How to break sticky white clay down

I like sitting in the little back yard I have,

Panning away, :goldpan:

Talking to myself :lol:

I have only two hobby's,

Prospecting and fishing ,

Think I need to get a life :lol: :lol:

Goody :goldpan:

If the charged particles are balling together then perhaps electrolysis may be of assistance. And then on the other hand, all those little particles of gold might just go up in smoke

Ha Goody -- Im on the six floor apartment block in central Brisbane -- I use a six inch sluice in a return bucket - or sometimes when lazy the blue bowl -- beats panning -- you need to hands for that -- where's the beer

That would be right Moneybox,

Up in smoke :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ha what is a Blue bowl ?

You need to move mate, :lol:

To far to carry the beer :lol: :lol: :lol:

Wash the dirt down the bath tub or the loo :lol: :lol: :lol:

At lease I have a small back yard

we really should have a beer together -- where are you based in this beautiful country. Im in Brisbane - every second weekend out at Karara, QLD have the ok from the MRS -- she gets every first weekend - I will there this Friday night staying until Tuesday -- have a couple of days off work next week bugger

Blue Bowl is concentrator -- google on utube -- works well if you sieve down to 20-30 mesh - very good for the flour gold

6 inch sluice - works quicker and if the angle is set correctly - picks up every thing -- flour gold nicely -- makes a mess - but its only dirty water - the cleaner comes in and just smiles each week,

the sand, rocks taken back to Karara Tavern -- need it for the gold detectors course, I'm opening up soon for the newbies

I hail from around Coffs harbour area,

Bloody hard life you got there, living on the 6 th floor plus a cleaner :lol: :lol:

Having to struggle with carrying the beer under one arm and a bucket of paydirt in the other, :lol: :lol:

At lease I'm out in the back yard with the mozzies :lol:

The sluice would make things quicker for sure :Y:

That is good of you helping out the newbies,

Are you going to stick some yellow stuff in it for them?

One day we will have a beer or two,

Goody :goldpan:

Coffs Harbour only a 5 hr trip -- but I forgot to tell about my 5 year old has a Nanny -- so I lived with 3 woman -- thats why I drink, Im just hear in Australian doing some consultanting work for a mate - last two years was on a island in the Phillippines, sitting in the sun drink beer for $1 and smoking for $2 -- living the life -- bloody mates -- never promise to look after them --

Cheap beer,

But the Philippines are a poor country,

Not well off like Australia,

Oh you poor bugger putting up with 3 women :lol: :lol: :lol:

Goody

Blue bowl

I took a look on u tube,

Good idea ,

May have to invest in one ,
After Xmas,

I see that they come with a DVD on it....cool

Hey guys, just to chime in as a bit of a noob, lately I've been learning the hard way about which clays are good and bad, working a dry creek bed behind protruding rock bars and so on and i couldn't agree more on the red clay. Especially where i go around creswick. That's the good stuff! And that evil grey/white stuff yields bugger all and those little clay balls are annoying as hell... best way I've found so far to deal with it has been with the sieves, fine and about 8mm? (Aluminium pair from aussie disposals!) With lots of quartz and crush it all up in the sieve, crushing it all together with both hands and wash the hell out of it, but more rock in the sieve seems better. Once thats done do it again on the finer sieve. With heaps of the finer rock that has fallen through, letting the finer rock build up on the sieve til there's a good 15mm or so layer of it over the whole sieve and leaving it that thick for the rest of the panning sesh, then stir that around with a flat river rock fairly fast til it shows up pretty clean. Once I'm happy the sticky stuff is gone i throw half a dozen or so billiard ball sized rocks in the pan with the rest and swoosh that round for a minute or so under water and it seems to clean whats in the pan and breaks up the fine stuff. Take them out, (taking care not to take out anything else in the process) finish the job and get the gold!

Its slow and pretty labor intensive but its the best/quickest way I've come up with so far on the creek... Hope that kinda makes sense! If anyone has anything to add to that I'm open, thats just what I've winged so far

it has been mentioned before I tend to find the white and grey clay worthless and orange clay to be very payable.
I usually run a fluid bed sluice all day carting buckets from the hole I am digging. As I run the material it self classifies the gravels but I am usually left with clay chunks.
Those chunks I bucket up and leave until last. first reason, the clay clogs my fluid bed and stops it from catching the finer gold, equals many clean ups and wasted time. 2nd reason I found a relatively quick way to deal with it. The trick I have found is to add very little water to the bucket at a time. Use a glove ( I tend to work in sharp shale areas) and mix until the water has been incorporated, add more water and repeat a few times. eventually you will end up with a runny clay mix that has minimal clumps. At this stage I flood the bucket with water and give it a good stir. pour out straight away leaving the heavys in the bucket. you will often get some chunks still in the bucket but simply repeat this process once more. final step is tp pan off or run the the remaining gravels or put thru the sluice
I regularly do this with around 10ltrs of clay in less than 10 minutes, sometimes I have found more gold doing this than from working flood gravels.

hope this helps someone