# Dissolving clay



## EVO-AU

Gentlemen:

Hello again and here comes another question to you experts. As some of your know, there is a bench that I am working that is basically clay. However, without getting into mechanical and chemical diatribes - the question is thus:

Have any of you seekers found a way to eliminate clay from the heavies so as to proceed in a non hair-pulling result. I have come across a concentrated liquid called "Clay-be-gone" carried by Keene, among others. Any of you ever use this stuff ? 

Any ideas or actual results for this process would be greatly appreciated. Domo, Phill


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## Anonymous

Are you talking chemically from the concentrates or gravity from the raw bench materials?
If you are using a recirculating sluice type of machine/process add dish soap to the water it will break the surface tension
and help clay to settle.

Jim


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## surshot

Clay be gone dosn;t eliminate clay it basicly does the same thing as dish soap in a recirculating system. It will alow the clay to settel faster. 
surshot


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## EVO-AU

Gentlemen:

Thanks for your input, however I have tried every type of surfactant imaginable. Soap - and its' relatives rate a -8 to the nth power. Recirculating devices do not ( at least to my satisfaction ) eliminate the miniscule particles. I am back to pan and spray, which does eliminate about 70 %, which still is far from satisfactory. The slime is easy to separate using mother natures' tricks. I know, so far, thru exhaustaive testing that there is a bit of micron au in the clay, but the greater percentage is in the heavies. Smelting clay with the heavies is rather formidable. Too many fluxes and too much precious time spent going nowhere.

However, I am certainly open to any ideas and theories. Domo, Phill


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## EVO-AU

Ed:

Just a thought. Some years back in the Fox Lake area A bunch of us were clowning around and got slightly saturated. Oh what fun !!!!!! Anyway,there is ( or was ) a bar that is ( was ) built on stilts over the water. After getting tossed into the drink, we decided to toss stones from the lake bed at the bar. One of the guys kept some in his pocket and when we got home and emptied out, some of the rocks turned out to be gold laden quartz.

The following weekend we grabbed our wetsuits/gear and hightailed back up there from Chicago. Long story short, before we were told by the guys in uniform to depart - after processing and refining between the five of us we realized just under four ozs apiece. I have no idea where the feed is for the Fox Lake area or where the bar is ( was ) located, however a little research on your part could work wonders, especially since that state is your turf.

Good luck, Phill


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## manorman

Not sure that it works but have read boiling the clay works wonders, you might try a small test amount.
MIke


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## EVO-AU

Manorman:

Now that is a thought. Hadn't gone in that direction, but I certainly will give it a try this pm. Thanks much, 
Domo, Phill


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## markqf1

I have seen a demonstration of clay-be-gone by Ralph Yeager, the inventer of it, on the tv show Gold Fever.
He uses it himself in his backyard recirculating setup in southern California.
He also sells it at most of the big gold shows.
From what I saw, it looked like it works, though I don't know how or why.

Mark


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## EVO-AU

Mark: 

I have three re-circulating setups and they do not run out the clay particles and hold back the heavies. Elimination of the clay means that later filtering is cut to a minimum and smelting is a joy rather than a drudge.That new ( to me, anyway ) method from the Geus website is working rather well. And that is a joy.

From what I have gleaned from others on this site and browsing the web, Clay-be-gone settles the particles without the actual dispersal of them. I suppose I'll just have to order a bottle and see for myself.

For your input, domo, Phill

Addendum: I just viewed Yeagers' video demo and the water cleared, but, the clay particles were still there, so that does me no good.


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## Anonymous

Are you trying to get micron or very small gold, or just trying to clean up the recirculating water?

Jim


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## Irons

EVO-AU said:


> Mark:
> 
> I have three re-circulating setups and they do not run out the clay particles and hold back the heavies. Elimination of the clay means that later filtering is cut to a minimum and smelting is a joy rather than a drudge.That new ( to me, anyway ) method from the Geus website is working rather well. And that is a joy.
> 
> From what I have gleaned from others on this site and browsing the web, Clay-be-gone settles the particles without the actual dispersal of them. I suppose I'll just have to order a bottle and see for myself.
> 
> For your input, domo, Phill
> 
> Addendum: I just viewed Yeagers' video demo and the water cleared, but, the clay particles were still there, so that does me no good.



If you are trying to disperse the clay particles to allow the heavies to settle, you need to use a deflocculant. A long time ago, I worked for a clay broker in their testing lab. One of the tests we performed was deflocculation. We would take a stiff clay and pit it in a viscometer. It's just a calibrated cylinder that rotates in the clay. The viscosity is the drag on the cylinder as it rotates. The procedure was to add deflocculant (Sodium Silicate solution of known concentration) drop by drop until the point of minimum viscosity. If you add too much, the viscosity begins to increase again.

There are a number of compounds that will do the job. Google deflocculant. Each clay is unique, so you need to take a known volume and determine how much it takes. It only takes a very small amount to do the job.


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## T3sl4

Oh yes, deflocculant is amazing stuff. A few drops of sodium silicate (sodium metasilicate, commonly sold as TSP substitute down the cleaning aisle, works as well as the orthosilicate, waterglass) will turn a gallon of thick clay slip to watery in seconds. You can make a pliable lump of clay with almost half the water you'd use otherwise!

I don't know what that'll do for your seperation, but if modifying clay viscosity will do, this is the way to do it.

Tim


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## Irons

T3sl4 said:


> Oh yes, deflocculant is amazing stuff. A few drops of sodium silicate (sodium metasilicate, commonly sold as TSP substitute down the cleaning aisle, works as well as the orthosilicate, waterglass) will turn a gallon of thick clay slip to watery in seconds. You can make a pliable lump of clay with almost half the water you'd use otherwise!
> 
> I don't know what that'll do for your seperation, but if modifying clay viscosity will do, this is the way to do it.
> 
> Tim



Reducing the viscosity allows the heavier particles to settle. It takes time. The best thing to do is pack out the clay and work on it at home where you have the time to do it right.

Trying to dissolve the clay doesn't work well. Sodium hydroxide solution with heat and pressure will but any residual silicate must be removed or it will form a 'gel' with HCl. It's more trouble than it's worth.


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## EVO-AU

Thanks guys:

A lot of good info here. Keep me busy for a few days. Domo, Phill

Irons: As Randy knows, where this clay comes form prohibits doing anything there except get in and get out. The place is infested with very unfriendly vipers, not to mention the quicksand beds. So all processing is done at l home

Kind of like the mud beds outside of Verdi, Nv. That WAS FUN !! Phill


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## EVO-AU

Well heck: Sent for Yeagers' ClayGone and so far the results are for naught. Nothing is happening. I am now down to using two tbls per quart and still nothing is happening. Any ideas ?

By the way, to the gentleman who suggested boiling, nothing worked. But thanks anyway. 

Phill


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## dick b

Phill:

How much material (clay with gold) are you working with as a batch. 1cup, 1 gal, 5gal, 1 ton?

I would think that the clay is lighter in weight than the gold, unless the gold is flour or very fine particles.

That being said, it may be possible to seperate the gold and clay by weight. I'll get back to you when I know what your working with. Think about how the blue bowl works.

dickb


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## AKDan

The problem with clay is that unless you can get it completely broken down, it will form balls when being processed. Depending on the process you are using, these balls will pick up gold and carry it out of your concentrating system.

The presence of clay, once the clumps are broken down, in your concentrating system won't prevent you from gravity seperation of the gold per say. However, if there is to much clay suspended in the water then the small particles of gold will not settle correctly. 

Is this the issue you are having with the clay?

Also, clay suspension will eat up a pump pretty quickly in a recirculation system. You need to allow two or more areas for the clay to settle out before it gets to the pump that moves water back to the head of the system you are using. Tubs flowing into tubs somehow while still retaining the water.

Is the material pre-classified for size somehow before you are trying to process/concentrate it? Hopefully so, as that will make it easier to concentrate #1, but will also make the dewatering and elimination of the clay in the circuit easier. Some of that landscape ground cloth over a screen over your first water collection point works pretty well. You may need to run the material several times if you let it get soupy, but....

Also, is the gold you are finding actually in the clay? Generally you will only find gold in the first few inches of the top of clay, or completely beneath the clay in the case of an older placer. How much gold are you finding so far in the material? Out of 50 5gal buckets (approx 1 yard of material) how much gold are you actually seeing? Is the material glacier deposit?


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## dick b

AKDan:
I agree with all that you are saying. The problem is how big of a volume are we dealing with? The scale will dictate the way that works to solve the problem. If you take a quart mason jar and fill it 3/4 full of the mud and top is off with water, then shake it vigorously to completely disolve all the mud. Then put it on a table to stratify as it settles, it will seperate into layers by density with the heavy gravel and sand on the bottom and the fine clays and organics on the top. 
The way I see it is you have to keep the fluid moving and seperate the heavies out of it, but if the gold is too small a particle, then it will follow the light material. That is just the opposite of what a sluice does. Where the gold settles in the bottom of the sluice and the heavies are carried off by the water flow.
dickb


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## AKDan

dick b,
Yes, the big problem is what kind of volume is being talked about, especially with clay, and considering particle size. Usually with clay, your standard hungarian riffle type sluice will be of little or no use at all, again depending to a great extent on gold particle size. If the gold you are getting from the clay is "flour" type gold, then you are probably losing more than you are keeping with hungarian riffles, even with a clayless material. You have to modify your concentration system to the gold size in every instance, and/or modify your feed to the sluice so that all particles are approximatly the same size, using gravity to your advantage. Everything being keyed to what acceptable loss is to you, because there will always be loss.

Clay is the bane of every placer miner. There is simply no good way to deal with it outside of a complex processing/concentrating system. Part of the problem is that clay in it's self is so varied and inconsistent. I have worked in clay that varied enough in consistency every few feet that the process had to be adjusted constantly.

The best, most efficient way I have ever found to deal with it on a large scale is a trommel. Operating a trommel brings along it's own baggage. Without a way to process the tailings, head end, discharge end, and sluice end, away from your machine you find yourself burried in your own bunk. So, now you have added stackers, etc... and the plant is getting expensive and very busy at the same time. Even on a small one man shovel fed plant you are dealing with the tailings as much or more than the material you are wanting to process. 

The last place I was working had 7 settling ponds over the course of 1 3/4 miles, simply because of the clay content of the placer. When two plants were working at the same time, by the end of the day the last pond was getting to the point of adding turbidity back into the creek. A big no no in placer mining these days. Usually by the next morning all of the ponds were clear again and we could work another day. Clay is simply no fun to deal with, unless you are making pots.


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## dick b

AKDan:

PM sent. Did you get it and was the picture attached?

dickb


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## AKDan

Just responded to the PM, but there was not a picture attached that I noticed. Will look again to make sure.


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## EVO-AU

Dick:

Pm received, but couldn't find a picture anywhere. Phill


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## dick b

Phill:
Drawing resent in email attachment. dickb


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## EVO-AU

To all you generous forum hunters of this post:

It seems the answer was staring me right in the face. The claygone formula has turned the clay into a solubility that when put thru the blue bowl eliminates all the clay leaving nothing but silica, black sands and junk rock. Not even a smidgen of silt remains. If this helps any body with clay problems - go for it. We - on this forum - are one for all and all for one. Have a happy --------- Phill


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## EVO-AU

Well, heck ! It still isn't working to my satisfaction. Getting cold around here, so I am going to set up a closed cicuit setup in my kitchen. Then all the water will be only claygone mix. There is an answer and I'll find it. And all youzzzzzzz guys - thanks !


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## EVO-AU

Okay one and all:


To all you experimenters and chemists - down to the wire ! Is there a chemical that will actuallly disolve clay and leave a clear liquid ? I remember seeing something about this in a trade mag many years ago, but at the time wasn't cognizant to my situation. I'm going to contact ICMJ and see what info they might have. There has to be an snswer somewhere; I'm so tired of tearing my pumps down to clean out the silt. Yes, even with multiple screens. Phill


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## EVO-AU

Okay, in regards to my last post on this subject I haven't heard ( seen ) any new ideas out there. To all you grad chemists and workers in the different fields of silt removal, is there nothing in your brilliant studies and past experiences that will bring on the absolute dissolving of silt from clay ? Now remember, those claygone formulas DO NOT dissolve - they only ppt the silt and NOT remove it. Please ??????

Phill


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## EVO-AU

to one and all:

I did try ICMJ and they have nothing on processing clay or silt.

So much for that avenue of info and search.

Phill


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## Traveller11

Irons said:


> EVO-AU said:
> 
> 
> 
> Mark:
> 
> I have three re-circulating setups and they do not run out the clay particles and hold back the heavies. Elimination of the clay means that later filtering is cut to a minimum and smelting is a joy rather than a drudge.That new ( to me, anyway ) method from the Geus website is working rather well. And that is a joy.
> 
> From what I have gleaned from others on this site and browsing the web, Clay-be-gone settles the particles without the actual dispersal of them. I suppose I'll just have to order a bottle and see for myself.
> 
> For your input, domo, Phill
> 
> Addendum: I just viewed Yeagers' video demo and the water cleared, but, the clay particles were still there, so that does me no good.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you are trying to disperse the clay particles to allow the heavies to settle, you need to use a deflocculant. A long time ago, I worked for a clay broker in their testing lab. One of the tests we performed was deflocculation. We would take a stiff clay and pit it in a viscometer. It's just a calibrated cylinder that rotates in the clay. The viscosity is the drag on the cylinder as it rotates. The procedure was to add deflocculant (Sodium Silicate solution of known concentration) drop by drop until the point of minimum viscosity. If you add too much, the viscosity begins to increase again.
> 
> There are a number of compounds that will do the job. Google deflocculant. Each clay is unique, so you need to take a known volume and determine how much it takes. It only takes a very small amount to do the job.
Click to expand...



Hi Irons

This is an old thread but the problem of trying to liquefy clay and stop its gold robbing properties is just as fresh as ever.

Your experience working for the clay broker confirms all of the research I've done on this topic. As you said, a few drops too many of the deflocculant and the viscosity increases again and makes a mockery of the whole exercise. Outside of the lab, the ratio of clay, water and deflocculant is difficult to control.

So, I decided to find out what makes clay so sticky in the first place and see if that might shed a bit of light on the problem. The first thing I found out is that clay is nothing more than rock that has been ground (mostly by glaciers) to between 1-5 microns. It sticks together so well because of an electrostatic charge held by each particle of clay. Now, here is the interesting part. If the clay has an acidic ph (below 7), the electrostatic charge causes attraction between particles. If the ph of the clay is base (above 7), the electrostatic charge causes each particle to repel the other particles. This explains why so many deflocculants (sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, etc.) are bases. What I haven't been able to find out is why adding too much deflocculant reverses the effects of a small amount of deflocculant and increases the viscosity.

However, I have read numerous prospecting forums where small time miners speak of putting clay and water in a five gallon pail, poking a hole in the lid, putting the shaft of a drywall or paint mixer through this hole, connecting that to a large drill and "mixing" the clay and water until the contents of the five gallon pail are liquefied. And they all claim to have great success with this method.

At first glance, it would seem this method shouldn't work, as the mixer does nothing to change the ph of the clay and water, unless, of course, the water had a high ph and ultimately changed the ph of the clay.

Reflecting further, it occurred to me that the electrostatic charge in the clay might be no different than me walking across a dry carpet with socks on my feet. A static charge builds up in me and, when I reach for the doorknob on leaving the room, the static electricity is released and jumps from me to the doorknob.

Can this be what we are seeing in the mixing of clay and water? Is the mixer, in its blending process, causing exposure of each micron sized particle of clay to the blades of the blender and grounding the electrostatic charge to the cord of the drill, leaving the clay with no static charge? Would it work better if one connected a copper ground wire from inside the clay to a driven ground rod to maximise grounding?


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## Irons2

This reminded me of a guy, long ago, that used a carbon plate inside a slurry tank to separate Gold from the gangue. Since Gold doesn't hold a charge, I can see how that might work. At the time, I just thought it was Junk Science.


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## Traveller11

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Just think about handling a piece of clay in running water. As our hands contact it, the outer surface liquefies and runs away while the piece in our hand, the majority of it not in direct contact with our hands and still holding an electrostaic charge, remains in solid form.


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## rusty

Cement mixer half full of water 6 shovel scoops of clay, 15 minutes the clay has been reduced. If you have a good supply of water keep it flowing so that it out flow from the mixer removes the clay, soon your water inside the mixer will be clear with your heavies left behind.

Add a dab of dish soap to keep your fine values or run the over flow onto a sluice.


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## artart47

Hey Evo! 
The bar was called Blarney's Island. Grass Lake is fed by the fox river. Upstream are Lake Cathrine and Marie. If you go to Rt 173 near the state line, there is a campground and there is a small dam on the river. per-haps a good way to get samples. camp, dress like big kids or bring some kids with little buckets and shovels! ha ha!
North of that area in Wisconsin is the ketttle morain, the line where the glaciars ended and dumped everything as they melted. They,I'm told, found diamonds in town of Eagle that were from michigans upper peninsula. I'm just guessing that if you found that type of material being worked in the u.p. or Canada near there it could be part of the same. 
Hope it helps!
artart47
p.s. Just west of the campground is the pits for Thelen ready-mix. Per-haps they would let you study the the sides of their pits. you may get to see what was deposited in the area. Jack thelen used to be the big cheeze when we were pouring concrete in the eighties. I don't know about now!


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