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joeandlisa Offline 17 posts Reply |
Greetings All !!, Dave,or anyone else that has more expertise on this subject than I do,which means most everyone. I've been very interested Dave in your experiments with the sluice box classification system and the lower Le-Trap style riffle design. I've read all your posts on this and watched the videos. I was amazed at the size of fine gold you were recovering. I know the season on the Klamath was shut down as you were in the middle of your tests with the 8 inch dredge.Even so its obvious that for VERY fine gold this is going to be the way to go.What I'm curious about is the statement you made that if fines of this size could be recovered on a routine basis that it would possibly make all streambed gravel deposits on the Klamath profitable to dredge. Did you, in your mind, do enough testing to give you a rough general idea of increased recovery per day? What do you think,that say for example in an area that was paying 1/4 ounce per day,that you could boost your recovery enough to say turn that into 1/3 or even 1/2 ounce? I know personaly for years with different dredges and sluice box designs that I've been losing the very,very fine gold.I thought this was just the nature of the beast,but this could become a real game changer! Thanks for all of your work on this. Joe L.:doublethumbsup:
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RUSTY_HAPPY_CAM Offline 684 posts Reply |
There is an abundance of fine gold in most any gold bearing area. No one has ever been able to catch it. Not the Longtoms and early Bucketline dredges or the current Keene and Proline units. Everywhere gold has been dredged a fortune in sub 8 mesh gold lays there waiting for the next attempt. One of the reasons most people don't try to hard to recover it is the large amount of cons most fine gold systems generate. On a large dredge you can easily develop 20-30 gallons of sub 8 mesh per day. If you plan on trying to save the sub 20 mesh gold out of that you could easily spend 4+ hours in clean up per day with the normal inexpensive cleanup systems. You can see in a couple of days of dredging you would come to decision time. Take a couple of days off to clean up the mountain of cons or keep dredging and not worry about the sub 8 mesh stuff in hopes of finding more larger nuggets.
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beammaker Offline 161 posts Reply |
Rusty:
I can agree that you will generate many-many pounds of sub 20 and sub 8 cons. My question is why not collect these sub cons continually at cleanup, and then put them into a safe situation for the winters efforts. I collect 3 to 5 gallon buckets for this purpose year around. When I pre-positioned in Little Siead Valley back in 2005, I stored over a hundred buckets just for this, then the events started going down hill. I finally hauled everything home to Wyoming in 2010. The buckets will serve here just fine. I am sure the new dredge modifications Dave Mack and friends came up with will renew a serious saving of the cons in masse. Gather buckets my friends, and save, save,save for the winter slow times. You will smile way more come January freeze with yellow metal being dust to extreme fines in you pouch. Then check for someone to buy the black sands left?? For newer members---talk with the experienced about how much is hiding under that black coating inyour pan---you could be really suprised someday. A 36 ounce coffee can holds 24 pounds of these magnetic sands. beammaker |
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RUSTY_HAPPY_CAM Offline 684 posts Reply |
I couldn't agree more about saving small cons. There are no actual figures on the amount of what size gold is found yearly but common sense says it is probably 75%+ under 1/4". In this area it may be closer to 95%. However the storage and transport easily becomes unmanageable for most small scale miners. Just using your figures of coffee cans, 20 of them would bottom out most small cars. Like you I have faith the need will provide a new and better answer. Several new and promising ideas are already out there and working well. The gold cube, Quicksand and the new modified miller tables are a step in the right direction but still slow or require a lot of finishing work.
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Jim_Alaska Offline 1928 posts Administrator  Reply |
Hey Rusty, you must be some kind of heretic. You said (and wrote) "small scale miners" instead of "small miners".
It seems like everyone today wants to use the term "small miner", which to me gives me a picture of a very short, dwarf like miner. I hate it every time I see "small miner" written down.
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beammaker Offline 161 posts Reply |
RUSTY:
I will not give out my actual final cleanup plan, as Dave Mack would personnaly kill me if I did on this forum. For the new ones at the gold game, I would suggest 5 drops of dish soap and 1 cup of white vinegar in the final cons tub----then work thoroughly--scrubbing with the hands against the bottom of the tub. This will cut the oils and start cleaning some of the black of the coated gold. Then do the final screening and panning using first the 20 mesh and then the 8 mesh. The magnetics should be removed in the next step---preferably dry. This will allow the beginner to have a much easier time with the cleanup panning. Could really get a nice suprise with how fine of gold they will see. Rusty--check the gold Montine got yesterday. These fines are from my 1996 Klamath cleanup. Beammaker |
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beammaker Offline 161 posts Reply |
Jim Foley:
Come on now I resemble that last statement, and I personnaly can swim and dive like a duck with the best of them. Beammaker----just joking |
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growler Offline 54 posts Reply |
Something very interesting has been started here, lets kick it up a notch. CONTEST for the finest gold recovered. Someone may have "trade secrets" how they recovered theirs, so no hounding. Contest would require 1 DWT or gm. (I will donate mine to the Legal fund) and I bet a additional $5.00 that I will win (to the legal fund). Will send some in the next week. jimmy
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chickenlip_willie Offline 706 posts Reply |
Jim Foley,
Swim like a duck ? How about when you try to swim with your weight belt on ?  ..... Jim |
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Jim_Alaska Offline 1928 posts Administrator Reply |
You getting old too Jim? I didn't say anything about swimming like a duck, beammaker did.
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beammaker Offline 161 posts Reply |
Chickenlip_willie and Jim
Didn't say I had the wieght belt on, but I can still crawl around on the bottom (wieghted down) with the same feeling of freedom---loving what I'm doing every minute. Fun times--Beammaker |
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chickenlip_willie Offline 706 posts Reply |
Jim Foley,
I know, I just could not pass up the chance to rube it in about you swiming after your gold pan and clean-up bucket with your weight belt on, on the Klamath a few years ago.:fishwhack: .... Jim |
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RUSTY_HAPPY_CAM Offline 684 posts Reply |
Jim remember "If it looks like a duck"?
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beammaker Offline 161 posts Reply |
Scooters
I use the M word in the 2 stages of flour/dust recovery. That is a no-no to mention --with Dave!!!! Beammaker |
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whisco161 Offline 23 posts Reply |
Yea "M" word or micron fine and dust recovery. Lets just call it that.. Take a look at the gold cube forum over at Prospectors cache forum they seem to like this new device for fine recovery and great for cleanup of dredge and sluice cons.
Scott |
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joeandlisa Offline 17 posts Reply |
Beammaker, I do the same thing,saving buckets full of cons and processing them in the winter.Got to have something to do and seems like winters are 6 months long anymore.I've read different figures of what the oldtimers lost in their crude operations.50 % seems to come to mind. I don't think they were losing many pickers.So I'll bet that alot of the SAME fine gold they lost through their sluiceboxes we are running through ours and losing it also.If recovery could be increased by say a whopping 50% just think if you dredged 10 days you would have as much gold as if you worked 15!! Thats huge. Joe L.
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Dave_Mack Offline 145 posts Administrator  Reply |
Hello Joe,
The answer to your question is that we only ran the prototype long enough to make sure the material was not going to load on top or between the screens, and that the low-profile riffles were not going to pack up or be swept out. It was a winter test. The water was freezing! We had to ship the container out of Portland just a day later. So we were moving things along as fast as they were going to go. Because we only pumped a small amount of loose material on the shallow surface of the bottom (loose material), and we were in a hurry, I was just going to dump the concentrates back into the river. But Gary Wright talked me into panning them. We were amazed at the amount of fines for the small volume we dredged. It looked good. But I don't have anything yet on how it will add up at the end of the day. Hopefully we will have some numbers on the Rogue River this summer. There are a lot of fines there, too. |
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colo_nuggets Offline 453 posts Reply |
Here's is a picture of my box that Mike Dunn 925-825-4653 is building. This is during the building stage, double screen, adjustable, As you can see it takes a lot of work! This box has the plastic riffle design he makes and is custom fit tight to the inside of the box. Hes been hard at it working with my new dimensions. More detailed pictures to follow! The box was drawing some attention as it was being built. Now there are some that are going to try it out on there trommel operations. Keep up the good work! Scott
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Rod_Seiad Offline 376 posts Reply |
Lookin' good Scott.
Is this for a 6"? What are the width and length dimensions of the box? What does the box weigh ready to work? |
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colo_nuggets Offline 453 posts Reply |
Hi Rod,
Yep,that's for my 6 inch dredge 26 inches wide by 8ft long Total weight of box im guessing here, about 150, 160. Im still working on the dredge, just like everybody else getting ready for the season! |
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whisco161 Offline 23 posts Reply |
That box is looking good. Good to see you go with a 26 inch box with the added length. A person should be able to run twin 9s at full throttle with that setup. We all wish we could with out little 20 or 22 inch boxes. I am guessing you have a custom frame and pontoon setup. What or where did you get your pontoons from and what size are they? I will need to look it up in my files but I found a man I think in Montana who makes some nice pontoons at a good price to any size a person needs.
With the price of gold the more gravel we can move the more gold we can possibly get in our now size restricted limited seasons. We all with we could run 10" dredges in many areas. Scott from WV |
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colo_nuggets Offline 453 posts Reply |
The pontoons are made by me 1/8 thick aluminum with a
1 inch skeleton internal bracing. Precision Dredge style, Jim Harrand has giving me alot of good advice on dredge building and is most appreciated. Wyatt and Jim have teamed up to bring Precision Dredges back into the market. I hear that the first shipment of dredges will be this spring. I dont have anything like the equipment those two have. So everything takes me alot longer to build, running around having things bent,etc. Jim and Wyatt good luck to you both as well as your mining season. Its all most time to get out there! Scott |
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colo_nuggets Offline 453 posts Reply |
PS: the size of my pontoons wont work for everyone's dredges and is size specific to what im building. That's why I didn't give the measurements. It could sink or cause a out of water lift problem on a dredge if copied. On the Alaska Gold Forum Geo Wizard has a great formula for calculating out the pontoons. Do a search on Pontoon Formula there that's what I used. I would make a suggestion on printing and saving that info for future reference. Figure out all weight of the dredge and then use that formula to figure out where in the water you would like it to be 50% 40% whatever floats your boat! I made mine just a touch smaller for a increase in suction, closer to the water, less lift at the pump, more suction. Watch out for the fast water when making them like that! Scott
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joeandlisa Offline 17 posts Reply |
Thanks Dave for getting back to me on this. Really looking forward to hearing what the results of your deepwater dredging and your further fine gold recovery on the Rogue are going to turn out to be this summer.Also " Chickenlip Willie" (his real name???) stated on an earlier post that approx.840,000 cubic yards of material had built up behind Gold Ray dam over the years.Obviously most of that is silt,sand and mud. But thats a huge amount of dirt flushing downriver. I'm thinking alot of black sand and fine gold is in the mix. Do you think that this has the potential to replinish,rejuvinate,the fine gold paystreaks for miles downstream? Like a 100 year storm,only in this case a manmade one? Thanks Again for all the good info. Joe L.
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Dave_Mack Offline 145 posts Administrator Reply |
I have no idea on this, Joe. We will just have to see if there is some added flood gold on top of the surface hard-pack when we get started in June.
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InspectorTom Offline 315 posts  Reply |
I have a co-worker who's parents live in Medford. Three weeks ago they took a drive & ended up on the north side of the Rogue where Gold Ray used to be. The said there was "a lot" of people there panning for gold...just an FYI
Tom |
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