Back yard Prospecting

[Southfork]

My son and I have been crushing and panning quartz vein material and running the cons on a ribbed sluice. Mostly float and metal detector finds started doing a little smelting to free up a little more gold. Purchased a small chain mill and have been crushing quartz float from around the house. Finding enough free gold from the quartz to make a few buttons. And my son has been finding specimen pieces with the metal detectors a couple of photos of gold in the pan from the backyard. And one of my son's specimens' pieces I cleaned back to prospecting a bucket of rocks waiting for me to mill. I found enough to pay for the chain mill saving up for a jaw crusher another hobby gone wild. Happy Mining

 

[Rreyes097]

Nice! Is this south fork in California or a South fork somewhere else? Because there's the American river which has a North and south fork. But I'm sure many rivers have that. I'm just wondering

 

[goldshark]

Those specimen pieces will bring much more money as collector pieces, than crushing just for the Au. Those are very nice pieces

 

[Southfork]

Nice! Is this south fork in California or a South fork somewhere else? Because there's the American river which has a North and south fork. But I'm sure many rivers have that. I'm just wondering

South Fork Is just my handle the American has a middle fork also. Thank you

 

[Southfork]

The photo with the penny is hand crushed ore sample with a mortar and pestle. The second photo is same type of ore run in a chain mill it balls the gold up and wraps it around the rock matrix / host rock which I have been melting to release the gold. cupelling a couple times cleans it up. these are ore samples off of mine waste piles found with a metal detector.

 

[orvi]

Holy cow... I also want something like this to be found near my property...

Unfortunately, our country was raided by golddiggers for more than 3000 years so, there aren´t much of the hidden bonanzas to be found Always jealous about the size of the gold found all over the world. Here, 3mm flake in the stream is someones find of a life

PS: do not crush the specimens as goldshark is advising, those are very beautiful pieces and you can easily multiply their "just gold" value, if you sell them as collector specimens.

 

[Alondro]

Lol, within walking distance of my house is... sand. Nothing but sand. For miles. Quartz sand that's been washed by rains and sea level changes for ages untold. Anything really dense that was in it is likely a hundred of feet underground now.

I've panned some of the bottom of a sand pit just to check. A fair amount of hematite and tiny black tourmaline crystal fragments, but nothing else.

 

[Southfork]

We have a placer gold deposit also just waiting on winter rains for water. Same problem here during the gold rush they left us a pay pile we think. My son has been digging along the base of the pile where it rests on bedrock a lot of work, but he found a few pickers. Just enough to get us dreaming

 

[BlackLabel]

The photo with the penny is hand crushed ore sample with a mortar and pestle. The second photo is same type of ore run in a chain mill it balls the gold up and wraps it around the rock matrix / host rock which I have been melting to release the gold. cupelling a couple times cleans it up. these are ore samples off of mine waste piles found with a metal detector.

I'd love to find such "mine waste piles".

 

[Alondro]

I'd love to find such "mine waste piles".

It's not quite 'backyard', but I've found a very promising spot in the old glacial moraine in central New Jersey. Found a nice gold flake and even some small native copper crystals in mt first sample of incredibly iron-rich strata full of large stones and boulders, so loaded with iron that it forms concretions around dead roots. It's about 20 minutes from me. I think this particular hill is the core of the moraine material, and composed of a massive amount of crushed pyrite-bearing ore. The streams and springs coming out of it all become covered with iron-sulfur bacteria in spring, and the muddy bottom sediments are all heavily stained with rust and other oxides and smell sulfurous.

 

[Southfork]

While burning brush I picked up a few rocks to run through the mill. Just pieces that had that chili powder look in the cracks these random rocks were loaded. Over 4 grams from a few pounds of rocks. After this storm passes, I'll be back out there maybe I'll try the metal detectors my son has great success using them. This is our wash plant lol and we have a small propane furnace to smelt / melt the concentrates / dirty gold. Looking at small jaw crushers to help with crushing material to size for the chain mill.

 

[AlaskaLes]

Now that's the kind of "Yard Work" I enjoy!

 

[Alondro]

While burning brush I picked up a few rocks to run through the mill. Just pieces that had that chili powder look in the cracks these random rocks were loaded. Over 4 grams from a few pounds of rocks. After this storm passes, I'll be back out there maybe I'll try the metal detectors my son has great success using them. This is our wash plant lol and we have a small propane furnace to smelt / melt the concentrates / dirty gold. Looking at small jaw crushers to help with crushing material to size for the chain mill.

Imagines this problem: "Arg! All this gold contaminating my precious rocks!" XD

 

[Southfork]

Before and after using the muriatic acid bath rinse then the Whink solution off the self-product Whink Rust Stain Remover Ingredients. Whink Rust Stain Remover contains: Deionized Water q.s. 100% Hydrofluoric Acid 1-3% Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid (EDTA) 0-1%, Trisodium Salt 100-200 ppm, Calcium Chloride 100-700 ppm, sodium Fluosilicate Pentahydrate 100-500 ppm Iron (II) Sulfate Heptahydrate 80-160 ppm. The Hydrofluoric Acid is what attacks the quartz I think we use it on specimen pieces of gold ore. Depends on the sample as to how long of a soak in both products I check every morning. They get a gentle scrub with a toothbrush and a little dish soap rinse then I decide if they need to go back into the bath. This was a metal detector find covered with mud.

 

[goldshark]

How big are those specimens, and where exactly, did you find them? Just kidding on the where exactly did you find them. When I show my nuggets to people, that is the first question I get asked. Just thought I would throw it in. You can tell me if you like, I won't tell anyone, promise. What state is it from? Very nice looking pieces. Any knowledge of the geology?

 

[Southfork]

N. California mine waste pile quartz vein

 

[stoneware]

My son and I have been crushing and panning quartz vein material and running the cons on a ribbed sluice. Mostly float and metal detector finds started doing a little smelting to free up a little more gold. Purchased a small chain mill and have been crushing quartz float from around the house. Finding enough free gold from the quartz to make a few buttons. And my son has been finding specimen pieces with the metal detectors a couple of photos of gold in the pan from the backyard. And one of my son's specimens' pieces I cleaned back to prospecting a bucket of rocks waiting for me to mill. I found enough to pay for the chain mill saving up for a jaw crusher another hobby gone wild. Happy Mining

Welcome to GRF, have you read Hokes Refining Precious Metals Wastes.

There's a link to download the book in my signature line.

 

[Southfork]

Welcome to GRF, have you read Hokes Refining Precious Metals Wastes.

There's a link to download the book in my signature line.

Thanks, I haven't I'm trying to fine tune my gravity separation of free gold but have been saving the tailings.

 

[stoneware]

Thanks, I haven't I'm trying to fine tune my gravity separation of free gold but have been saving the tailings.

In order to clearly communicate with other members when it comes time to deal with your tails I suggest you read Hoke's book to understand the terminology involved with refining precious metals.

Also an assay of your material would be representative of the gold coming from your geological area, for instance gold mined in certain areas in British Columbia contain arsenic, gold coming from the north has a certain amount of silver.

You really should educate yourself, does that dust coming off the chain mill contain arsenic a common element found in drinking water in California.

An estimated 300,000 people in California are exposed to arsenic concentrations higher than 10 ppb in their drinking water,” said research team

Nice gold by the way.

I noticed that your hands look very rough from another forum, this is the reason I'm bringing up arsenic.

 

[Southfork]

We take precautions respirators and wind our chain mill is outside but thanks for the heads up. There are hundreds of old mines and mill sites all around this area and I've been drinking well water for over 50 years. This is just a hobby for us here's today's button and my hand We melted all the fines collected out of various ore samples and melted not smelted. It took two melts to clean up but turned out nice. 27.5 grams. Back to crushing rocks to decide which pile of waste rock we should be hauling home. Just reweighed 28 grams scale was cold this one is on the way to town we need supplies.