Best portable dryblower

[Murphy81]

Looking for a good rugged dryblower for sampling some creeks. Would probably need to be packed up a couple of times a day. Any ideas welcome, and if someone has made their own and willing to share ideas, even better. Cheers legends.

 

[Simmo]

Me being the big ugly elephant in the room!!
This is a hand operated bellows you are after or to be used on a permitted mining lease?!

 

[Murphy81]

Nah mate, have permission, just wanting to do a lot of samples relatively quickly while the kids are home from school.

 

[Stingray]

Hi Murphy81, I made one for that purpose - there are some photos in a thread titled bellows dry washer build. Woodeen, wing nutty to bolt it together and fits in a bucket. I use it a fair bit now (on a lease) and got tired of operating it by hand so have modified it to a constant air version by replacing the bellows with a box containing a passive fan that is unbalanced by a lead weight to provide vibration. The riffle tray assembly is now suspended under the hopper from wire hooks at the back and a spring at the front. The air supply is from a ryobi workshop blower. It is light, tiny, 3 settings and variable speed - speed 2 worked best for mine. A 1.3 aH battery will run about 10l of dirt. I tested it this season and it worked pretty well so will now get a 4.5 aH battery. I still think the gold recovery was better with the bellows, but it still catches gold and its quick.

As an aside the blower is now in my camping kit - it is really good for getting the fire going again when it is spluttering, and adjusting the heat of the 'coals' for cooking - better than a blow pipe I can tell you!

 

[Nightjar]

Hi Murphy81, I made one for that purpose - there are some photos in a thread titled bellows dry washer build. Woodeen, wing nutty to bolt it together and fits in a bucket. I use it a fair bit now (on a lease) and got tired of operating it by hand so have modified it to a constant air version by replacing the bellows with a box containing a passive fan that is unbalanced by a lead weight to provide vibration. The riffle tray assembly is now suspended under the hopper from wire hooks at the back and a spring at the front. The air supply is from a ryobi workshop blower. It is light, tiny, 3 settings and variable speed - speed 2 worked best for mine. A 1.3 aH battery will run about 10l of dirt. I tested it this season and it worked pretty well so will now get a 4.5 aH battery. I still think the gold recovery was better with the bellows, but it still catches gold and its quick.

As an aside the blower is now in my camping kit - it is really good for getting the fire going again when it is spluttering, and adjusting the heat of the 'coals' for cooking - better than a blow pipe I can tell you!

Can agree bellows out perform constant air. AND more compact for easy transport.

 

[kev205]

I built one out of aluminium with bellows, is hand operated, but did put a wiper motor on it for a while but got sick of toting the battery about works just fine by hand. I usually get a couple of 20ltr buckets of material from a creek or some sites across an area I wish to check, then bring them back to my camp and process when the urge takes me. It has lawn motor wheels on it and can be moved along as the spoils build up. I am down the coast at the moment but wil be back in the gold fields in a few days and will take some pics and post them here.

 

[Murphy81]

I built one out of aluminium with bellows, is hand operated, but did put a wiper motor on it for a while but got sick of toting the battery about works just fine by hand. I usually get a couple of 20ltr buckets of material from a creek or some sites across an area I wish to check, then bring them back to my camp and process when the urge takes me. It has lawn motor wheels on it and can be moved along as the spoils build up. I am down the coast at the moment but wil be back in the gold fields in a few days and will take some pics and post them here.

Some pictures would be awesome thanks mate. Got an ac/dc tig, so will probably be using aluminium as well.

 

[xracer550]

You may get some Ideas from looking at some that have all ready been made =
https://www.keene.store/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=DW2

 

[Moneybox]

I have the little Keens hand operated bellows one. The mesh under the riffles is too large allowing too much air to escape until you have the whole tray loaded with dirt so I made a new riffle tray using nylon microfibre from an expensive dress shirt and now it works well.

 

[Moneybox]

On Goldilocks I use calico under the riffle trays.



It's been there for a year or so and works much better than the 125 micron SS mesh that I fitted originally. If I was to make a small one I'd use calico for the cloth.