What do you do with your black sand? Options

[rich on western ...]

How much micron gold is usually in black sand? How much sand do you need to be worth looking into separating this stuff? Is there anyone that buys it? I was going to run mine through screens and put it in the blue bowl next winter just to see if I missed anything. Do both mag and non mag sand contain gold? I hear that it makes great soil mix for rose gardens too.

[ASTROBLEME]

I have a stereo microscope and a couple of years ago I used it to study a concentrated black sands sample that I had collected from the Arkansas River near Salida. There was quite a bit of fine gold mixed into that sand that wasn't visible to the naked eye!

In the "old days", placer miners used mercury to collect the fine gold without too much effort. Of course today, mercury is a very highly controlled substance that isn't readily available. The particles I observed were clean free gold and would have readily been picked up by mercury. I don't encourage anyone to attempt fine gold recovery with mercury as the dangers outweigh the gains, in my opinion.There was a Gold Fever show a few years ago that featured a guy in California recovering very fine gold. He did quite well but had a lot of experience and some specialized equipment. If you can find someone that knows that process, that might be worth pursuing.

ASTROBLEME

[russau]

i crush my blacksands the blue bowl it.

[CP]

Good info guys, thanks.

I agree with Astrobleme to..... Without the proper know how and equipment........

I don't encourage anyone to attempt fine gold recovery with mercury as the dangers outweigh the gains, in my opinion.

I'd say if you can save them up for more quantity, then it's probably worth trying new processes to catch the finer gold. Using magnetics to gently seperate the cons will definately help both wet and dry. When drying, use stainless steel shallow pans and spread them out. If there is any free natural merc you will see it gathering in a low spot or corner too.
The surface tension on the water when running these cons after the mag seperation should be a concern as well since the finer gold can float off so easily. The two best ways to combat high water tension is to let the water warm in the sun (warmer = looser molecules) and then some type of soap or jet dry as all water will have oils of some type in it.....even oil from your fingers will contaminate the system in time depending on water volume used.

I think the show mentioned above used some of these same techniques and they do work well. Hopefully they help.

CP

[rich on western ...]

Great info! Will save it up then. Russ, how do you crush up black sand? Do you use a mortar and pestil? Has anyone used the leaching system sold by Angus McKirk? It is supposed to be safe and uses household chemicals. Would like to know if it actually works before spending $700

[russau]

i got ahold of a peice 4 inch stainless steel pipe and cut off about 12 inchs of it and made me a ball mill out of it using a 120volt gear reduction drive motor. i put a handfull of stainless steel balls into it and used a 4 inch expandable sewer plug to seal it and turned it on. it will turn the BS into powder if you leave it on to long!

[rich on western ...]

Could you use a rock tumbler with steel shot in it to crush it up? The one I have has a rubber drum.

[blue_oxen]

In the "old days", placer miners used mercury to collect the fine gold without too much effort. Of course today, mercury is a very highly controlled substance that isn't readily available. The particles I observed were clean free gold and would have readily been picked up by mercury. I don't encourage anyone to attempt fine gold recovery with mercury as the dangers outweigh the gains, in my opinion.There was a Gold Fever show a few years ago that featured a guy in California recovering very fine gold. He did quite well but had a lot of experience and some specialized equipment. If you can find someone that knows that process, that might be worth pursuing.

ASTROBLEME

http://cgi.ebay.com/AMALGAMATE-GOLD-3-OUNC...93%3A1|294%3A50

this is a gold amalgamate that is suppose to work like mercury but is advertised to be 100% non toxic I have not tried it yet but it would be worth a try.

[russau]

Could you use a rock tumbler with steel shot in it to crush it up? The one I have has a rubber drum.

i guess you could give it a try! the steel shot may be to small to do and good. try bigger hex nuts.

[Coalbunny]

Mercury is toxic, but not AS toxic as everyone thinks. If used correctly, you have a very low chance of a poisoning issue.

THE biggest key is DO NOT use it in the field. I have seen people do that, and they lost it, and they shrugged it off like it's nothing. Won't be "nothing" if a ranger sees that.

Safety first. Before using it, get experience.