# froth colum



## solarsmith (Feb 21, 2008)

I am building a grinding circut for mine and mill tails with a stamp mill at one end and a froth colum at the other end. I will then want to leach the end product and drop out the good parts . I live In denver and own several old gold mines above idaho springs and central city in the russle gulch area. and yes I could use some help, and all the free advice on froth colums any one may know about. Bryan


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## aflacglobal (Feb 21, 2008)

Welcome to the forum Bryan :wink:


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## Blacktoadd (Jul 14, 2008)

The more you learn the more you know you don't know. Where would I find formula for frothing agents. (A drop of spot free from the wife's dish washer will cause the metalics not to float) If one is disolving ore's for values, only 1/2 of the platinum series is disolved by aqua rega. In the mud of well milled ore lies the other half, even more valuable ones. Anyone want some sludge with platinum group in it. C.M. Hoke says, wash your glassware well and dont put your greasy fingers on the inside or your fine gold will float. Scraping your sweaty forhead with a small piece of plastic, throwing it in the pot, and stirring the pot has lots of gold and silver floating objects floating. Not enough to assay yet. 
Bruce


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## solarsmith (Jul 21, 2008)

Ive been reading a lot about it.. the old timers knew gold would float most all the mills had a flotation cell or cells... the ones iv seen are only a foot or two deep and thats about all... if you grind the ore very fine 200 mesh and add 3 types of oil (natural ones are best) then mix with lime to get the ph up to 10 or higher (to depress the pyrites that other wise will want to float) then mix with water and feed this slurry into a colum of water with fine bubbles riseing and a clean water mist washing the bubbles as they rise (this is to keep the clay and slime down) all metalic PGMs groop should float... pgms are hydrophobic..(afraid of water) and since every thing got ground down so fine it all can be lifted by the air bubbles to the top of the colum and over flow or be vacumed off. the taller the colum the better... I once heard a true story of miners running a stamp mill with some very rich ore in it.. they packed there food in the mill and forgot to remove a slab of bacon. yes the bacon greese a fatty acid did a very good job of making the pgms float and when they ran there fine ore throug a sluce they got nothing.. floated all the way through.. there is a big list of natural oils that will make pgms float and even a few chem that will modify the process as needed. I will list them if any one wants to know. 
At the gold mine last week I found a lot of pyrite that should be gold bearing... I just need to colect it grind it and float it...

help at thr mine still needed....


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## Blacktoadd (Jul 24, 2008)

There are pyrites and three metals that will give problem with recovering gold including Tellerium, which ties up the most gold rich of the pyrites. I am at a loss to find the other two at this second. 
I am setting up to grind the oar to a very fine powder. The three problem elements and sulfer all burn off at under 600 F. I am roasting and plan to setup filtering for fine dust containing metalics during roast in air charged atmosphere. As far as I know the only way to free up values from these four villians is to roast. 
YES, I would like you to E mail me the Information you have on froth columes. Froth forming and controlling materials. My processed materials will vurtually be dust and should float. 
Bruce


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## goldsilverpro (Jul 24, 2008)

Lots of info on froth flotation to weed through
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22froth+flotation%22

You can download the whole book on the ones that say "full view" in green


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## solarsmith (Sep 9, 2008)

assay is 0.56 oz ton. GOLD!
and it was not even in the mine shaft... It is in the driveway right next to the fire ring. we had a picnic a month ago and we were being men 8) and we got out the big sledge hammer and we took turns wacking at a big bolder. and as we busted this thing up I noticed a lot of pyrite in it. so I saved a few lumps and tossed to rest over the edge of the drive , for back fill. a week latter i took a tour of a mine about 2 miles down the vally, they let the tourist dig at a real gold vein.. I was surprised to see that there idea of a vein was black fine grained pirite! quick back up to my driveway and rescued some off the backfill pyrite, and then off to home to make a ball mill out of a propaine tank.(works great)
then I took a ground sample to an assayer in golden and 4 days latter found out it had .56 oz per ton  wow was I surprised.. next thinng to do was to find the bank of the drive way that the bolder came from. last sat I cleaned the driveway bank like it was an archiologicle dig. shure enogh I found a continuose band (vein) of pirite that is about 12 inck thick and 24 inches deep staying about 24 inches deep over the entire area. if I dig a hole any place with in 50 ft of discovery spot I will hit the vein at about 24 inches. the slope of the mountain is about 30 degrees and the slope of dip of the vein is about35 degrees. aprox. being at such a shalow depth has alowed the tree roots of big trees over the last millions of years to do some funy things to the lay of the vein. some times lifting a few pirite rocks to the surface and some times when a big root would die and rot a pirite rock would drop out of the botom of the vein and fill the space left by the root. the end result of all of this are that parts of the vein are spred out 2 feet above and below the center line of the band. the vein still seams to be 90% intact. The first assay was from an assortment of rocks from the bank in the drive.. my next assay will be from the center of the pirite vein send me all the e mails you want ,pI would love to hear your thoughts... BRYAN in denver colorado


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## Shecker (Sep 9, 2008)

Blacktoadd the three things that can form combinations with gold/silver are tellurium, selenium, and arsenic. Bu there are also minerals of gold/bismuth (called maldonite) and gold/antimony (called aurostibnite). There are literally hundreds of mineral states in which gold/silver or other pm's can atomic substitute for other metals within a crystal lattice. They are far too numerous to mention here.

Solarsmith froth flotation is an excellent way to recover metal values when in very fine state. This metallurgical science has progressed to the point of huge cells, selective collectors, and frothers. As an example at the Barney Canyon Gold Project SW of Salt Lake City, Kennecott floats metallic gold in EIMCO cells (20 feet across and 18 feet tall). Having said this most of the time gravity separation can be as effective as froth flotation and is much less costly. It is true that many minerals, like sulfides, love to float on the surface of the water because of the surface tension. But surface tension can also be broken up by chemical agents and even properly designed equipment. This flotability is caused by natural oils and nature's extensive range of organometallic elements. 
But in all things there are answers to every question if one just searches long enough.

I hope both of you have great days.

Randy in Gunnison


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## Shecker (Sep 9, 2008)

Keene Engineering makes a biodegradable product, called Gold Drop, for breaking up the surface tension of water. Most prospector shops either carry this or can order it quickly. But a person can also make an equally good chemical for breaking surface tension using a juice that is extracted from prickly pear cactus. Using gloves you take the cactus prongs, burn off the spins, cut up the remaining material and soak it in water for 90 days.
This will produce a gelatinous green solution that is environmental clean, completely biodegradable, and will cause even the finest of precious metal particles to settle quickly out of turbulent water. Both are great for water recycling systems.

Randy in Gunnison


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## EVO-AU (Sep 16, 2008)

Shecker; Someone told me about Jet Dry ( dishwasher detergent ) a bit ago, so I tried it. Ran some matching experiments with Gold Drop and the Jet Dry won - hands down. At least for me ! evo-au


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## Shecker (Sep 16, 2008)

That's great Jey Dry is biodegradable. Good information to know.

Randy in Gunnison


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## butcher (Oct 4, 2008)

I have heard some miners used pine pitch for froth floatation.


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## qst42know (Oct 4, 2008)

Hello Prospectors.

Now I know zero about mining, dredging, and the like. But I wanted to ask has anyone tried stretching one of those floating oil soak booms like spill response teams use for collecting oils and fuel spills, across the stream they are dredging to see if you could catch any PMs floating by. There my be enough natural oils in the bio mass plant and animal oils to float something and perhaps a oil injector in the exit of you sluice may even enhance the flotation. Anyone ever hear of this tried before?

Chris


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## solarsmith (Oct 17, 2008)

I have now got 4 trash cans of gold ore at the house.. it should be enough for me to expeirament with for the winter.. Iv been back to the drive way dig a few times and keep finding more ore thats not in the bed of the ore vien. theres 100s of tons of it. all of the waste rock and dirt are being used to regrade the driveway to finished leval so I can then start construction on the garage apt the area of excavation for the garaged should yeild about 40 to 50 tons of ore...
ANY ONE KNOW OF A CHEAP ROCK CRUSHER?
I have been hand hamering it down to fingernail flake size.. this is too much work.. and so is a 12 ton shop press... the press works great but is real slow... the ball mill will do about 7 lbs in an hour down to silk smoth
mud. if i fed water through it Im shure I could wash off the fine grind and replace it with fresh crushed ore... the ball mill tank is about 8 galons
and is being run with a lathe motor. at about 50 to 60 rpm.
the balls are iron 1.1 lbs from iron fence tops ornamental forged iron!
they have ridges that realy help grind much faster than the round ball bearings did. its still a slow process . i will be makeing a much biger one to run at the mine... oh the wife has now named the mine..(THE FOR PLAY MINE)seams like work to me but lots of fun too..

next project to build the froth colum hear at the house.. and learn how to do the concentrating....Gole 12 to 1 that should get it over 6 oz per ton
aprox 1/4 oz in 100 lbs thanks all any help most welcome.. BRYAN


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## jsargent (Nov 7, 2008)

solarsmith said:


> ... about 40 to 50 tons of ore...
> ANY ONE KNOW OF A CHEAP ROCK CRUSHER?



My friend you have your work cut out for you. 
I have a Keene RC46 crusher for sale if you're interested. This unit on a base mount: http://www.keeneeng.com/pdfFiles/RC46.pdf $4,800 and I'll deliver it halfway (I'm near Austin Texas)


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## butcher (Nov 8, 2008)

for rock to make it to powder I use my cement mixer filling it with different sizes of rock up to larger than a fist add some water keep wet so poder doesnt stick to rock and cake on sides then run it, fine screen mud slush to bucket, returning gravel to mixer adding more rock and water,
get some of that coragated black plastic sewer pipe split it in two 
Half longwise set in wood frame to make a sluice angle it run your mud with water through sluice box. trapping heavy's, roast them >700deg F, coal fire and tin works about an hour to remove sulfides or acid from rock Caution dont breath gasses, then you can process them as you choose,
what makes you think this gravel is woth processing?

activated charcoal in bags will collect gold from streams or rivers as will charcoal filters collect gold from wells, or solutions, (if its there), mining timbers are Known to suck up gold from the acidic water in mines, old timbers usually are burnt to recover it,carbon dead wood is one theory why rivers have nuggets and the mountain that the gold came from (in hard rock) the gold is microscopic not visible to the eye.  

when running a sluice I dont care about what small floating gold that throughnot to enough to fiddle with would have more in black sand recoverd , unless you were only processing surface sand then would need someway of slowing flow from the dredge for a charcoal bag to do any good (side trough sluice) but if that was my problem then i would take copper sheets clean with nitric acid wipe on distilled mercury to plate copper wipe off excess now a slow flow of your gold sand will almagam and stick to the copper Hg plates, but with miners moss and a baffle in the header box and propper set up of dredge your gonna get most all gold, and there are alot of other options long toms,ect ect,


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## butcher (Nov 8, 2008)

I have built a mini stamp mill for my CPU's and for small amount of rock, it usses a dc motor and bridge rectifier to run on AC power has homade cam ect. am still working on building the ball mill.


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## solarsmith (Dec 29, 2008)

I have compleated and tested my ball mill PICS SOON and it works very well
I made it from a propane tank and a lathe motor. I can easly change speeds due to the multi sized pully on the lathe motor
its takes about an hr to make pea gravil mix creamy smoth... no feal of grit between fingers... ooh thats 7 pounds... a full load will be about 14 pounds.... also the lab in the garage is almost compleat just needs a few cracks sealed and a door.. ok PICS SOON.... Thanks BRYAN


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## butcher (Dec 30, 2008)

great pictures would be nice,


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