Panning Gold from incinerated and crushed RAM Chips

[JasonT]

There's gold south of Syracuse or you are south of Syracuse? The thing I like most about Syracuse is the Destiny Mall. It's where I get my Apple products replaced.

I am south of Syracuse. There is gold gold in the southern states. VA, NC, SC, GA. Vermont is very rich also

 

[JasonT]

Spent a week in Syracuse in 1999. The National Trappers Association held their annual convention there the week after the Woodstock reunion. Was 6pm before we could get in our room even that far from the concert.

Trapping is becoming a thing of the past. I still set a few, but furs don't bring any money, and regs are ridiculous

 

[GoldReport]

@JasonT are you a prospector in upstate NY? I hear there's gold in them thar hills, at least the Adirondack's. And in the Finger Lakes region too. Actually they are both great areas to just be outdoors, any gold would be a bonus!

Found some fine flour gold in south west NY. Sand came from a sand and gravel operation, I grabbed some material from a sand processing machine called a sand screw. It uses gravity separation principles to remove finer fractions of sand, it has a side effect of concentrating heavy minerals in the bottom of the screw. That being said there was not very much and it was quite fine, but it was there!

 

[4metals]

Well there’s a lot more there at $2600 gold than there was at $300 gold. That’s why it pays to check out old tailings piles from
old mines!

 

[GoldReport]

Well there’s a lot more there at $2600 gold than there was at $300 gold. That’s why it pays to check out old tailings piles from
old mines!

That is 100% true! Unfortunately it was not enough to convince the bosses to invest a bit more time and money to set up a process to recover gold on a more regular basis. Were a construction company that just so happens to own some aggregate mines so it's not in our realm of expertise. The guy who ran that plant was ecstatic about it! (And so was I)

 

[kurtak]

Well there’s a lot more there at $2600 gold than there was at $300 gold. That’s why it pays to check out old tailings piles from
old mines!

No question about it - the dollar "amount" has certainly gone up - but - the dollar "value" (what it will buy) hasn't changed all that much

in other words - it still takes an ounce of gold at $2,650 to buy what an ounce of gold at $300 used to buy

Kurt

 

[haveagojoe]

No question about it - the dollar "amount" has certainly gone up - but - the dollar "value" (what it will buy) hasn't changed all that much

in other words - it still takes an ounce of gold at $2,650 to buy what an ounce of gold at $300 used to buy

Kurt

This is a handy site for market-watchers: https://pricedingold.com/

For example, priced in gold, UK house prices are the same now as they were in 1952, but over 100 times more expensive in Sterling!
https://pricedingold.com/uk-house-prices/

 

[Alondro]

This is a handy site for market-watchers: https://pricedingold.com/

For example, priced in gold, UK house prices are the same now as they were in 1952, but over 100 times more expensive in Sterling!
https://pricedingold.com/uk-house-prices/

Invest in CRYPTO!! Because nebulous computer code that can be erased from existence by a strong enough magnet is CLEARLY more valuable than any physical property! (At least with the Tulip Bulb Craze, you got pretty flowers.)

 

[JasonT]

Found some fine flour gold in south west NY. Sand came from a sand and gravel operation, I grabbed some material from a sand processing machine called a sand screw. It uses gravity separation principles to remove finer fractions of sand, it has a side effect of concentrating heavy minerals in the bottom of the screw. That being said there was not very much and it was quite fine, but it was there!View attachment 66075

Yes, a sand screw is an excellent piece of equipment to sample. There is glacial gold in most gravel in NY....all brought by the glaciers as they retreated from Canada.

 

[JasonT]

No question about it - the dollar "amount" has certainly gone up - but - the dollar "value" (what it will buy) hasn't changed all that much

in other words - it still takes an ounce of gold at $2,650 to buy what an ounce of gold at $300 used to buy

Kurt

An ounce of gold would have filled your trunk with groceries in the 70's, it will do the same today. I will post some pics of gold I have found when I get a chance.

 

[Alondro]

Yes, a sand screw is an excellent piece of equipment to sample. There is glacial gold in most gravel in NY....all brought by the glaciers as they retreated from Canada.

An ounce of gold would have filled your trunk with groceries in the 70's, it will do the same today. I will post some pics of gold I have found when I get a chance.

Where do you shop that simple groceries cost $2600???!!! I fill my trunk and backseat when I shop, and that's usually 1/10th that amount.

Anyway, some of that glacial gold made its way down to NJ and ended up in the terminal moraines scattered here and there. I found one in Bordentown. It's tough to find undisturbed locations that are accessible, since NJ is so heavily developed right in the places most of the moraines exist.

 

[stella polaris]

Anyone that have tried Air/cyclone to separate ash/gold.

Moderator edited text to remove all bold text

 

[Yggdrasil]

Anyone that have tried Air/cyclone to separate ash/gold.

Moderator edited text to remove all bold text

Please do not use all bold text.
Anyway a good question.

 

[patnor1011]

I have seen miners in Australia using air simply because they do not have enough water to use so it does work but with bonding wires seeing how tiny they are it would take a lot of fine tuning to make it work and then just a little mistake will result in losing a lot of it.

 

[4metals]

Look up dry bank gold mining or dry washing that is used for separating the gold when there is no water, like in ancient dry stream beds. Don’t know how effective they will be with fines.

 

[JasonT]

I have seen miners in Australia using air simply because they do not have enough water to use so it does work but with bonding wires seeing how tiny they are it would take a lot of fine tuning to make it work and then just a little mistake will result in losing a lot of it.

Drywashing (use of air) is not as efficient as processing with water.

 

[kurtak]

Anyone that have tried Air/cyclone to separate ash/gold.

Yes - I have tried/experimented with dry air separation of ash from incinerated IC chips to concentrate the bond wires & can tell you it does not work well at all

I posted about this when it was proposed earlier this year in this thread -----------

https://goldrefiningforum.com/threads/best-options-for-this-ash.34030/page-2#post-366490

That was basically the short answer to multiple experiments I tried with "dry washing" including using compressed air with the PSI turned down to 5 - 3 PSI in a blue bowl (which would be the principal of "a cyclone")

Can you get "some" bond wires to collect/concentrate with dry washing? - yes - BUT - I can ASSURE you that you will most certainly suffer a "fair" amount of gold lost with dry washing methods no matter how much you play with/adjust air speed/flow

Bond wires have a characteristic about them that is a bit different then placer gold (fine placer gold) &/or milled ore that makes them "a bit" more difficult in capturing/concentrate - even with water/gravity separation

Bond "wires" are basically VERY small cylinders - so they like to "roll" when "currents" catch them "across" there length (as opposed to end to end) - so - currents (whether water or air) can/will cause (at least "some") wires to literally roll away

You can try an experiment to see what I am talking about using a "true" miller table

A true miller table is basically a sluice box with a "smooth" plastic mat (no ribs or riffles) used for cleaning up ultra fine gold in placer black sands &/or doing small test samples of ultra fine milled ore (you of course need to have the angle of the table set right as well as water flow set right) It is a VERY slow process so really only works on "very" small batches of black sands &/or "samples" of milled ore - but when properly set up does a "very" good job of cleaning up the ultra fine gold in black sands or milled ore samples

Anyway - back to the experiment --- take a tablespoon of black sands &/or tablespoon of milled ore & spread it across the head (top end) of the table & it will very slowly wash most everything but the gold away - leaving most of the gold at the head of the table with "some" gold making it as far as half way down the table - you will see little or NO gold wash off the bottom end of the table

Now try it with a tablespoon of IC chip ash & though yes much/most of the gold will collect on the table you will also see/watch "some" bond wires literally "roll" off the bottom end of the table

In other words - wires with their ends pointed in the same direction of the water flow stick to the table because the water flows past them from end to end - whereas wires that run "across" the current are caught by the flow which rolls them down the table

Now then - another thing about bond wires that makes them different then (fine) placer gold &/or fine milled ore --- some wires are longer then others - so - if they are long enough that they are able to twist &/or bend during crushing/milling those bent &/or twisted wires can/will allow currents (whether water or air) to get under them & "lift" them allowing them to roll down the table &/or do a flip flop tumble down the table & wash off the out feed end of the table

Now then - there are several things that help to overcome these problems with concentrating gold bond wires (& I certainly don't have time to post all the details right now) but - one of them is "wetting" the wires

Wet wires does two things

1) the water on the surface of the wires gives the more weight which in turn helps them settle better & as well provides "a bit" more resistance to "current" flow

2) the water on the surface of one wire (to a degree) acts somewhat as a glue to the water on the surface of another wire (if they happen to be touching each other) so with two or more wire (somewhat) glued together provides more resistance to current flow simply in the fact that 2 or more wires "somewhat" bonded together by water have more density then a single wire without this bonding

You can do another experiment to prove this out

Take your gold pan - put some IC chip ash in your pan - pan it down to a nice little stringer of gold in the bottom of your pan - while still wet blow on that little stringer of gold & none of the gold bond wires will blow away --- now let that little stringer of gold completely dry out & blow on it again & you will most certainly blow away gold bond wires

This is why trying to "dry wash" IC chip ash does not work well & is a VERY inefficient way to try to concentrate gold bond wires

For what it is worth

Kurt

 

[JasonT]

A couple of pics to show the different gold we find in CA and ID