Home sampling finally started

I'm still pretty new to all of this but on Jethros lines I would suggest crushing and classifying some of those last rocks down as far as you can. It's a little like some of the stuff I get up here and there is a fair amount of gold in it, but it is insanely fine so normal panning will just lose it all. So crush, classify (down to 100 mesh if you can) and either pan it really carefully and use a magnifier or use something like a blue bowl running really slowly to see if you have anything. It can be a lot of time and trouble to classify all the way down to 100 mesh but it can be well worth the time when you see a specs of near invisible gold gather into a glittering stream and golden pile. Still if you can find a mother-load nearby then stuff this stuff and get the big stuff first

Hey Matt80, I think looking for the mother load sounds more appealing, gold that small that requires that much effort would be frustrating with my limited patience but I'll see how it goes.

I finally finished welding my dolly pot so the crushing can begin
It's 4" steel gas main with a 6" blank flange and 700mm high, put an oversized handle on as it weighs a ton.
Crushed a few small samples I got from a tailings pile in the high country on the weekend, the 1 big sample needs a 12" dolly pot so not sure what to do with it yet, maybe just clean out the garage and belt it with the sledge hammer, sweep up the mess when finished
I'll run the dollied samples through the Compact Crusher tomorrow then start panning off, I'll keep everything in one bucket once finished so I can re-pan down the track.

I'll get stuck into the other samples over the weekend and hopefully there'll be some colour to show for the efforts.

That's some nice looking rock there! To break up the larger pieces you can hit it with a sledge hammer. You will need eye protection though and you can wrap the rock in an old tea towel to stop all the little bits flying around. Don't forget to also use a dust mask with the dolly pot and rock crusher, quartz dust is not so good for the lungs.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips, especially the dust mask. Now that I've not smoked in 2 years my lungs have lost the protective layer of tar, colds and flu could never penetrate when I smoked heavily but now they seem more sensitive to dust and the like :lol:

Great dolly pot Pete.....nice work!

The fine gold filter leaves you with clean gold, is a lot faster and more efficient than a blue bowl.

30 mesh your con's and add them wet with a teaspoon....will catch down to 50 micron

Where do you get the fine gold filter shown in pic Metamorphic. Looks the goods.

Will send it in PM for ya mate!

I'd be very keen to know as well if it's not too much trouble, looks the goods to sort the samples.

No worries pete.....done!

I know I cant post the link on the forum, but for anyone interested in having a look, just google the description in my sig!

Cheers

Great looking product thanks Metamorphic and saves hours of panning, going to place an order for the bench top model and by the time the unit arrives my new shed will be up and running so will be able to set this up and sample in comfort, still keen to run a few pans though and practice my technique but re-run them through the gold filter and see what I'm missing.

can always post a link to a good product mate
[video=480,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HzouCbqNnk[/video]

alot of members make these on their own they are very simple and could be made with a piece of plastic or similar. alot of blokes are using the geren cutting board for thee base or you can use rubber.

I recently tried a blue bowl for cleaning up concentrates from the crusher. It was pretty easy to set up and I was impressed with the results given that the complete set was very cheep excluding deep cell battery for the pump. I think I will add a gold filter as another run. I think there could be a fare bit left in the bucket.
It was an awesome sunny Sunday afternoon, my daughter Olivia ran the concentrates for me.

Then simply pick the gold out with a sucker bottle... :lol:

Back to the rocks for a minute. The quartz shows good mineralisation with small vesicules where pyrite has leached away. More interestingly the quartz has iron staining which is often a good indicator of mineralisation. It looks like it has come from an area which has been subjected to supergene enrichment, that is secondary mineralisation which occurs just above the water table. I would think there is a very high chance of getting gold from this stone. I would take a 5kg batch, put it through your crusher, then have a look at the result. Always remember when sampling, take samples all along the quartz leader or vein and across it as well. The gold might just be in one very small section, and what may look like rich stone, when assayed, might only go 2 or 3 grams, which is hardly worth the effort.

Thanks Puddler Bill, I haven't had a chance to crush any more of it yet, been too busy with other stuff at the moment but will get back to it shortly.

Hey Pete, a few .jpg's for you of the filter setup on my HB.

Makes for a nice compact, take anywhere, unit!

I use the 2-stroke water pump in the field, and a 240v electric pump at home in the garage only because its silent....can HB and filter at night without waking the Mrs up.

Have the filter setup for either running garden hose from tap, or 1" layflat from pump.







How is the shed going along?

Cheers mate

Very impressive and a great looking setup there, arhhh only 1 week to go until the big shed goes up and I can start decking it out, reality is I'm probably 3-6 months away from having that sort of setup going in the shed but it's given me something to strive for.
In the meantime I'll be making do with what I got.
Thanks for posting mate

Great looking unit Metamorphic--should work rooooolly well. :/ :/

Metamorphic said:

Hey Pete, a few .jpg's for you of the filter setup on my HB.

Makes for a nice compact, take anywhere, unit!

I use the 2-stroke water pump in the field, and a 240v electric pump at home in the garage only because its silent....can HB and filter at night without waking the Mrs up.

Have the filter setup for either running garden hose from tap, or 1" layflat from pump.

http://i58.tinypic.com/mcym0w.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/v669e0.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/v8ijbb.jpg

How is the shed going along?

Cheers mate

Click to expand...

And it catches cold beer as well ! I want one. :lol:

Looking good. Nice set up mate.

pp







that's what ya want to make if you can just use a 44 gallon drum cut in half and a plastic cone for the middle some silicon and pump and you can process a lot more dirt witch = more gold as you can see and lots of black sand witch is normally heavy metals like antimony