Vibrating dirt? Options

[Arbo]

I have been doing a lot of digging dirt, classifying into a 5 gallon bucket... I started to wonder, if I had say a half bucket of dirt, and filled it with water,
and sat it on a shaking table of some sort, wouldn't all the gold make its way to the bottom so I could scoop off most of the dirt and not worry about
missing any of the gold when I run what's left?

[russau]

the gold will not venture to the bottom of the bucket unless you have enough water in it and enough shakeing/vibration to get ALL of the material into a fluid state. this would behard todo with a 1/2 bucket of material and the rest with water!youd be better off with a lot less material and more water and then use somesort of electric vibration motor and let it go for a couple of hours.and after that id have to check all the material anyway to see if it all went to the bottom. i think you asked this on another site??

[swizz]

Russ is correct.
In addition... the lack of classification will also cause some inherent problems with the recovery of fines, floaters, and flour Gold.
Rough material with mineral-bearing clay (even miniscule amounts) also needs more than water and vibration to stratify (liquid state) and separate heavies for accurate settling.
There are many ways to skin a cat efficiently, in my humble opinion this is not one of them.

[Arbo]

I dunno, I have seen concrete vibrators at work, and it seems that one in a bucket would do wonders. Stratifying more content.

[swizz]

As they say "necessity is the mother of invention".
Give it a try and let us know how it works out.

[russau]

i have 2 120v HD vibrating motors that i wanted to hookup on somesort of a stand to hold some buckets of material for this purpose but they cant be full of cons. 1/3 of a bucket and the rest of water w/lids on them, and then let them vibrate for a long(?)(hours/days??) time to drop the gold.but it was only a idea i had that i never completed.

[h20prospector]

i have 2 120v HD vibrating motors that i wanted to hookup on somesort of a stand to hold some buckets of material for this purpose but they cant be full of cons. 1/3 of a bucket and the rest of water w/lids on them, and then let them vibrate for a long(?)(hours/days??) time to drop the gold.but it was only a idea i had that i never completed.

Russ,
What little time we spent together on Leonard's claim on the Arkansas, convinced me, IMHO, that if there's a way to do what Arbo wants to do, you are the person to figure it out.

Pat

[russau]

one of many things wanted todo but never get done!