Fine Gold Recovery

[libertydave]

Hey Gold miners...Following our dredging operations we always did a quick clean-up for our initial gold sharing and I'd bring home my share of these buckets of recovered material for a future clean-up effort. For the last ten plus years I collected nearly twenty five-gallon buckets in my shop that are full of cons, 12-20 mesh...some a lot finer, and many have gold that remains to be recovered. Most of it is micro-fine.

What I'd like is to to hear from you is....Which method do you prefer to seperate the fine gold from all of the other concentrated material including the black sands, methods that will specifically recover the very fine gold...blue bowl, gold cube, Keene concentrator, miracle mat, v-ribbed mat, etc?

Now that I have retired I've now got time to get this project done. Your ideas would be most appreciated. Thanks!!

LD

[russau]

For me id go,without a doubt,with the Gold Cube! its fast, very good results. prescreening is required but it does a excelent job saveing fines! AND youd make Mike Pung and Red Wilcox very happy! i really like mine!

[Bonaro]

I sold my centrifuge a few years back...would have made short work of it. I do have a smaller centrifuge but it's not running at this time.
I would screen it to at least 12 mesh. Sluice the coarse in a letrap and put the fines to the gold cube.
The blue bowl will consume the rest of your natural life...

[Hoser John]

A good shot jig,see Precision dredge website,will do a great job. A HY-g,Knelsen,Knudson or Bico Braun centrifuge. A leTrap sluice is a good way,actually almost any sluice longer than 4' should take it down from 25-1,then much easier to recover. I have a ball mill to run that in 2 ez cycles as I like to preclean priot to crush and amalgamation. If not chemically treated there will always be gold left in the black sands concentrate and for that amount a blue bowl would work fine when done properly. Couple a hours for 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket when classified down to 50-mesh. Many ways really just depends on how much ya want to spend and time allocation. Hope ya find a pound. When done the roses and lawn like the iron from the black sands. John

[libertydave]

Thanks, All...In the thirty-five years of my gold mining I've operated wave (shaker) tables, bowls and other medium to larger-scale recovery equipment, this was way back when I doing more serious mining years but today this is more of a hobby project and I am trying to keep the costs around $500 for...whatever you all think will work the best within that price range. I'll share with you the results.

LD

[Gold Seeker]

I think a GoldCube and then run those cons down a Miller table will work well and should be within your budget, especially if you made the Miller table from an old small sluice and some chalkboard paint.

That being said I don't think I would buy a GoldCube just for running the cons, if you can use it later at creekside to get more gold/cons, then it would be worth the investment.

I also will add that when using the Gold Cube, it's recommended by the manufacturer to screen the material to 8 mesh.

[Joe S (AK)]

Well Dave,

You harvested those concentrates from recovery systems that caught the Gold and other heavies. A well tuned sluice just does that. Why not meticulously set up your sluice and slowly run those buckets through it? If the Gold was caught before it'll be caught again - and the lighter segments of the concentrates will process through the sluice and be gone.

That is pretty much what running everything through a 'cube will do - so it's sort of "6 of one and half a dozen of the other" - only faster with the 'cube.

The 'cube will process the -8 material faster and easier than just any 'ole sluice - and the 'cube will be there for the future monthly or annual "Liberty Dave's Race for the Gold".

Just think, you can invite Hoser, LEONARD and others over for lemon aid , burgers and "The Runnin' of the Cons" from time to time!

I can hardly wait to see LEONARD's videos!!!

[russau]

haha, Joe there probly wont be any lemonaid! probly a bit of Turkey and a sip or two of spring water! but that would be a great rendezvous to attend!

[libertydave]

My crew always relied on 104 W-Turkey for a general pain reliever...applied generously in the evenings it made the long days of tossing cobbles and big boulders bearable...LOL. 2 shots WT to a shot of fizzy water...drink vigorously.

LD

[Hoser John]

Me,the 2 Rons and Jose will help also John