Gem Shakers?

[au79]

I have been considering getting a gem shaker but have had no luck finding a supplier. Found one site offering plans to build one but for a cost for plans. I would rather purchase one already made. Also, I am wondering if these shakers will recover gold. Has anyone here had any experience with these recovery devices? Thanks in advance.

 

[tvanwho]

I looked at something called an earthquake but they wanted over $ 500 for it which I thought was 3 times too much. They have sieves for sifting flour that shake,might wanna look into that too.
Look at the Grainger or McMaster-Carr catalogs online for shakers and sieves. I bet an upside down jigsaw could be made to work with some homemade screens?

-Tom V.

 

[tvanwho]

I found a soil shaker on YouTube and some rough plans with photos for making it with a jig saw at this website:

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3150&highlight=

Maybe you can modify it and show us your creation afterwards for gem hunting and gravel shaking?

-Tom V.

 

[Hoser John]

Look into drywashers on Craigslist as they'll do exactly what ya want BUT must have constant flow--offset elliptical vibration to do what ya want as gems / minerals and gold all are heavier specific gravity minerals and your good to go-John

 

[Reno Chris]

Screens are used in many gold recovery processes (like drywashers) but screens themselves do not recover gold. The point of a screen is usually to remove barren rocks and pebbles so you dont have to process so much material.

I know of some folks who screen sapphire bearing gravels to recover gemstones (they use the screen to reject materials that are too small to be useful) and then they take the material that fell throught the screen and run it through a sluice (or highbanker) to recover gold.

I've used these screens to process soils for sunstones (feldspar) the fines and tiny sunstones fall through and the useable gems are searched for and sorted.

 

[au79]

Thanks for all the info. If I understand correctly a gem shaker separates the gems by moving them from the bottom to the top of a slightly angled screen. Sounds backwards to me but the research and info found says the gems and heavier minerals go "up hill" in this device. Does that sound correct to anyone? I know gems that are exposed to the elements can take on a different appearance so don't trust my eye to pick them out while panning and dry washing. I'm in Az. and when I arrived it was bone dry. Since then rain has come in and the soil has become moist but not enough water to use a water recovery system. I'm between a rock and a moist spot right now but would like to get my hands on a ready to go shaker which might be a pipe dream. Also, I have no tools with me to build one. Sorry for not getting back to this post sooner but I've been out in the mountains with Infinium and dry washer hunting for mellow yellow. I'll check out all tips given here to see what I come up with.

 

[steve herschbach]

I have been Googling away and most small gem operations seem to simply screen to size and wash material and then sort by hand. The general lack of anyone employing a device such as you describe or making one for commercial sale makes me question it's efficiency.

However, gold wheels are an example of heavies traveling up while lighter material goes down. It can be done.

Steve Herschbach

 

[au79]

Thanks for all the input on this subject. I have worn myself out on the internet and talking with people about this subject. Apparently a man named Fischer built a gem shaker years ago that worked nicely for him but to get any clear info on the design is impossible. I tried to find the one paragraph I found on a gem site that described the shaker to paste it here but couldn't turn it up. Once again I feel Steve is right in saying, " a device such as you describe or making one for commercial sale makes me question it's efficiency" I have not completely given up on the idea but now know my time spent researching would be better spent swinging a coil. This device would be a big seller if someone could come up with a plan for one that was efficient and reasonably priced. In my mind it would look something like a dry washer but the sluice part would swing forward and back and would bump when returning to the elevated end. Also, the classifier would deliver to the "low" end of the box instead of the high end like a dry washer. Has anyone ever seen the cherry bump(?) or strawberry bump(?) done while panning? Well, while back washing the blacks while panning and tapping the pan on the high side it will cause the gold to creep upward away from the blacks. I've seen this demonstrated on youtube. This is something I'm going to dabble with when I return home in the spring. Thanks to everyone for your input.

 

[Darrel]

Our family used to go to Phillipsburg Montana to pay to look for Sapphires. They had square boxes with a fine screen on the bottom with no top. We would put gravel in the box and shake it in a tub of water. After rocking and shaking the box with gravel in the tub of water, we would flip the box upside down on a flat table top and the sapphires, garents and rubbies would be on the top of the gravel. These gems sink to the bottom similar to gold and with a little pactice, the sapphires would end up on top and in the center. They were easy to pick out because they were wet and easy to spot.

I not sure it this is really what you are talking about, but I thought it might help.

 

[au79]

Thanks Darrel - The way you described it sounds like the way many people in other countries use a batea. The batea is declared the best gold pan in the world for gold and gems. A batea is a large deep cone shaped pan. It is used like the box with screen you have described in that you work out the lighter material then invert the pan and quickly dump the heavies onto a flat surface then pick out gems and nuggets. The material is later worked more to remove any fine gold. I am looking for something that would handle a larger amount of material with a constant flow of material being run thru the device with a shovel or trowel. For this purpose I feel the material would have to be dry tho. Thanks for the suggestions.