Pulsator

To save breaking our backs over sieves, we lashed out and bought a pulsator for the claims. I don't know much about them, I was only a kid last time dad was using the things. Set it up at the edge of the shed and gave her a test run - didn't have the tanks or correct fitting for the tap so we just held the garden hose on the feed chute. It's a little slower than I thought it might be - but so much easier than manual sieving! And it works a treat. We dropped a few bits of quartz and other stuff on the chute - they slowly made their way along the top of the gravel-filled tray to the ejector chute at the other end. We dropped on some heavies - a small fishing sinker and a few sapphires - and they immediately buried themselves with the pulsating action and went straight to the bottom of the tray. An excellent invention, looking forward to being able to use it

Awesome, would love one of those.

Are they used on the sapphire fields down your way Heatho? Maybe someone like Aussie Sapphire sells them down there? This one was built in Sapphire. I reckon they'd capture gold as well - it had tiny sapphire chips caught in the tray, some probably half the size of a match head. The finer gold would end up in the sludge tank, guess it could be puddled or panned out later.

Not allowed to use one down here if only fossicking. The only active leases are in the Inverell/Glen Innes region I think. Billabong Blue has a large trommel and pulsator but I doubt they will let anyone use their own there. In my dreams though it would be great to have one.........

Absolutely no Gold where we dig either, double bummer. Lots of Sapphs though.

hey lefty how much? any others available my mum is in sapphire and I'd love to put one on her claim!!!

Heatho said:

Not allowed to use one down here if only fossicking. The only active leases are in the Inverell/Glen Innes region I think. Billabong Blue has a large trommel and pulsator but I doubt they will let anyone use their own there. In my dreams though it would be great to have one.........

Absolutely no Gold where we dig either, double bummer. Lots of Sapphs though.

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Not allowed to peg small miners claims in NSW? Only commercial machinery leases? That does sound like a bummer!

But as long as there are lots of sapphires where you dig, that sounds good to me I love sapphires! And zircons - and just gemstones in general. The bummer for me is that living in Gladstone, the gemstone fossicking opportunities are all but non-existent in my local area (my claim is 450km away). There is an amethyst diggings at Lowmead, about an hour away - but it's pretty well dug out. Two hours drive to the north you can find chalcedony, petrified wood and thundereggs. But nothing really close handy. There is gold in the local area but I think most of the alluvial stuff is gone, a couple of commercial miners are mining reef gold.

blayke said:

hey lefty how much? any others available my mum is in sapphire and I'd love to put one on her claim!!!

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It was $2000 blayke - the bloke was anxious to offload it to settle a deceased estate (he lives in Emerald). He originally had $4000 apparently but by the time I saw it advertised he had already come right down. He told me that you can have one built in Sapphire for about $4000, I think the bloke lives just up past the turn into Sunrise road but on the other side, same side as the medical centre.

But I have been told that they regularly come up for sale on the notice board at the Sapphire trading post - if your mum keeps her eye out, you might snare a reasonabley-priced one.

Saw a beaut up-an-over rig the other week, would love to have that - what the bloke was asking was probably reasonable for what it was but it was still a bit out of my price range unfortunately.

Love to see a vid of it working? Could run a sluice at the end to catch both

Danielkrupski said:

Love to see a vid of it working? Could run a sluice at the end to catch both

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Will see if I can make a video of it. The ejector chute actually bounces up and down to clear itself, although it still builds up a bit.

Works on a similar principle to a sluice, the series of compartments in the tray act a bit like riffles as the water moves along and agitates the material, the heavies get caught in the compartments while the light material keeps going.

It looks solid Lefty..good stuff

Mr Boring said:

It looks solid Lefty..good stuff

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She's solid alright - and heavy as! The bloke lifted into our trailer on chains slung from a small excavator bucket. Two blokes can move it with some difficulty, when it's full of water (holds about 60 litres I'd say), it'd be near immovable.

Ultimately, I'd like a full mini-mining plant - a small up and over or conveyor of some sort that feeds the wash into a trommel which in turn feeds the trommelled gravel into the pulsator. We have the trommel and pulsator but still have to whellbarrow the wash to the trommel and shovel it in. Even though my wash isn't deep, mechanized means of conveying it from the hole to the trommel would be the go.