2021....

[Dihusky]

MB you may well find you have to change angles and flows depending on the type and size of gold your blower is catching, what separates chunky bits efficiently and clears the debris may well be too steep for the finer material and certainly for flour gold. so catching and panning the tailings will become a critical element of the process. A screw mechanism from a scissor jack could be a useful bit of kit to incorporate into one set of sluice legs, quick jack up or down until you hit the magic angle.

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

Just saying how we do it MoneyBox...not giving advice....when we are appraising ground I always try to match the sampling method to the intended recovery method. So when we are working out where to dryblow we use the small unit in the vid...run 50kg and pan off the cons. It's a quick simple method that will tell you a story very quickly.

link to a vid is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnr04j6FMYY

If we have no idea where to begin, we run samples at about 100m x 100m in a grid pattern. If we get a hit we will then infill sample down to about 10m intervals if Lisa has any left. If have a good starting point...like an old patch we usually start in the middle and work N,S,E & W to form a cross...once we run out of colour we go to the next 'spoke'. We find this way very quickly defines the work zone.

 

[Tathradj]

Go get some number 4 lead shot.
12 pieces of it.
Flatten them a bit with a hammer.
Gold is not perfectly round.
Don't paint them. It will make you wonder.

When you get to a stage here you can recover them all,

Hit them harder.

Then when you have got them all,

File a bit of lead, With a flat course bastard file,

Measure it,
when you recover more than 90 %,

Go and build some thing else.

Then, sample a bucket full of the material you are running through and toss the lead filings in as a test run.

If you get close to the same result,

You are on the knee.

The heavies,

Use some nefarious way to get the rest.

 

[Nightjar]

MB, one of the best ever sluicing tricks we used, nothing left even the flour gold is in the jar.
Was sitting under a tree one afternoon sipping a coldie while running the fines through the recirculating sluice and noticed bees and hornets landing on the water in the return tub. They had a sip and flew off.
Got me thinking if the meniscus on the water can support a bug it would support flour gold.
Next trip we brought some dishwasher liquid along with us.
For starters we tipped a whole small bottle into the 60 litres we were using for sluicing.
Low and behold when the bees and hornets dropped in they took a dive, no longer were they supported on the water surface tension.
We actually pulverised a couple of buckets of fines from a previous trip and rerun it through the sluice again.
Yes, we actually got a smear of flour gold in the clean up.
From that day on we always dumped a bottle of the liquid in with the water.

We never made a fortune and only ever used our shovel fed home built dryblowers and sluices made out of a length of 150mm PVC pipe cut lengthwise.
BUT, we enjoyed the fact that every day with out fail there was gold in the jar. The added bonus was occasionally finding a nug or two in the top screen or the oversize heaps with a detector after wrapping up for the day.
30 years of mateship and never one argument about gold. We divided up the gold fourways at the end of a trip.

 

[Tathradj]

Yes, Finnish is a bloody good one in a recovery system.

Makes me smile when some one puts their fingers through
the fines wondering what they have got. O

 

[Moneybox]

Just saying how we do it MoneyBox...not giving advice....when we are appraising ground I always try to match the sampling method to the intended recovery method. So when we are working out where to dryblow we use the small unit in the vid...run 50kg and pan off the cons. It's a quick simple method that will tell you a story very quickly.

link to a vid is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnr04j6FMYY

If we have no idea where to begin, we run samples at about 100m x 100m in a grid pattern. If we get a hit we will then infill sample down to about 10m intervals if Lisa has any left. If have a good starting point...like an old patch we usually start in the middle and work N,S,E & W to form a cross...once we run out of colour we go to the next 'spoke'. We find this way very quickly defines the work zone.

I have the bellows version of that little Keens. I could do exactly as you suggest but today's exercise is just to try to get the sluice sorted. I've been running out of things to get my teeth into because my bits and pieces are floating about in freight somewhere. Today after collecting the dirt I got my pulleys from Victoria and Cat parts from Perth. The belt that I ordered from the UK turned up last week. It only took three days not three weeks like the things from the east.

 

[LONEWOLF]

Why not paint the lead Doug?, For testing it works better to quickly spot if your angle is right, water flow is right, and your Sluice works...

Here is a pic of a Dredge sluice that has the rubber flap as spoken about above... In a Dredge situation it is a must have..

And Yes I still own my Dredges ...But this is not my Dredge... I have made all my dredges and a few for mates... No issues for Flour Gold, just reduce water flow.... Most of the places We went to years ago there wasn't much flour gold there... A bucket at the end, and pan it off often tells you if you are capturing all, some or most...

LW...

 

[Tathradj]

Journalization,
In other words,
You spend too much time looking for them while the sluice is
in use.

Feeding a sluice has to be as smooth as possible.

 

[LONEWOLF]

..Paint Fluoro Pink... Only takes a sec to find them. When all is right you can remove your lead and never have to use it again.. measure your angles, Flow and you can set up in no time... Practice makes Perfect.. .. Try slow, smooth feed on a 6" dredge... Impossible. That's why you use a Header Box.. .. Yer I know we're not talking about Dredges but the same principles apply...

LW...

 

[Tathradj]

Anyway,
Back to Money Box's project.

 

[LONEWOLF]

Just offering up ideas that may help MB...

LW...

 

[Moneybox]

Just offering up ideas that may help MB...

LW...

I appreciate all the help I can get because I'm learning here, well Mrs M might say I never learn but she doesn't know everything
We'd kill for a flowing stream like that..... :lol:

 

[Moneybox]

Well as I said, my pulleys turned up so now the sluice has dropped a bit further down the list of jobs so you'll have to wait to see my results.

I purchased four taper-lock pulleys for the big serpentine belt. I have to make the tensioner pulley and mount it.

I started out with an air-conditioner drive pulley and machined to belt grooves off.

It was only 30mm wide, the same as the belt so I had to add a sleeve to the outside.

I used an offcut from the drill rod that we used for posts on the shade sails.

I didn't actually plan what width to make it but it ended up 47mm so that should be spot on.

I made it just a smidgin smaller than the pulley outside then popped the pulley into the freezer for a bit and the sleeve onto the gas stove. I'd have used the oxy set but my new gauge and hoses are still floating about in freight-space somewhere :argh:

It slipped on nicely and shrunk into place to stay.

I'll give you a little look at some of the wiggly bits and the belt and pulley setup.

The link from the diff should keep the gate on the bottom of the bin shuffling back and forth to meter the flow over the riffle trays.

I've used timing belts to link the idler shaft to the two crank shafts that move the bellows and keep them in sync.

All of the drive is through a very long serpentine belt that links the Honda engine, diff (for conveyor drive), idler shaft to the bellows and the wobble shaft up on top of the bin.

The tensioner pulley that I made up this afternoon should keep all that in order

 

[PabloP]

Man, you have put so much time, effort, and $$ into this, I really hope that it all works out well for you. Just sitting here on my butt watching all that you have done, makes me feel very lazy, so I must go and do something.

Rob P.

 

[Tathradj]

I did not know that Subaru made Dry Blower parts. ?

well there you go. O

 

[Moneybox]

I did not know that Subaru made Dry Blower parts. ?

well there you go. O

Good strong and compact with a 4.2:1 reduction and my son runs a performance workshop

 

[Tathradj]

LOL,

Those diffs are a wonderfull thing.
When they came out in Datsun 180b's and such, Every one was after them.
Gemini's were not that popular.

 

[Tathradj]

Is there going to be enough wrap on the pinion pully. ?

That is a mighty long timing belt.

Love your craftmans ship Moneybox.
If you can't buy it, Build it yourself.
And generally works out better in the long run if you
use common parts.

 

[Simmo]

@Tathradj for an IT expert you sure as hell sound like a mechanic...

 

[Moneybox]

Is there going to be enough wrap on the pinion pully. ?

That is a mighty long timing belt.

Love your craftmans ship Moneybox.
If you can't buy it, Build it yourself.
And generally works out better in the long run if you
use common parts.

Yes from a drive grip point of view the 6V belt is an overkill. I went to a big belt because it spans quite a distance and the big belt might not flap about too badly. It's 5385mm in length but it simplifies the drive to use a single belt for several shafts and I'm hoping it has a very long life.