Is there in microns a point beyond which gold is no longer recoverable

I have never thought of it but as i have only fine gold where i go local, or i do about a 9 hour drive north to clearmont or about a 8 hour drive south to stanthorpe to get the bigger bits ,but it is all in the fun of the chase, as a guide, the average size of what i find at mates place ,fly oop: might be pushing the boundary a bit
So my plan of attack is

anything down to 30 mesh pan out /clean up sluice
under 30 down to 70 mesh blue bowl
under 70 and smaller home made miller table

If i can't see it on the miller table with a 30 x loupe the gold gods can have it back :lol:

Mental exercises can't be illegal lol.
Ok so what size particles would you say that the gold gods are getting back?

it's a bit hard to understand what exactly you are asking....but I think I did it in my last post...a falcon concentrator (for a small scale operator) will catch gold down to around 50 microns. Your looking at around 30k for the privilege!

Nirvanadirt said:

Mental exercises can't be illegal lol.
Ok so what size particles would you say that the gold gods are getting back?

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g'day mick, quite the Walter Mitty you are :lol: :idea:

Nirvanadirt said:

Mental exercises can't be illegal lol.
Ok so what size particles would you say that the gold gods are getting back?

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The gold Gods get back every particle of Nirvanadirt by virtue of Nirvana replenished by ultimate Buddhism, Buddhism being a release from the effects of Karma and the cycle of death and rebirth :beer:

What is your point? You are going on and on about this but not making any point.

Ok so what size particles would you say that the gold gods are getting back?

Would'nt have a bloody clue ,i don't have a classifier with that size mesh to find out

I've written a reply on my iPad but it refuses to post from the damn thing! Please stand by for my answer as soon as I get the damn thing to work

Well SteveG firstly I'm asking a question and trying to establish a benchmark but thanks for your input.
I've been toying with the idea of putting a fine micron bag at the end of a process where gold is just flowing off on the top of water, there is 36, 72, 90 and 115 size bags available in mesh that are designed for the weather to flow through them and filter out anything that is bigger than those sizes. I'm working on a water filtration system that would work by using these screens to collect the heavy (and not so heavy stuff that is in water used to wash gold from its host source.) Design still in progress but I'm trying to guage what part of the process is a cut off point as far as size goes. I think that it would be an interesting excersise to attach a screen to the end of a process, let's the water run through it and then just close the bag until next time you're working. There would be material that could then be (after many processes of material) sitting in these bags that could then (if one wishes) extract this by melting and separating the fine gold from any impurities if present. This IS for those who would want to do this as a matter of interest/hobby extremist tendencies ? and is all just a for the hell of it "I Wanna see how much I can recover" type of thing. Don't know if anyone would be interested in this but I'm working on it.

Try this page. https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/rate-of-gold-recovery-by-size-of-particle. Should answer most of your questions.

Jethro you're a legend! Just when I thought that it couldn't get more scientific than the input that the kind folks have put forth so far you've hit the nail on the head!!!
This is going to help immensely in the design of the "ultra refiner" that I'm developing. I can't thank you enough as I've searched for this kind of information and gotten LONG articles that led to a dead end or speck of info but you've gone the extra mile and found a well presented chart that also includes processes of recovery as well as sizes in microns.

I now have a general question that I'll also post elsewhere on the forum: has anyone got gold that would be around 15-30 and 40-75 microns in size approx I only require about $10 off each size but would be willing to pay more for the size and difficulty in extraction of it at these sizes (of course) for testing?
My now much clearer system that has just jumped a major hurdle in its hypothesis proof of concept stage must now have a physical proof of concept.

Very stoked that you took the time to shoot this link through to the thread Jethro Cheers again Mate!! Also thanks to the constructive and knowledgeable input of all those that took the time to share their knowledge and findings.
Even those of us that couldn't understand my "point" should be able to now see the correlation between these tables and the amount of gold that ceases to be extracted or rather captured at different points of a process. I'd further elaborate as how this will enable me to dial in a size that is going to show some tangible gold recovery from what would otherwise be going back to the gods (as much as I don't want to anger them in case of their wrath in the form of future gold dry spells) but don't want to go "on and on" in case someone Gets their nickers in a knot ?

*edit on my second last post: the
The mesh bags mentioned capture particles in 36, 72, 90 and 115 micron particles whilst letting water run through them freely.

Nirvanadirt said:

*edit on my second last post: the
The mesh bags mentioned capture particles in 36, 72, 90 and 115 micron particles whilst letting water run through them freely.

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I think you may get this idea from making bubble hash layful:

Nirvanadirt I look forward to seeing your progress on this machine. Im interested in these Tilting Tables that are referenced in the tables as I have a. hardrock (soft hardrock) show that has extremely fine gold in it.

We all have our limits. For Mrs M, if she can't pick it up with the tweezers than it goes back to where we found it however if this big dryblower works well she's going to have to change her ways

my advice mate, most of the testing we do for dream mat tech we use tungsten its SG is almost exactly that of gold, it behaves a little different but when you buy a few ounce jar you get the full range down to 200 micron in ground weight. they are used to weight all maner of gold gear very effective in testing.

cant wait to see what you come up with

You may remember when the CIL (Carbon in leach)process was developed the Kal Miner newspaper wrote "Kalgoorlie, city paved with gold."
Mullock from the surrounding mines was used as road base only to find out it contained masses of micron gold.
Companies retrieved a fortune from old abandoned mullock heaps around the country.
The Boddington Gold Mine, was maybe still the largest goldmine in WA produces million of ounces of gold with the CIL process, gold invisible to the naked eye.

G0lddigg@ can I ask you what manner tungsten behaves differently from gold? The main reason being that the unit that I'm trying to devise will be dealing with VERY small particles of gold and I think that to get a true outcome that I could stand behind as working I would probably need to use gold as certain differences could effect the extremely small scale interactions between these fabrics and the gold that would flow through some and be caught by others. Could you let me know how you've found that it behaves differently than gold? Cheers Digg@!

vandemon I don't know WHAT you are talking about ???? what's a bubble? What's a rash bag? Some kind of medical device?! Lol ?
Yes the initial idea came from the material used to make these bubble bags but I'm taking it a step or three further than how people normally use these ready made bags and utilise the materials that many of these companies use to make those products. (I do remember as a kid they used to say that an ounce of gold was the same price as an ounce of pot - so it was like smoking gold! I've got no idea what pot costs these days some 25years later but I bet there's a bunch of stoners that would be spewing if they knew how much gold has gone up lmfao)

Nightjar is Kalgoorlie STILL "paved with gold to this day? Would be interesting to see how many gr/KM the roads contain ??