine gold so keep the panning wastes too), all the concentrates that I have gotten, and put it all in a bucket. When I have enough material I put it all through my sluice and reduce the volume. By all rights MOST of the microscopic gold that you had in that 10 gallons or so of concentrates now will be in a few quarts of material.
Good. Now take that and put it in a separate bucket. Mark it ONCE CONCENTRATED or something. Repeat the process on all your new materials you get, and continue this process until you have a good bucket or two of 'ONCE CONCENTRATED' material. Now repeat this process with the CONCENTRATED material, put it through your sluice again. Once again you have a high likeliehood of keeping most or all of the gold in that material. (NOTE:Since you are not running rock through the sluice you may also want to adjust the waterflow and/or angle appropriately for the material.)
At this point your fine gold concentrations should be very high, and with careful panning you will very likely see a little gold line of all that 'invisible gold' in the pan that you can pick up and save. Depending on the material that you are working, this could be a significant quantity of gold.
The point here is that there are simple ways using the equipment you have to get that fine gold back that doesn't require chemistry or expensive fine gold recovery equipment. So get out there and run all that material again and take a look for yourself. You may just find you have more gold than you thought remaining in that old black sand, and at the very least your wife will be much happier seeing one small bucket sitting in the back yard instead of 30. Who knows she might even reward you
So is there a simple way to get at the microscopic gold? I think the answer is yes. And at first glance it is a bit counter-intuitive.
Put it back through your gold collection equipment...
Let me explain. Although I make a new kind of sluice that is very good at collecting fine gold, just about any good sluice will gather some too. That's why you saw microscopic bits of gold under your loupe when you examined what was left in your pan.
The reason YOUR sluice captured it is because it had the proper density and geometric profile necessary to remain in your sluice and not be washed out with the other fine gold that you never captured to begin with. And so, since it stayed in your sluice the first time, if you put it back through your sluice again there is a very high probability that it will be captured the second time through. Actually there is an even higher likeliehood for a few reasons:
First, that it is probably classified now (no big rocks tumbling through the sluice to help kick it out) Second, that the amount of time it will remain in the sluice will be much shorter due to the fact that you probably only have a small quantity of material to process and will take 1/2 hour or so compared to that 'all day run' that you did to collect it to begin with.
So what I do is I keep all the material I have panned (the more you pan the more you are likely to lose fine gold so keep the panning wastes too), all the concentrates that I have gotten, and put it all in a bucket. When I have enough material I put it all through my sluice and reduce the volume. By all rights MOST of the microscopic gold that you had in that 10 gallons or so of concentrates now will be in a few quarts of material.
Good. Now take that and put it in a separate bucket. Mark it ONCE CONCENTRATED or something. Repeat the process on all your new materials you get, and continue this process until you have a good bucket or two of 'ONCE CONCENTRATED' material. Now repeat this process with the CONCENTRATED material, put it through your sluice again. Once again you have a high likeliehood of keeping most or all of the gold in that material. (NOTE:Since you are not running rock through the sluice you may also want to adjust the waterflow and/or angle appropriately for the material.)
At this point your fine gold concentrations should be very high, and with careful panning you will very likely see a little gold line of all that 'invisible gold' in the pan that you can pick up and save. Depending on the material that you are working, this could be a significant quantity of gold.
The point here is that there are simple ways using the equipment you have to get that fine gold back that doesn't require chemistry or expensive fine gold recovery equipment. So get out there and run all that material again and take a look for yourself. You may just find you have more gold than you thought remaining in that old black sand, and at the very least your wife will be much happier seeing one small bucket sitting in the back yard instead of 30. Who knows she might even reward you
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yep,i gotta drink a lot of coffee also before i do anything in the morning!
