Non-Chemical Method of concentrating ore with a pan: question

[wccurtis89]

Hello everyone. I have tried to post this three times and it keeps getting discarded, so if for some reason the same question appears multiple times, I apologize. Anyway, I have a pretty large amount of oxidized quartz gold/silver ore and I have run a few smelts without concentrating the ore, and as you can imagine it's pretty inefficient since there is so much waste rock occupying space in the crucible. Eventually I will build a shaker table, but as of right now that is not immediately possible. So my question is this; at what point do I stop panning my crushed rock in order to simply concentrate my heavies? Should I discard roughly 50% of the material, 60%, 75%? I realize this may be a difficult question to answer directly. I'm just looking for an estimate as to what point is sufficient for concentrating the ore, as well as any alternative suggestions for concentrating methods etc... Thanks y'all.

- Casey

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hello everyone. I have tried to post this three times and it keeps getting discarded, so if for some reason the same question appears multiple times, I apologize. Anyway, I have a pretty large amount of oxidized quartz gold/silver ore and I have run a few smelts without concentrating the ore, and as you can imagine it's pretty inefficient since there is so much waste rock occupying space in the crucible. Eventually I will build a shaker table, but as of right now that is not immediately possible. So my question is this; at what point do I stop panning my crushed rock in order to simply concentrate my heavies? Should I discard roughly 50% of the material, 60%, 75%? I realize this may be a difficult question to answer directly. I'm just looking for an estimate as to what point is sufficient for concentrating the ore, as well as any alternative suggestions for concentrating methods etc... Thanks y'all.

- Casey

I'm no mining expert, but I believe this will depend of how fine you crush it and what form the Gold is in the Quartz.
Silver has much lower specific gravity and may be hard to get a good concentration this way.

Edit to change word.

 

[fishaholic5]

Pan in a tub to the stage you start losing material you wish to keep.
This will show you where to stop before losses start. Repan the material in the tub to recover anything that was lost.

Cheers Wal

 

[Darkthirty]

Hello everyone. I have tried to post this three times and it keeps getting discarded, so if for some reason the same question appears multiple times, I apologize. Anyway, I have a pretty large amount of oxidized quartz gold/silver ore and I have run a few smelts without concentrating the ore, and as you can imagine it's pretty inefficient since there is so much waste rock occupying space in the crucible. Eventually I will build a shaker table, but as of right now that is not immediately possible. So my question is this; at what point do I stop panning my crushed rock in order to simply concentrate my heavies? Should I discard roughly 50% of the material, 60%, 75%? I realize this may be a difficult question to answer directly. I'm just looking for an estimate as to what point is sufficient for concentrating the ore, as well as any alternative suggestions for concentrating methods etc... Thanks y'all.

- Casey

You'll need to crush it fine to pan it. A drop or 2 of dish soap will keep the gold from floating.

 

[wccurtis89]

You'll need to crush it fine to pan it. A drop or 2 of dish soap will keep the gold from floating.

I classify my crushed ore through a metal window screen which I believe is 40 mesh, so everything is 40 mesh or smaller.

 

[wccurtis89]

I'm no mining expert, but I believe this will depend of how fine you crush it and what form the Gold is in the Quartz.
Silver has much lower specific gravity and may be hard to get a good concentration this way.

Edit to change word.

I classify the ore through a metal window screen, which I believe is 40 mesh, so everything is 40 mesh or smaller. The gold is free, visible through a jeweler's loupe and sometimes with the naked eye.

 

[Darkthirty]

I classify my crushed ore through a metal window screen which I believe is 40 mesh, so everything is 40 mesh or smaller.

Specific gravity of gold is 19.3 or so, quartz 2.7. Panning shouldn't bae an issue.

 

[Martijn]

Hello everyone. I have tried to post this three times and it keeps getting discarded, so if for some reason the same question appears multiple times, I apologize. Anyway, I have a pretty large amount of oxidized quartz gold/silver ore and I have run a few smelts without concentrating the ore, and as you can imagine it's pretty inefficient since there is so much waste rock occupying space in the crucible. Eventually I will build a shaker table, but as of right now that is not immediately possible. So my question is this; at what point do I stop panning my crushed rock in order to simply concentrate my heavies? Should I discard roughly 50% of the material, 60%, 75%? I realize this may be a difficult question to answer directly. I'm just looking for an estimate as to what point is sufficient for concentrating the ore, as well as any alternative suggestions for concentrating methods etc... Thanks y'all.

- Casey

Obvioulsy: As far down as you can without loosing values. So that depends on a lot of factors: how rich is the ore? how fine is the gold, is it free-milled gold or ultra fine microscopic gold? Is any of it trapped in sulfides? How rich is the ore?

Classification is key in not loosing fine gold in between huge rocks in your pan. (a grain of sand is a huge rock for microscopic gold e.g.)
so classify beween meshes and you'll do much better. Uniform sized material can be panned easily. 50-100 mesh, 100-200 mesh, 200-400 mesh etc.
Then assay your panning tailings to see what you've missed.