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.