Home built centrifuge - gold concenrates from IC's

[rusty]

Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.

The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.

It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:

 

[nickvc]

Rusty I don't process the sort of material most do on the forum and I have access to quick cheap assays and deals with the refiners to accept at reasonable rates the materials I process but I still love your ingenuity and creativity and I'm sure that many members could adapt your ideas for their own processing... Keep at it!

 

[srlaulis]

Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.

The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.

It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:

How much are you charging for said machine?

 

[rusty]

Keep at it Rusty I love reading your threads about your home built equipment, been able to use your refining recovery knowledge with your ability to create equipment to make things easier always amazes me...makes me feel very useless.

The XP ( experimental ) model gave me plenty of knowledge with some great ideas for improvements, I really enjoyed the challenge the outcome was rather rewarding.

It's not too late to put your order in. :twisted: :twisted:

How much are you charging for said machine?

Before even considering a sale would have to prove my theories out on a redesigned bowel I have in mind. There will be no sales until I'm totally satisfied as you should be on receiving a centrifuge.

Once I do have a machine I'm satisfied with I will post in the sell and trade thread so that I do not appear as a common spammer.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

You a spammer. ROFL... Never mistake you for that.

 

[srlaulis]

You a spammer. ROFL... Never mistake you for that.

I second that, Barren.

 

[rusty]

...

 

[butcher]

I refine under an old big oak tree, I swear its leaves get bigger every year, it seems to love the NOx fumes, I think which may end up as nitrate fertilizer for the oak, although I do try to capture as much of the fumes myself to make nitric with. :lol:

 

[rusty]

I'm like a kid on Christmas eve full of excitement and anticipation of my upcoming gold mining trip come May 15th.

A friend of mine has several claims located on Manson Creek, Northern B.C. he has invited me to join him for the season. These are working claims that have steadily produced 3 to 4 ounces of gold per week

In the mean time while I wait, I'm going to build a much larger centrifuge to take up with me.

 

[butcher]

I would be working on the dredge :lol:

 

[rusty]

I would be working on the dredge :lol:

Over the millennium the creek bed has changed its course. It's not that type of operation, more like a gravel pit.

 

[butcher]

Well then make up some classifier buckets, can you get water to the site easily? or are you having to dig and take the material to water?

 

[rusty]

Well then make up some classifier buckets, can you get water to the site easily? or are you having to dig and take the material to water?

Butcher this is already a working claim, with a couple of loaders and an old excavator and a sluice already in place, one partner passed away recently opening a placement for someone willing to work long hours for little pay.

I appreciate your suggestions but It's not my place to tell John how to run his operation. On my part will build a larger centrifuge, load up my ball mill and take up some acids with an attitude towards putting in some long hours working with old equipment that will probably break down every second day.

I'm entering this expedition with both eyes open, I realize working a gold mine is not a quick road to riches it is more a lifestyle that fits my unusual personality. I'm thankful that I have been invited in on a share of the proceeds with out laying out any of my hard earned cash.

Even if I return home penniless I will have had a good time having spent the summer months in an environment suitable to my nature.

I've had my Garret Infinium LS for two years this will be a good chance to get away from human trash common to parks and cemetery's and do some real nugget hunting.

The strangest thing is that last week I had listed the metal detector on ebay then canceled the auction, then this evening get a call from John - good karma.

 

[butcher]

Rusty, that sounds great, I really wasn't sure how you would be mining, or to what extent, it sounds like you should be able to go thorough a lot of material with that equipment, and I know with your skills you can keep it running, getting out and working in the fresh air, away from the rat race, and digging in the dirt what more can a guy ask for, except maybe that his pockets get filled with a little gold to help ease his mind from that aching back.

Please do keep us informed, along with your metal detector pack your camera, so we can see how much fun you had.

 

[rusty]

With the original set up motor direct coupled to the bowel not such a good idea a bit of water worked its way into the motor sending it up in a cloud of smoke.

Fortunately I had a spare which I decided to mount on the side using a belt drive.

Anyone care to take a guess as to which metal is in the tan streaks.

 

[rusty]

Anyone who has incinerated IC's knows that the resulting ash is very black, here are a few pictures to show the color of my concentrates coming out of my centrifuge.

Should make a very nice button.

 

[rusty]

First picture is IC ash before processing through the centrifuge 2nd picture would normally be your discarded tailings.

For those who are perhaps contemplating a centrifuge in future, never add a surfactant to your feed water.

If you up-size the first picture you can see the blue off some of the metals from the camera flash, this bottom layer of material gets more interesting.

 

[butcher]

Is your plan to acid treat this material while the material is still fine powders, to further part the metals before trying to melt?

That is nice looking mud.

Is that a speed control circuit to varying the speed of the motor?


I am curious what would happen if you done a test run with a sludge of say some different types of metal shavings of different density, maybe the shavings easily recognized after words, like copper, brass, or zinc, or aluminum. Or other metals, so you could see how they separated by density, like a metal shaving and some mud to see if you could separate metal shavings from mud.

Maybe try a test the materials that spun out of the unit for values like fine gold flakes to see if some is getting spun out of the bowl.

 

[rusty]

Is your plan to acid treat this material while the material is still fine powders, to further part the metals before trying to melt?

That is nice looking mud.

Is that a speed control circuit to varying the speed of the motor?


I am curious what would happen if you done a test run with a sludge of say some different types of metal shavings of different density, maybe the shavings easily recognized after words, like copper, brass, or zinc, or aluminum. Or other metals, so you could see how they separated by density, like a metal shaving and some mud to see if you could separate metal shavings from mud.

Maybe try a test the materials that spun out of the unit for values like fine gold flakes to see if some is getting spun out of the bowl.

Thanks Butcher, that nice looking mud was long time in the making, I started working on this material while still living at the other house a year and a half back then my work in progress was suddenly interrupted by our move.

I really don't have the patience for refining, waiting on filtering, evaporating and so forth so I may have an assay done on the cons then send the concentrates out to a refinery if they'll agree to be pay out on all precious metals. Makes more sense to me, shearing off chips, incinerating then concentrating the values for a quick turn around. Refinery's like repeat customers and I'm not fond of having gallons of acids then having to deal with the waste.

Yes that is a speed control wired onto a .5 Hp DC Baldor motor, I had in mind that by varying the speed one could selectively pull different metals by density. This may work in special circumstances.

There are no gold flakes, this material which had previously been run through, the ball mill turned everything into powder, I do believe the brown were seeing is finely divided gold. I know there are values going over the top of the bowel to be safe I'm going to run my tailings one more time then to be sure to catch everything run the tailings in AR to see if I missed anything.

I already have the makings of a new centrifuge mapped out from what I have learned of this one.

 

[rusty]

The bowel for this centrifuge started life as a 6" solid poly round, which will set you back $60.00 a ft. the inside diameter at the top is 4.5" the top 1.5" is straight wall then tapering down at 10 degrees towards the bottom.

The bottom end was machined large to accept a metal insert machined to an outside diameter of 1.5" with a 5/8" bore to make my internal 3/16" keyway I turned a 5/8" metal shaft to fill the bore then drilled a 3/16" hole along side the plug then profiled an old file into a chisel to square up the newly drilled 3/16" to accept the key, the bottom metal insert was machined a couple thou over so its a tight fit. After it was pressed in I drilled three holes through the plastic into the side of the metal insert then installed roll pins to hold everything in place, then drilled and tapped holes for my set screws.

The grooves can be any configuration you choose.

My motor is a half horse Baldor DC wired into a speed control, motor is rated at 2500 rpm but when i first powered the centrifuge up the controller had not been adjusted internally as yet and the bowel according to my digital tachometer was running 3200 rpm.

The bowel is not dead center on its axis my guess its off a couple of thou but seems no harm comes of it.

What your aiming for is 300 - 600 G's to be generated from your bowel.

I sincerely believe the centrifuge is the way to go for those who do not wish to use acids and deal with waste an opportunity to capitalize on e-waste. A simple ball mill will pulverize your chips no incineration necessary then you concentrate the pulp then second party assay your cons before sending then off to a refinery.

If you perform a simple dilute nitric leach you can pull silver/palladium out from the ash, what I did for filtering was drill a bunch of holes into the bottom of a 20 liter pail, flatten and insert a layer of coffee filters then wet these down with water before adding the material being filtered. The top pail rested onto top of another pail to receive the filtrate. Then I used copper to cement everything that would, this material is still waiting to be processed.

So far I've recovered 6 lbs of cons from about 1.2 tons of mother boards and daughter cards using the centrifuge.