Fine gold recoverey Options

[kmontoya911]

O.K., so I don't have a lot of concentrates, but I have more than I want to pan. I also have come to realize that panning is not an efficient way of going about business.

I know oppinions will vary, and I welcome that.

What say you, fine people of coloradoprospector.com? What is the best piece of equipment for seperating gold from all the other stuff.

I am open to building something out of a rain gutter and pump, or even spending some coin to buy something like a blue bowl or gold cube.

I hope to elicit a number of ideas, and have a hard time choosing between them. I have seen some good write-ups on individual pieces of equipment, but nothing that really puts equipment head to head.

[swizz]

It's no secret I'm a big fan of the Bowl. It works well for concentrates that are smaller that #30 mesh... your flour Gold.
You still need something to handle cons larger than #30. A recirculating micro sluice will reduce that material to a nice pan of super concentrate.
There are many options for the micro... including building your own from a gutter. I first purchased an inexpensive micro sluice (gutter style) on eBay for about $30-$40 and it did really well for the stuff that was over #30. I've since upgraded to a Micro Sluice 1 which captures very well with a much higher production rate.
Start off inexpensive and tinker a bit. I think you'll find what you're looking for.

[russau]

Swizz has good advice! but to really save on the $$$$ make your own classifiers or buy some.a 1/4 inch and smaller to a -30 mesh screen will do. and run all of these seperatly to take advantage of specific gravity. my favorite and least expensive cleanup sluice is my Miller table. it can be made from plywood or aluminum painted with blackboard paint. no riffels,no screens no nothing for the fine gold you want to trap.as you screen the material down you can pick out the bigger stuff as you go!when you run a Miller table you want the water fow as flat as possible and maybe only 1/8 of a inch deep. you want to see only a flat smooth flow of water and DONT feed to much matrial at any one time. just a little across the top of this device and let the water do the work. i always rerun my cons at a lower water rate and tilt of the Miller table to futher catch anything i may have missed by over feeding. all of the fine gold will be left on the headend of this device. if anything is lower on the table, your either feeding to fast,to much or your water is to fast! the smaller your gold, the slower your water and the less you feed. and itll clean it all up with no black sands left on your gold. depending on your fabricating skills, your total cost might be $10. for this minus the bilge pump cost. and its GPH should be a small pump.under 500 GPH. i put valves on my device to further controll my water output. i do have a Blue Bowl and lots of other equipment, but this Miller Table is my favorit!

[Voltaire]

I still prefer my good old trusty gold pan. Screen down and pan, if you looking over say 5 lbs of concentrates I do use a blue bowl.
Its a hobby, not a job, panning is more relaxing to me. So I sit down somewhere with a coffee at home and pan.

[OklaPony]

Ken, you and I are pretty much in the same spot. I've got some ideas in my head for a recirculating microsluice built into a plastic tub. Hopefully I'll be able to flesh out some of these ideas and get something working in the next month or so.

[CP]

We use a mini sluice made from rain gutter and a recirc set up with tubs and buckts to catch tailings. We switched out the short black matting for deep v matting all the way down and always use soap in the recirced system as tension buster. Not as refined as Russ' or Swizz's set ups but works pretty well when set up properly with angle, flow and feed consistency just like the others.
Screening down to 1/4- for the mini sluice definately helps too. What's nice about taking home to these concentrate clean up systems is they all let you retry your tailings from the catch buckets/tailings to check recovery or loss.
Have a great time with all the practice guys and post up the smiling pans too.

Here's a pic from a few years ago, all the gold in the pan was caught using the mini sluice set up and then panning out one super concentrated pan. (not all the same day ) Patience, test and trial, have fun and do again........What ever set up you use should do well when set up is dialed in and feed is good and the end result will always be a pleasure.

Regular sized blue pan for final panning and pic.

[rich on western ...]

Blue Bowl works great if you screen down 30-50-100 mesh. Run each at the proper water height. Kind of slow going but works if you make sure everything is set up correctly. Not a big fan of the gutter sluices. Work OK. GC is supposed to be real good at reducing a lot of cons quickly. Only have to screen to -8. I am now using an Angus MacKirk Desert Rat recirculating sluice. I screen down to -8 for 1st run and then re-screen the tailings to -20 and rerun. Still end up with super cons. I then screen down 50-100 after drying and crushing up the cons. Pull out the magnetics. Ready for BB then. No easy way to really get all the gold. Classifying, pulling magnetics out, and proper equipment setup are key.

[kmontoya911]

So far, it sounds like the Blue Bowl is popular. And I will look into one. I picked up a piece of gutter from my dad, and am going to try to make a reciculating sluice with that. If for no other reason than to have made something myself for this gold adventure.

I have seen a a couple of different blue spiral wheel type things. Anybody have an opinion on them?

Any more specific ideas on the gutter sluice set up would be welcome too.

Thanks again to all.

[rich on western ...]

Forgot to mention the California Sluice Box Bucket Sluice. It is set up to run on a 5 gal bucket. You just drill some holes in the side so the water will flow out into a tub and you can recirculate it with a pump. It is a drop riffle design and only cost around $25 shipped. Still have to screen your material down and run it a spoonful at a time, but is good at catching the small stuff and greatly reducing the amount of cons that you have.

[Coalbunny]

I prefer the Desert Fox gold wheel. I found that when properly set up it will recovery far more gold than I can when panning. Makes the panning much easier as all I have to do is get down to the concentrates.

[russau]

my previous post reflects my lack of wanting to spend money if i dont have to. yep all of them peices of equipment work fine and i also have them at my disposal, but i still prefer the Miller table for its cost to make,ease of use and its good results that are faster than most other peices of equipment! and i love using my autofeeder on all my equipment. and i owe thanks to Gat for showing us his autofeeder that i sorta copied for my feeder!

[swizz]

aaahhhhh.... this is one of the things I like about this pursuit
so many ways to skin a cat
constantly evolving processing strategies, equipment, and techniques

I recently modified an A52 to run narrow with fewer (and smaller) riffles for low-flow water situations. I think I've run it at least a dozen times this year and damned if I didn't tweak it just a little each time to increase it's recovery or efficiency. Really fun dialing this stuff in for particular needs. I enjoy the tinkering aspect quite a bit.

[russau]

yep making it work for you and actually seeing it in operation makes it all worthwhile! Ill be on the Arkansa River Aug 28 for 2 weeks to see this happen for me again!

[kmontoya911]

O.k., so I have started to make a gutter sluice, just need a pump. I AM GOING TO MAKE AA MILLER TABLE TOO? i am going to get a pump to run both to keep costs down. I will keep you updated.

Sorry about the caps. Not used to typing on this nook

[swizz]

Hi Ken,
I run a 500GPH on the Blue Bowl and 750GPH on the Micro Sluice.
The 750 is pretty powerful and would probably do everything you need. Just add a flow regulator to the hose and you're all set. If you're worried about overworking the pump when choking it down, there is a solution. Install a Y-connection to your hose that comes from the pump and bleed off the excess... back into the recirc tub.
I did a very quick search on eBay for "bilge pump". There are many 12V listed with a variety of flows, here's one that's reasonable: 750GPH Bilge
Can't wait to see your system!