Hydraulic Rock Crusher

[eaglewings35]

Okay, this is a challenge for me, but probably not for most of you.
I have several pounds of ore that I want to pulverize in order to get the gold.
Here's my plans and thoughts.....
I'm thinking of welding a 1/2" steel plate to the bottom of a 5" or 6" thick walled pipe.
I am then going to weld a long steel plate to the side of the pipe.
Then I will afix the hydraulic ram to the other end of the steel plate.(the ram is adjustable and has extensions to take up the extra room)

What I am trying to do is use the hydraulic ram to push down and crush my ore that is in the pipe. (both the pipe and ram are fixed solid so they can't move)
Here's my question.......
How much pressure would I need to crush quartz rock or regular types that gold is found in?

 

[butcher]

I would think the hydraulic ram would have a hard time crushing, I have used a hammer drill, or a jack hammer would work better, using a tool head flat head toothed bit that gave ore in vessel some room to escape the hammer head, Ball mills are easy to build, I use my cement mixer like one, I have built a small hammer mill like the big ones used at large mines, my hammer probably weighs 15 pounds lifted and dropped by a cam (6-8 inch drop) on a DC motor, using rectified AC voltage and dimmer for speed adjustments.
jaw crushers can be built, even a stone mill (Astoria?) can be made.

 

[eaglewings35]

Hey Butcher. It has been a long time since I talked to you. Hows things for you? I am strongly leaning toward making me a ball mill. I was thinking that
a hydraulic crusher would be sooooo easy, plus I have access to hydraulic pumps and rams.

 

[butcher]

Been staying out of trouble and doing well.

The trouble I see with just hydraulic ram pressure is the surface area, and the slow action if you gave the fragmenting rock somewhere to move to, and getting the ram head or rock to contact each other in the next stroke. (I can see what I want to say but do not know how to say it) (kind of like trying to crush an egg in your fist, you can't but you can with one small finger), and now getting all them eggs in the basket to keep moving under your finger moving up and down fairly slowly...
say a ram in pot a once rock breaks and someof it powders it can pack as tight as cement, and all crushing would stop as even the hydraulic power would not overcome its resistive force.
Do I make any sense?

If you made a jaw crusher with the hydraulics’ then you could crush some rock, the jaw crusher mainly breaks the rock to small bits, the surface area the pressure is applied is at smaller points and as rock breaks it moves up and down in the jaws grips, there are several types of crushers some even use a kind of mortar in a funnel like shape the mortar rotates around wobbling (sorry I do not know its name). I believe the ball mill would be easiest to build and can make fine dust out of rock, catalytic converter, or CPU ceramics.

 

[TXWolfie]

Ya can send it to my ex-wife, she will take out her stonecold lifeless heart and I am pretty sure she will have no problem crushing it to dust for ya...... :lol:

 

[butcher]

Tex at least you can joke about it now.

 

[Desert Dennis]

crazycrusher.com .. To get gold out of ORE it is as simple as Classifacation and weight. Dennis

 

[TXWolfie]

Tex at least you can joke about it now.

lmao yeah giggling makes the heart grow fonder .... ahem ... I mean further

 

[joem]

like this design
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Sore-thumb-rock-crusher-prospecting-dredge-panning-/110742855654?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c8c9dfe6

 

[goldsilverpro]

like this design
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Sore-thumb-rock-crusher-prospecting-dredge-panning-/110742855654?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c8c9dfe6

I've made a few of those things, but the pestle I used was a long steel rod (about 36") about 2" in diameter and it weighed about 30#. You just picked it up and dropped it. For breaking up a few CPUs for assaying, it works well. For refining a batch of material, it takes WAY too much energy. Just try it and see. I don't think the pestle on eBay is heavy enough to do enough damage.

 

[darshevo]

I like the idea of a stamp mill for what you are working on. Here is a youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySLibKnEmpY

Its pretty basic, but you can get a good idea of how they work from it

 

[Acid_Bath76]

if you're mechanically inclined, which a lot of you seem to be, check out a "rock crusher". I'm not sure how long it takes to reduce material in a ball mill, but in my rock crusher I can pulverize pretty much anything within a couple minutes. It's a simple contraption. 1/4HP electric motor that spins a steel chain within a cylinder. There's a front cover that you can take on and off, and a hopper to add material into that is covered when running. One draw back, it can be pretty loud. I'm sure there's a way to circumvent that issue. Maybe some type of insulation .. .. anyhow. Just thought I would throw this out there.

 

[Hephaestus]

I understand the concept Acid_Bath76 but can't find a video to hear how much noise it makes. If left in a room and walk 10 steps away my ball mill is relatively quiet. It works at the moment and it's 2:10 in the night.

 

[Acid_Bath76]

wow! that's what I call, "silent destruction"!! Very nice. You can't beat that

 

[eaglewings35]

Hey Heph,
Did you make your crusher? What makes it so quiet?
Does it have some kind of insulation? Go any pics for us?

 

[Hephaestus]

Yes it's homemade with no insulation. A plastic drum, a geared motor used for rotating metal axles (for roasting lambs in particular), a wooden base and some wheels.
Will make a thread about it.

 

[eaglewings35]

Hey Heph, what size drum are you using? I know that there are those 55 gallon plastic drums, are you using one that large? If not, where do you get a smaller one? I thought of using a 5 gallon bucket, but there is the problem of putting a steel rod through it, and not losing your powder at the same time.

 

[Hephaestus]

I send you a PM eaglewings35.
For every one else interested I made a thread for my ball mill.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=11456

 

[solarsmith]

I have used a 12 ton shop press with a air powered hydraulic ram.
i just put the rock inbetween the two 1 inch plates and hit the air triger then release and push in a fresh rock from the side pushing the now mostly sand out the back to fall into a bucket on the floor. this worked well but was still to slow for the tons of ore I have. I now have a homemade jaw crusher.
so my answer is 12 tons for a 3 to 8 lb rock. Thanks Bryan in Denver Colorado. 303 503 4799.

 

[eaglewings35]

Thanks Bryan, thats exactly the info I was looking for.