Blue Bowl specs and set-up instructions

Despotic · Apr 3, 2009

I'll add pic's of the completed homemade blue bowl when I'm finished.

Blue Bowl Setup Instructions

1. There are several different ways to set up the gold concentrating bowl. The single bucket system utilizes a garden hose with a constant pressure water supply (water pump, city water supply). The alternate system below re-circulates the water using two 5 gallon buckets with a 12 volt water pump.
2. Concentrates from dredge or sluice should be screened down to at least 20 mesh. The material should be screened down further for the best results.
3. Place the Bowl on top of a standard five gallon plastic bucket then level the bowl. Attach a garden hose (water supply) to the hose fitting on the Blue Bowl.
4. Once the Bowl is level, adjust water flow with the ball valve to approximately 2 gallons per minute. Adjust the water flow so that water is just slightly below the outer edge of the bowl, and almost over flowing. An even swirl pattern around center cone is desired. This may require additional leveling.
5. It is recommended to slowly feed the Bowl with wetted concentrates using a tablespoon or small scoop. Do not over load the bowl with material. The material should be fed slowly along the outer edge of the bowl. Over feeding will result in excessive material building up at the base of the center cone. Practice makes perfect.
6. When using the re-circulating system (2 buckets and 12 V pump), a wetting agent, such as Gold Drop (GD-1) is highly recommended. This will enhance fine gold recovery.
7. When cleaning out the Bowl it is recommended to shut the water flow off and suck the material out with some sort of suction device (GBS-1, Gold Bottle Sniffer), rather than dumping the Bowl and having to re-level the unit.
8. The Blue Bowl will not wash all the black sand out, consequently it leaves some of the heaviest material behind with the gold.

Edit: Here is a homemade concentrator in action and more details. http://tinyurl.com/blue-bowl
I got the bottom-feeder pic from that URL.

Palladium · Apr 4, 2009

Very interesting.

Keep us updated.

blueduck · Apr 11, 2009

I like homebuilt projects..... so when you get a "round tuit" can ya post not just pictures of the finished bowl, but the parts list you use when putting it together, it appears like the use of common [in some places] parts and a little time out in the laboratory is what you have into the piece.

Some of the really fine gold in this area still does not like to drop in mcuh of any device, but those folks who use the bowls tend to keep the really fines stuff as long as they classify EVERYTHING to size..... the smaller the better for the microfines.

On the beach we have to work down river [after high water as it is completely coversed from what we were working it 2 weeks ago] the gold runs about 15,000 fines to the ounce, and we were pulling out between 75 and 200 per 10 shovels [about 3/4 of a five gallon bucket give or take] pit run into the Goldscrew which will take up to a 3 inch [75mm] rock through the screen, the rest we picked out of the hopper or they were tossed out of the hole, the free gold was at a depth of about 6-12 inches and no more [flood washed the beach back in 1996 to pretty much hard pan clay, bed rock is deeper].

In about 5 hours of playing around getting the machine tuned up and not over working our winterized bodies, we still pulled a couple grams out of the beach moving about a yard of material and then some.

Anyhow the bowls work great for the beach gold that dont float away.... and some even floats using dish soap or jet dry in the bowl.

William
North Central Idaho

blueduck · Apr 11, 2009

we caught quite a few reds [small garnets that trapped the really fine micro gold and still walked up the spiral gold wheel] and that is the red in the pan.

the vial is a 2 ounce glas vial so it appears like there is a little more than is really there, and there were a couple of flakes that did not go through a 30 mesh screen.