Back yard Prospecting

[Southfork]

Not saying I wouldn't tuck it away in the bottom of my pack for sure! Nice find, the kind of story that makes people go out and buy metal detectors.

I have a picture of my son when he walked into the kitchen with that in his hand. It was winter and he had on rain gear, and we had a fire going in the cook stove great memories.

 

[Shark]

Not saying I wouldn't tuck it away in the bottom of my pack for sure! Nice find, the kind of story that makes people go out and buy metal detectors.

Or just stock up a fresh supply of batteries.

 

[Southfork]

A piece of quartz float I picked up near the barn that looked interesting. I busted it up with a single jack and ran though the jaw crusher and washed the crush. The fines off the crush contain some gold dust I still have the crushed material to run through the chain mill. The chain mill had problems hole in the screen and bolts coming loose sounded like end of days for the mill. Repaired with parts on hand and ordered new parts to hold the screen down. Not all lost look what was hiding under the damaged parts it will pay for the new parts. Happy Mining

 

[goldshark]

A piece of quartz float I picked up near the barn that looked interesting. I busted it up with a single jack and ran though the jaw crusher and washed the crush. The fines off the crush contain some gold dust I still have the crushed material to run through the chain mill. The chain mill had problems hole in the screen and bolts coming loose sounded like end of days for the mill. Repaired with parts on hand and ordered new parts to hold the screen down. Not all lost look what was hiding under the damaged parts it will pay for the new parts. Happy Mining

A piece of quartz float I picked up near the barn that looked interesting. I busted it up with a single jack and ran though the jaw crusher and washed the crush. The fines off the crush contain some gold dust I still have the crushed material to run through the chain mill. The chain mill had problems hole in the screen and bolts coming loose sounded like end of days for the mill. Repaired with parts on hand and ordered new parts to hold the screen down. Not all lost look what was hiding under the damaged parts it will pay for the new parts. Happy Mining

Just hoping you get so much Au, that you are brushing your teeth with the stuff.

 

[Southfork]

Just hoping you get so much Au, that you are brushing your teeth with the stuff.

I just keep prospecting taking small samples a high percentage contain small amounts of free gold. I have piles of quartz ore, and my son makes piles for me to test. Takes me all day to process a five-gallon pail my crushing machines are electric so are most of my recovery equipment We have solar so a cheap way to prosses and little propane to finish the job.

 

[Southfork]

This rock specimen weighed 1 - 1/2 pounds total from our property. All went through the jaw crusher and chain mill then panned with a little jet dry. The Gold from specks to dust with white sands and a little black sand. The sun was out, and I just had to know just a small bit of color all the way from the edge of the pan to the white sands, this part of the hill wasn't mined. I picked this piece of quartz up while burning brush and tossed into the fire to see what changes would occur. Might have released a little gold from the oxidized areas and arsenical pyrites there was visible pyrites on the edge of specimen. That's my prospecting for the day the heat of the fire made the sample easier to powder up.

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[Southfork]

Working on the tailings of the same sample from above with a loupe I could still observe micro gold. I used mercury to pick up the fine gold in the original sample by panning. The mercury wasn't picking up all the gold the color of the gold was off it had a bronze haze. So as an experiment I poured a little phosphoric acid into the white sands and let it soak overnight. Rinsed with clear water today and panned lightly and nice line of gold appeared added a drop of mercury and the gold started attaching. Apparently, the gold had a little iron coating / staining I'm careful with the mercury and all my samples are retorted. A few photos with my phone you can see the gold floating on the mercury ball and a macro photo of the micro gold. I save all of my tailings for this reason when I get a quart jar full, I treat it with acid my mini leach.

 

[goldshark]

Working on the tailings of the same sample from above with a loupe I could still observe micro gold. I used mercury to pick up the fine gold in the original sample by panning. The mercury wasn't picking up all the gold the color of the gold was off it had a bronze haze. So as an experiment I poured a little phosphoric acid into the white sands and let it soak overnight. Rinsed with clear water today and panned lightly and nice line of gold appeared added a drop of mercury and the gold started attaching. Apparently, the gold had a little iron coating / staining I'm careful with the mercury and all my samples are retorted. A few photos with my phone you can see the gold floating on the mercury ball and a macro photo of the micro gold. I save all of my tailings for this reason when I get a quart jar full, I treat it with acid my mini leach.

Don't know if you have access to a rock tumbler or cement mixer, for ball milling, but the addition of Sodium Hydroxide cleans the Au nicely for Mercury as well. Don't know how well it works on the iron coating. Good suggestion on the acid etch for FeO. Sometimes the Hg will "sicken " due to various pyrites. SH helps clean it up, so the Au sticks.

 

[Southfork]

Don't know if you have access to a rock tumbler or cement mixer, for ball milling, but the addition of Sodium Hydroxide cleans the Au nicely for Mercury as well. Don't know how well it works on the iron coating. Good suggestion on the acid etch for FeO. Sometimes the Hg will "sicken " due to various pyrites. SH helps clean it up, so the Au sticks.

We do have a mixer that is used to break up clay when we find a layer near bedrock. It would be nice to have a ball or rod mill that we could run a whole bucket at time. I have used Sodium Hydroxide in the past seems to work as well as the Phosphoric I was just using what I had on hand. Seems it easy to spend more money than I can make prospecting. I might try heating the ground ore before panning or micro sluicing just to see if it will release cleaner gold.

 

[Southfork]

My son was out working on a trail across our property and took a little break with a metal detector. He found an old prospect in the brush with quartz showing found a nice specimen. This piece of quartz has Gold and lichen showing on both sides maybe all the way through weighs a little over a pound. I will take more photos after he breaks it up.

 

[Southfork]

My son was out working on a trail across our property and took a little break with a metal detector. He found an old prospect in the brush with quartz showing found a nice specimen. This piece of quartz has Gold and lichen showing on both sides maybe all the way through weighs a little over a pound. I will take more photos after he breaks it up.

Looks like there's going to be a number of specimens coming out of this rock. No continuity but little pockets like this 1.9 grams bit in first photo. Looks like a good prospect to continue digging.

 

[Southfork]

The new spot is kicking out a little treasure early California gold rush prospect with no trash. My son spent a few hours crawling under the brush and found some ore for crushing. They sound off with the detector but hard to see visible gold on chunks of quartz. But this little half gram bit made the detector scream nice little high grade find. I'm starting to think that wildfire has cooked a lot of this material and popped these specimens' out of the waste piles. Ore roasting on a large scale. What is that track lol

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[Southfork]

Started milling some ore from the new spot about a one-pound piece of quartz. Quick panning with a little jet dry jet dry looking good I will finish in the morning. This was the metal detector find that I roasted and crushed very little black sands, but I will run a magnet through the white sands as a test.

 

[Shark]

Makes the iron we find locally even more disgusting. A metal detector screams non stop in our yard.

 

[Southfork]

Working slowly with classifying screens just experimenting with micro gold I think it's starting to pass through a screen marked 100 microns? I took a few macro photos with my phone if there weren't hundreds of specks they're not visible without a loupe. Same sample as above I need a new stack of screens. We normally run everything through stacked screens on a five-gallon bucket with soap and water on larger samples then pan or micro sluice each layer slowly. I added a photo of the magnetics / black sands coming out of this sample large grains.

 

[Southfork]

61 degrees sunny no wind cleaning the Blue Bowl catch bucket it is bone dry, so I dumped into a pan. The bottom of the plastic pale had a layer stuck to the bottom I used a small paintbrush to clean the bottom out. About a couple tablespoons of super fine dust panned with water and jet-dry dishwasher anti spotting solution a little gold showing along the edge couple pounds of this to clean. This is the waste material that climbs the cone and drops into the catch pail contains a lot of micro gold. The rest of this material will go through micro screens to concentrate for collection. I was reading an old post by @kurtak on how he dislikes the blue bowl. But with a few modifications like a turbo mat slow feed and sometimes a little mercury a lot of dish soap or jet-dri It will catch the heavies. Not a production method extremely slow and as you can see in my photos the slimes in the catch are loaded with gold ready for more processing / smelt or melt or mercury. I normally run the concentrates from my sluice through the blue bowl after screening and panning and collecting as much gold as possible. I have a lot of these slimes I have saved from micro sluicing that know contain a lot of micro gold. I'm glad this only a hobby for me.

 

[Southfork]

61 degrees sunny no wind cleaning the Blue Bowl catch bucket it is bone dry, so I dumped into a pan. The bottom of the plastic pale had a layer stuck to the bottom I used a small paintbrush to clean the bottom out. About a couple tablespoons of super fine dust panned with water and jet-dry dishwasher anti spotting solution a little gold showing along the edge couple pounds of this to clean. This is the waste material that climbs the cone and drops into the catch pail contains a lot of micro gold. The rest of this material will go through micro screens to concentrate for collection.

Today's been cleanup day I had a couple quart plastic jars full for regrind back through the chain mill. I panned about 133 cc for a quick look. Just random jars off the shelf trying to get caught up gold looks dirty lots of micro gold I have some concentrate's soaking in a phosphoric solution will check in the morning. Lot of magnetic black sand i have some this soaking in phosphoric also will see how this go's time to restock acids.

 

[Southfork]

61 degrees sunny no wind cleaning the Blue Bowl catch bucket it is bone dry, so I dumped into a pan. The bottom of the plastic pale had a layer stuck to the bottom I used a small paintbrush to clean the bottom out. About a couple tablespoons of super fine dust panned with water and jet-dry dishwasher anti spotting solution a little gold showing along the edge couple pounds of this to clean. This is the waste material that climbs the cone and drops into the catch pail contains a lot of micro gold. The rest of this material will go through micro screens to concentrate for collection. I was reading an old post by kurtak on how he dislikes the blue bowl. But with a few modifications like a turbo mat slow feed and sometimes a little mercury a lot of dish soap or jet-dri It will catch the heavies. Not a production method extremely slow and as you can see in my photos the slimes in the catch are loaded with gold ready for more processing / smelt or melt or mercury. I normally run the concentrates from my sluice through the blue bowl after screening and panning and collecting as much gold as possible. I have a lot of these slimes I have saved from micro sluicing that know contain a lot of micro gold. I'm glad this only a hobby for me.

A lot of gold from the slimes I guess I need to run everything twice I have the blue bowl running a little colder today. But color in the pan Happy Mining.

 

[Southfork]

start. I added a teaspoon of material into each cupel then into a crucible one at a time for safety glad I did then into the furnace. Things went well for a while this material was really dirty; I would run for 15 minutes the lift out and sprinkle a little more borax on top and back in for 15 more. The material in the cupel would start oxidizing setting out for a minute drawing in a little oxygen. I let them cool and started combining the black buttons which are gold with a hard coating. Back into the crucible for an hour I shut the furnace off to check and the cupel had disintegrated and there was a hole in the side of the crucible. I grabbed the tongs and poured what was left into water - corn flaking some gold dropped right to the bottom, but a bunch stuck in the slag I'll just start over crushing the crucible and slag. There is a lot more gold still to recover and maybe on the bottom of the furnace and I haven't even started on the amalgam. Happy mining. Sorry they photos loaded wrong

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[Yggdrasil]

start. I added a teaspoon of material into each cupel then into a crucible one at a time for safety glad I did then into the furnace. Things went well for a while this material was really dirty; I would run for 15 minutes the lift out and sprinkle a little more borax on top and back in for 15 more. The material in the cupel would start oxidizing setting out for a minute drawing in a little oxygen. I let them cool and started combining the black buttons which are gold with a hard coating. Back into the crucible for an hour I shut the furnace off to check and the cupel had disintegrated and there was a hole in the side of the crucible. I grabbed the tongs and poured what was left into water - corn flaking some gold dropped right to the bottom, but a bunch stuck in the slag I'll just start over crushing the crucible and slag. There is a lot more gold still to recover and maybe on the bottom of the furnace and I haven't even started on the amalgam. Happy mining. Sorry they photos loaded wrong

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I'm a bit confused.
Are you trying to cupel these?