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recovery sluices

A

au79

New member
Ok, I am here in Az. doing some MDing and working the semi-dry creek beds with pans and classifiers. The area I am in has LOTS of black sand, I mean lots. Also, this area is remote. The MDing part is great but when I sift and pan I don't want to spend time in the field washing thru the blacks and using a snuffer to pick out the bits and pieces. I dump all blacks into a container after quickly washing thru to see if there is some color then haul it back to camp with me. At this time there is not enough water flow to use a sluice box and to moist to dry wash so hauling the blacks is my best option. Now, I have lots of blacks containing gold. To much to sit and wash thru and pick with sucker bottle. After lots of research on the net I ordered a small recirculation type sluice with black ribbed matting. To make a long story short, the thing just does not retain 50% of the gold. I am frustrated with it and will be sending it back for a refund. I would like to know if anyone could direct me toward a manufacturer that has one of these units that really works. Forget the rubber ribbed matting - just does not work for me. The gold I am getting is flour to small pickers with some very flat flakes half the size of oat meal (the flakes) and the blacks are, of course, from very fine to semi-course. (some of it stays in a 1/8 inch screen. Does anyone have a recovery sluice they really like? Thanks
 
Flip flop and out the end plop-can feel your pain. Since your sands are dry just screen to 50-minus as anything that bigger than 50 is ez to see. Now just run a good ol' blue bowl to get that micro gold down 50 to 300 mesh. Or spend 10X the money,take up 20x the space and get a table. I do mine outdoors and water the lawn or trees as recirc just gums up the works,raises the specific gravity and adios my oro puro-John Ifn' ya get a bowl just throw away the instructions as second generation and worthless
 
HJ - have you had good luck with these blue bowls? Also, what do you think of the spiral wheel type. I had a spiral type years ago but felt the time invested in the slow feed was to much. Is the blue bowl fasted?
 
I have heard good things about the gold bowls, and they are very affordable. Also very slow. I am more familiar with gold wheels and am looking at getting another one for this summer. I have used several but last one was a Genie, and I am looking at getting the new compact "Alaskan" model.

[attachment 255130 image.jpg]

Steve Herschbach
 
On wheels ifn' it ain't got a hole through the middle it ain't worth a diddle. All wheels require a double run and much multi size classification. Bowl-greene keene-old school only no wings stupidity ever,run 1/16th to 50 mesh. Blue Dam Industries bowl 50-to infinity only. Wheels-after multi classification must be run laid back to capture all black sands-then rerun straighter up to remove the gold from the black sands-then run whats left in the blue bowl as wheel micro recovery not good. With wheels size class-then specific gravity class-then gold recovery. Anything over 1/16 I easily pick with fingers or whatever. In my old biz we had a wet processing area for free with all cones,bowls,wheels,McCain,mini trommels(yellowjacket,hygrader),osterburg tubes and all comers brought a zillion goldfarbs so a constant delight to see what folks came up with. When I retired from brick and mortar I took my green/dam bowl and forget the rest.John
 
I screen to minus 30 mesh, run it through the gold wheel to get what I can, and toss the rest back in the creek to grow! I've probably thrown more gold back in the creek than many people ever get!!

Steve Herschbach
 
Yes Steve - the rave of the age now is to try to get the micron gold also. Many people doing R/D on new methods to recover the dust. It does add up so you should hang onto your blacks for future developments in the industry. Looks like time is the obstacle to overcome with this. As it is now, classify, classify, classify seems to be the answer. I'm going to look at that gold genie. I had one of the keene green spirals year ago but loaned it to a friend who moved out of state and lost contact. I just ordered a recovery sluice from Prospectors Choice. A flared (alluvial) recirculating design but it didn't retain 50% of the gold when feeding it with blacks. That darned black ribbed matting just loads up and away goes the fine stuff. I'm looking for something that will save time, capture the dust, small flake and sub-pickers all in one feeding. I think my problem is, I want it to be small and very portable - that may be a fantasy. Soooo - back to the wheel for now.
 
I've tried a few different wheel and all of them require pre classifying, except the Gold Magic. You can put bank run material through it, and once you learn how to set it up you can retain 50 mesh and smaller.
You can get it with a battery pac, or a hand crank model.
The one thing I didn't like about the magic was the little cup in the centre that you had to keep emptying, so I took a hole saw and cut the centre out. Better now.
The one thing I see with wheels is people run them to flat. Start around 60 degrees and go from there.
If you go to their web site they have a good video.

Tom
 
Ok - I'm looking at the desert fox spiral wheel at Black Cat Mining. They didn't give a description of the size but it looks portable and self contained in a case.
http://www.blackcatmining.com/mining-equipment/desert-fox.cfm

$339.00 for the neat little package. I wonder if it works as advertised??
Thanks Turtleman - I'll look at the Gold Magic also.
 
NOTHING works worth a diddle NOT preclassified and NO hole in the middle is worthless as constant stop and dump. GM=BM-John
 
A gold wheel is just a spiral sluice box. The more riffle area, the more travel distance, the better the chance of capturing the gold and getting clean separation. I recommend 18" or larger wheels unless portability is more important than gold recovery.

The lead count is also important. How many turns does it take to get the gold to the middle? Is the wheel "coarse thread" or "fine thread"? the longer it takes for the gold to get to the middle, the more time you have to separate gold from concentrate. I prefer wheels tightly wound with lots of pickup leads, the more, the better.

This is what a commercial gold wheel looks like:
wheel.jpg


Four foot diameter, lots of travel, every jet on wash bar has individually adjustable water jets. A magnet is being used to pull stray magnetite.

Steve Herschbach
 
[size=medium][/size]Has anyone had any experience with a miller table or chalk/slate board and is it feasible? What would be a good small design and procedure?
 
Cost me around $80 to motorize the hand crank version.They wanted me to fork over $300 for their powerpack unit, no thanks. I got a 56 rpm motor/gearbox from McMasterCarr, toggle switch and fuse thingie from the Auto parts store,surplus gel cell batteries, and a small bit of sheet metal to bolt them too, and then the hardest part was aligning the drive belt pulleys and belt. Its working now tho.
I never could tell from the Gold Magic videos what angle to use? I settled on about 30 degrees off vertical. When I dumped a gram of fine Indiana gold and a 1/2 cup of black sand into the spinning wheel , the gold was up in the center cup within seconds.I was pretty impressed. Not sure about water level either? I was using mine in a kitty litter pan about 4 inches deep of water.
My motor pulls 1/2 amp no load and am using a 2 amp fuse. Is that ok? I am using 2 , 6 volt lead acid gel cell batteries, in series, for 12 volts and 4.5 amps. Is it better to keep the batteries up and out of cold creek water so they don't run down so fast?
Ps, I seem to have an extra Gold magic wheel at home, just the green pan part-looks brand new, if anybody is interested in buying it?

-Tom V.
 
Hey Tom V

30 degrees off vertical is a good place to start.Just like a sluice, pan your tailing at the start, and adjust accordingly. I motorized my hand crank with a windshield wiper motor, about 5.00.
The water level should be about the centre of the hole. I haven't seen that video for a long time but I think about 32 revolutions per minuet is about right.
I have a piece of angle aluminum bolted to the frame and that's were my battery sits. I also have a speed control for fine tuning.


Have fun

Tom
 
That monster reminds me of some of the original Gold Hound units ,soooo cool. I've seen a 5' wheel made by Placer Equipment mfgrs back in the early 80's by my factory in Carson City,20 leads or some such uncredible number. Remember the multiple wheel units that feed from 1 wheel to another from 3-7 wheels in a row. Soooo many goldfarbs and such a short life. Thanx much for the blast from the past-John
 
Last Gold Magic I bought was $5.00 at a garage sale and after using it--hahaha-used it as a target and sighted in my new scope for my weatherby and they explode so purty-John
 
Thanks for all the input on this subject. I went to all the websites and viewed the wheels and read all the info. At first I thought I wanted a small wheel that was easily portable. Thought I'd stop by a prospecting shop to see one in person and upon walking in the door saw this black magic recovery sluice being demoed for another customer. I watched and was surprised at the neat and efficient use and recovery of this sluice. I bought one on the spot. As fast as a wheel and has a 98% recovery rate. I saw it with my own eyes. The sluice has a flat but textured soft rubber surface in the bottom and I want to tell you, the gold really sticks to that mat. The other thing I was impressed with is the ability to take a squeegee and pull all the material back to the head of the box. No gold got further than half way down the 3 foot long sluice. When I pointed to a speck of gold that had traveled a bit down the sluice the shop owner simply took a small squeegee and raked it back up the sluice. I am impressed! Plus, easy to pick free gold out with sucker bottle.

[attachment 255493 recoverysluicecopy.JPG]

I haven't tried it yet (it's raining here in Az.) but I am sure I will be happy. The shop owner said, "if your not happy bring it back for full refund". That was good enough for me to give it a go. I'm confident it will work as I saw it in the shop. For the price- $125 - including pump kit - I'm sure I will be happy.
 
Oops, sorry, in my last post I was thinking shaker tables, not Miller tables. I am sure they work great but have not used them myself. Lots of good info if you Google "miller table gold recovery". Apparently the X-acto mat sold at Staples makes a good material for making your own.

Steve Herschbach
 
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