Blue Bowl Concentrator information and questions

[Danielkrupski]

I'm happy to report that Santa will be delivering a blue bowl to me for Xmas day, so I have been doing some research on how to use it and came across this web page. http://www.iowagold.com/HOWTOPAGES/how_to_run_a_blue_bowl.htm. Does the process of using the vinegar and or the white salt work has anyone used these methods.

 

[DropBear]

I just use a little bit of dishwashing dry stuff.

Works well... Just go nuts with it, learn how to use it.

You just keep adjusting the flow, i'm still a noob at it but it is good fun!

 

[Danielkrupski]

I just noticed that the link doesn't work so I will post what it says. Blue Bowl micro Gold recovery system

Hand panning concentrates smaller than 20 mesh is difficult and tedious, even an expert panner loses a lot of micro fine Gold. The Blue Bowl, used properly will recover Gold as fine as talcum powder.

Equipment needed: Blue Bowl, gem tumbler, gold pans, 20, 50, and 100 mesh sieves, 20 gallon plastic tub, 4 gallon plastic buckets, sniffer bottle, tumbler, cast iron skillet, vinegar, table salt and wetting agent.

Classify your material into different sizes, Gold larger than 20 mesh can be picked the out with tweezers, and can be processed using a micro sluice or Gold wheel, i.e., Desert Fox, Gold Genie, etc. Gold smaller than 20 mesh calls for the Blue Bowl. After processing your concentrates with a Blue Bowl, place prescreened minus 20 mesh concentrates into a tumbler, add acidic acid "white vinegar," and tumble over night. Remove the concentrates from the tumbler, then rerun them in small quantities in the Blue Bowl, using a small scoop. When finished, extract the Gold with your snuffer bottle.

Mix the remaining black sand, and the black sands discharged from the Blue Bowl with equal amounts of table salt. Place the mixture into a cast iron skillet and heat until mixture is scorching hot and completely dry. Pour the hot concentrates into a plastic bucket or small tub of cold water. This procedure fractures the attached Gold from the sodium and black sand. Collect the processed concentrates and rerun them again using the Blue Bowl at a reduced water pressure and water level.

This process will take extra time, but you will recover the micro Gold conventional panning washes away. After the concentrates have been processed, remove the Gold from the Blue Bowl using a snuffer bottle. Is it worth the extra effort? You bet! More often than not, there is 4-7 times more micro Gold than visible Gold in your black sands. I threw away a small fortune in micro Gold in my haste to clean up the concentrates of an eight inch dredge. A mate turned me on to using a Blue Bowl to reprocess my black sands during the winter months after dredge season closed. At the end of the season I might have twenty, five gallon buckets of black sand. From a single bucket I recovered 25 dwt before tumbling and roasting using the Blue Bowl. The black sands had been screened and processed using a popular Gold wheel before I tried using the Blue Bowl

 

[aussiefarmer]

Sounds a big job I just sieve the cons at 20 50 and 100 and run each lot separate, use plenty of dishwasher rinse aid and let the bowl do the rest , you must keep an eye on water level as the sand on the bottom reduces and changes shape the vortex speeds up and therefore the water height on the outer edge of bowl gets higher. Good fun and good to use it while you do other little jobs out in the shed.

 

[rockerfella]

Hi guys,
Always reprocess the discards from the blue bowl. The photo below is about 3 months worth of processing. Amazing what can escape the little bugger.
Cheers
Mark

 

[aussiefarmer]

Interesting do you think its just a average loss that all bluebowl users would encounter or maybe rushed feeding or overfilling or floaty gold ?

I am fairly new to the bluebowl and believe i am just starting to be in full control of it, the difference in the flow of materials from different sites is interesting .

I just finished some blue bowling and i basically i have proved how highly efficent my mini clean up sluice is , i run 5 to 10 liters of cons down my mini sluice and recovered 1.3 grams , then i sieved the run off from mini sluice 3 ways and then run it through the bluebowl and only got 3 flecks that were of concern and about 40 dots no bigger than a pin prick 8) as in need a torch to see them all in a green pan.

Crazy to see what goes through a 100th seive after being high banked and mini sluiced there was about 3/4 of a cup of super fine silt that gave about 20 micro dots of gold.

 

[Danielkrupski]

Mate I did the same after receiving my blue bowl from Santa. 3 of the tiniest specks in half a bucket of cons that have been run thru an angus mackirk predator 3. I ran it thru the angus first checked the tailings thru the blue bowl. Nothing. Then proceeded with the cons that had been screened. I checked every size from the tailings that the blue bowl spat out and on the smallest size that I have which I think is 100 or 150 mesh, correct me if im wrong not sure bought a blue bowl screening kit I found the 3. For 3 specks of gold that took almost a week in testing to recover I should have gone prospecting. It's great. It loses some. It takes ages. For what it doesn't catch could be down to human error. I'm glad I have it.

 

[G0lddigg@]

i'm not a fan of bluebowls myself they tend to knock and collect but good classification seems to be the key.

 

[Danielkrupski]

Absolutely classifiing is the key with the blue bowl and patience. What method do you use goldigg?

 

[G0lddigg@]

Mate i run my cons through one of my cleanup sluices or just pan. Panning mostly when im feeling lazy and ive got heaps of really fine stuff ill throw some mercury in the pan. Kind of like forced saving. Once in a while ill retort and get a nice surprise

 

[rockerfella]

Hi guys,
I do classify the cons, down to 100 mesh and that's after I have concentrated my cons in the Gold cube. I think you guys are right, I am probably rushing it, i think I will slow the process down a tad. Patience is probably not my best virtue.
Interestingly, I have never found a single spec in the Gold Cube tailings which I regularly check.
Also as you can see in the photo, what I did loose in the blue bowl was micro gold. The slightly larger specs were really flat, I guess having a more floating effect in the blue bowl.
I also always use finish in the water.
Cheers
Mark

 

[PicknShovels]

Hi all, just wondering how blue bowls go for seperating black sand from gold? Each time i go out im bringing home a 6" finishing pan full of black sand and panning it at home to recover the gold. I do most of my prospecting in Reeds Ck in NE Vic if your wondering how heavy the black sands are. Cheers

 

[Gaz&Al]

My mate uses his blue bowl and it does a great job the black sand at Adelong is horrendous
Cheers

 

[PicknShovels]

Are they as labour intensive as a miller table? What sort of volume are you left with ? What sort of ratio is left at the end? Sorry for the questions. Cheers

 

[Gaz&Al]

Hi mate you have to put it in a tablespoon at a time you still have some blacks and in the jar with the gold it is slow and time consuming like Miller table. I made a millar table as I don't mind tinkering away that's the fun part .
Hope this helps you ,maybe someone else might contribute .
Cheers

 

[PicknShovels]

Ive got a miller table and it works fine. Only issue is with the amount of black sand im bringing home each trip its taking me 2-3hrs ( sometimes longer) to pan out , dry and weigh the gold. I dont mind doing it but i was wondering if there is a less time consuming way of seperating the black sands from the AU. If i wasnt so hell bent on keeping the alluvial gold in its natural form id run it through a retort lol.

 

[Yellow Hornet]

If you check out this blokes You tube of the blue bowl process it's pretty accurate.

It is a long video though.

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXkb7bw8TRoh.

 

[Yellow Hornet]

Don't know if the link came up.

It's Adventure Gold. "Gold recovery using a blue bowl"

 

[Gaz&Al]

I try to pan as much of the blacksand off as I can before bringing it home.
I try to back wash it out of the pan it seems to work fine
I don't know what else to try sorry
Cheers

 

[PicknShovels]

I pan down till im left with only black sand aswell, theres just so much of it lol i plan on running the remaining black sand through a retort as i know there would be quite a bit of flour gold i would have missed.

Cheers on the link mate, ill have a watch tonight when i climb into bad.