Portable Crusher and processing unit

[RuddyCrazy]

G'day Guy's,

What I do for a job is I work as dual tradesman in a crushing company so with the scrap from work I do get to making some good things for finding gold. Now I do live on a 85 acre farm in the Adelaide Hills off the grid so it is fun to look at the big picture and think about what can be done using a small picture.

Well I have made a 10hp Honda motor Jaw Crusher using bisalloy 500 for the fixed and movable jaw then pad welded the grooves using TC16 rods, I recently scored a 250mm thick wall pipe and the idea is incorporate the lot so the 10HP motor drives it. Now the 250mm pipe will become a shaker rather then a ball mill as to crush the ore to powder seems the best way to go.

The final slice table will grade the ore and a furnace to melt the gold will be part of the package. Now remeber to have some lead on hand so we can qupell the gold to get rid of the sulphides.

Now the idea is this is a complete package so how many ounces of gold would this unit be worth

Cheers Bryan
..

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

Your competition is China I'm afraid.

Not sure what you mean about a shaker rather than ball mill?

What is the recovery method?....sluice?

 

[RuddyCrazy]

Your competition is China I'm afraid.

But isn't this an Aussie forum where locally made stuff is preferred to mass produced crap from that country

Not sure what you mean about a shaker rather than ball mill?

A ball mill needs the gravity effect so need to be a large diameter, a shaker is a rod mill

What is the recovery method?....sluice?

Now I will be making a sluice and for the capture screen I'll go to a dollar store and look for some silicon baking sheets as on looking at them before has twigged my memory

I have been making and researching this now for a few years and found for a viable gold mine only 5 grams a tonne is required to be a viable mine.

Now the method I will be using unless it is free gold I will be crushing the ore to a powder and I am thinking along the lines of using aqua rega to dissolve the gold out of the ore then smelt it using another project when that 1.5mm nichrome gets here thats on the slow boat from China. that will make a lab furnace where I can melt the gold again to qupell the gold to make it pure. Got plenty of lead here for that process too.

A propane furnace will be made and a triangular steel mold will be fabricated to get the raw gold button.

I do have a 16hp listeroid engine sitting idle and that could be used as the power plant and in 4 years I can get my super so a 5 ton excavator is on the cards and an old tipper truck to use on the farm.

Now once I get this unit all sorted and proven it will never be sold as it will be my unit but I can make more units and the more I get into the better they will be.

I do everything off the grid and if I haven't said before I am a dual tradesman fitter/ machinist/ fabricator/ boilmaker and I have my own workshop on it's own power array. Eh I do make my own moonshine too and my apple is one to kill for

Cheers Bryan

 

[Simmo]

5g per tonne and you will be a millionaire..
We are profitable at 0.3 g pt.

1 ounce in 100 tonne is the norm. (Alluvial but, crushing rock is something I know little about)

 

[XLOOX]

I hate to be a negative Nelly but some comments.

A gold processing plant, even a small one, is best designed around the size & grade of the orebody & the type of rock & gold occurence. If you want to just use up stuff you have at home then what you make is unlikely to suit any particular persons needs very well. It may well "work" but the difference between getting 50% & 80% recovery on 5g/t head is $120/t and your 10hp plant should do about 0.5tph so the diff is $60/hr = $14500 per month. For that sort of potential loss I personally would want a plant designed for my specific ore.

Thick wall pipe, even Sched 40 or even Sched 80 is still only mild steel, it will wear out relatively quickly - all rock mills have hardened steel liners to resist wear.

Not sure what you mean by a shaker ? Sweco vibro mill ? Hard to beat a ball mill for reliability & simplicity...

Aqua regia is VERY dangerous & will dissolve a lot of stuff in the ore besides the gold, you will need another liquor treatment method afterwards before smelting. I would do almost anything to avoid using this stuff in industrial quantities. Have you used aqua regia before?

Cyanide is MUCH safer than aqua regia & running the preg thru carbon & just burning the carbon is a simple way of recovering the gold.

Happy to take flak at this point but just wanted to save you some heartache & $$

 

[jethro]

I hate to be a negative Nelly but some comments.

A gold processing plant, even a small one, is best designed around the size & grade of the orebody & the type of rock & gold occurence. If you want to just use up stuff you have at home then what you make is unlikely to suit any particular persons needs very well. It may well "work" but the difference between getting 50% & 80% recovery on 5g/t head is $120/t and your 10hp plant should do about 0.5tph so the diff is $60/hr = $14500 per month. For that sort of potential loss I personally would want a plant designed for my specific ore.

I totally agree with the above. I think you first have to identify a resource, size, grade, percentage of gold that is free mill and recoverable by gravity circuit. You also need to consider mesh size that the ore will need to be reduced to to free the gold. Also nugget effect on grade.

I wouldnt be getting carried away with chemical recovery until you find out how much you are loosing in the gravity circuit and what other minerals are in the ore that may inhibit the leaching or amalgamation.

Build a pilot plant first and find out what works and what doesnt. Then when you have figured out the ore scale up. ower:

Its all a learning curve.

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

Any gravity recovery is only ever going to give you 50-60% recovery. Finding the correct grinding fraction is all fine except most of that size gold will not
be recoverable by gravity anyway. It is better to match the crushing/recovery circuit to the ore....but how many prospectors are sitting on several hundred thousands of tonnes of dirt? I can only speak for ourselves....we have a crushing and grinding circuit....then change between recovery units depending on the gold....then stockpile the sands as they still contain values for leaching at a later date...or onselling to companies looking for mill feed which is the more likely scenario in our case. This system keeps things simple....gives us a cash flow and allows us to pull small high grade pockets from around the area and bring it to one central point to process. I would love to have the money to just leach straight away...but gravity keeps things simple....running oxides only also keeps the mines dept happy!

 

[jethro]

Hey there Goldtalk. What sort of gravity recovery systems are you running? Im only small time hobbist in the Victorian High country. I just work under a miners right and go round cleaning up what the old guys left behind. I have small pilot plant that would be flat out running 250kg in a day but it seems to work ok on fine sulphide flour gold
I to try and stay on the oxidized stone. If I found something on a bigger scale and jumped through all the hoops to get a Prospecting Licence <5hectares 5yrs. I would be looking to upsize to a plant that was able to be contained in a 20ft container and transported to site. It would need to be capable of a couple of tons a day Crush grind and recover. Sounds easy when you say it quick. :|

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

G'day Jethro.....I'm no expert mate...just putting that out there!

If you have half an hour of your life to waste have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4VRIWxNfwI&t=116s

It's a PP presentation from a talk I was asked to give at the APLA AGM last year....it covers a number of things but it also shows a high grade pod we hooked out and a bit on a sampling plant we built called Blue Balls. To answer your question...usually centrifugal concentrators. Knudson Bowls and/or Nelson Concentrator depending on what I need to catch. I don't know anything about prospecting in Victoria but from all I hear it would be hard to be viable. WA is a Mining state and although there are still a lot of hoops to jump through you can move dirt here.

A containerised plant is easy enough in theory....but it would want to be some significant grade to make 2t per day viable. A small mobile plant doing 10TPH is quite doable for us little blokes.
eers
Tony
ch

 

[RuddyCrazy]

Every year at work we overhaul a brick crusher and I had the chance last year to get all of the old hammers but only got a dozen or so. Next month when it comes in I'm bringing home the lot so I can design and make a hammer mill. These hammers used only have about 20% above the shaft and they are made from bisalloy 500 so they are pretty tough, I have machined this material in the past and it aint that hard to do.

As far as using that thick wall pipe for the shaker I'll line the inside with hard facing and repeat the process after signs of wearing. Now to full y explain what the shaker is instead of rotating where the balls drop and crush the ore the unit just shakes at about 200-300 cycles a minute. This causes the balls to bounce which then crush the ore and including a little water helps out immensely with the action and the delivery of the powdered ore thru a fine screen. The creen I'll be using is a 30 micron SS one I'll make as I have a bit of that fine mesh onhand.

For the final processing I'm going to design up and make a sluice using some scotch brite and expanded mesh and setup a recycled water system as here on the farm we are not on mains water.

Eh I do enjoy designing this stuff and with plenty of mining data onhand here by looking at what the big guy's do gives a good light into designing small gear.

Now as far as using this aqua regia if it isn't done properly it can be a dangerous exercise, by adding the nitric acid in very small amounts cuts down on the toxic gas's and uses a lot less acid. I am going to make up a fume hood for my soon to be built home lab so everything will be done safely and one of my good friends is a retired chemist who is keen to come over when I do this exercise.

Also I have a vintage 4" forge blower it's a 3 phase unit and I have put on a VFD so I can run it on single phase and go from a light breeze to a very strong wind, For a bit of fun I made up an oil burner out of some copper pipe and when I got it started a 6' flame was produced and man did it throw some heat out. So that may even prove to be a good unit to use for smelting and looking on fleabay for crucibles they look that flimsy I'll just go buy some graphite and I'll machine my own up.

For my job I work at a crushing company down in town and 90% of my work is fabrication and at home I have arc, mig and tig machines and when I get my air system up and going I'll get a plasma cutter.

Cheers Bryan

 

[jethro]

My theoretical cutoff is 10grams per tonne or 1 gram per 100kg as long as its easily got out and transported. If I was gunna have to cart it more than 300 metres in the bush in a barrow it would want to be around the 20-30 gram per tonne mark. I did come across a small leader a few yrs ago that was going around the 40gram to the tonne mark but it was too small to get more than a about 100 kg from. Its still there right beside the track but is pinching out.

 

[jethro]

Hey Ruddy sounds like you've got it covered. Have fun and post a few picks of your outfit and gold as you get it up and going. :Y:

 

[XLOOX]

You have def puta lot of thought into this and have the skills & resources to make it work. All the best !

 

[dam it]

G'day Jethro.....I'm no expert mate...just putting that out there!

If you have half an hour of your life to waste have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4VRIWxNfwI&t=116s

It's a PP presentation from a talk I was asked to give at the APLA AGM last year....it covers a number of things but it also shows a high grade pod we hooked out and a bit on a sampling plant we built called Blue Balls. To answer your question...usually centrifugal concentrators. Knudson Bowls and/or Nelson Concentrator depending on what I need to catch. I don't know anything about prospecting in Victoria but from all I hear it would be hard to be viable. WA is a Mining state and although there are still a lot of hoops to jump through you can move dirt here.

A containerised plant is easy enough in theory....but it would want to be some significant grade to make 2t per day viable. A small mobile plant doing 10TPH is quite doable for us little blokes.
eers
Tony
ch

:Y: Thanks for sharing your Presentation on Youtube link I enjoyed it .
Are you after investment capitol ? Giver me a PM maybe we can talk .

 

[jethro]

Hey Goldtalk I watched all your vids and the presentation. You Guys are next level to my little enterprise. You've got quite a bit of $ tied up in machinery. and leases etc. Unfortunately over here in Vic small scale is almost actively discouraged. It would be great to be able to find some ground wack in your pegs and pay a pitance for the priveledge. Ill drop you a PM soon keep up the vids work. erfect:

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

Hey Goldtalk I watched all your vids and the presentation. You Guys are next level to my little enterprise. You've got quite a bit of $ tied up in machinery. and leases etc. Unfortunately over here in Vic small scale is almost actively discouraged. It would be great to be able to find some ground wack in your pegs and pay a pitance for the priveledge. Ill drop you a PM soon keep up the vids work. erfect:

Thanks Jethro, it's all about the adventure for us....money yes, but mostly trying to live life on our terms. One of the things I love about it is that you never know it all
and every bloody day is a challenge.

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

G'day Jethro.....I'm no expert mate...just putting that out there!

If you have half an hour of your life to waste have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4VRIWxNfwI&t=116s

It's a PP presentation from a talk I was asked to give at the APLA AGM last year....it covers a number of things but it also shows a high grade pod we hooked out and a bit on a sampling plant we built called Blue Balls. To answer your question...usually centrifugal concentrators. Knudson Bowls and/or Nelson Concentrator depending on what I need to catch. I don't know anything about prospecting in Victoria but from all I hear it would be hard to be viable. WA is a Mining state and although there are still a lot of hoops to jump through you can move dirt here.

A containerised plant is easy enough in theory....but it would want to be some significant grade to make 2t per day viable. A small mobile plant doing 10TPH is quite doable for us little blokes.
eers
Tony
ch

:Y: Thanks for sharing your Presentation on Youtube link I enjoyed it .
Are you after investment capitol ? Giver me a PM maybe we can talk .

Thanks but no thanks Dam it....

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

I'm prob hijacking the thread....apologies if thats the case...

this is a vid of our sampling plant at work and a bit of an explanation about what we are trying to achieve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMjBiX8IGKg

In hindsight, there are easier ways to go about it but this is the way we went partially because of gear we acquired and so that we had flexibility
with our sampling.

A small plant like this (2TPH) is very achievable I think for most of us....trick is having the dirt required to need it!

 

[RuddyCrazy]

I'm prob hijacking the thread....apologies if thats the case...

Not at all mate and it was great watching those videos and I did subscribe to your youtube channel aswell.

Now we do have some largish diameter pipe off cuts at work, now where I say largish about a metre diameter in different lengths. Now that would be about the smallest I reckon one could use for a small ball mill and it should do a dam good job at crushing. But that project is on the back burner for now as I have quite a few projects going and with summer coming on plenty of apple cider to make as when I get this wine press finished a trip to the co-op for a 100kg's of apples will be on the cards.

Now it would be great if you could show the internals of that impact crusher the next time your working on it would be great to see and a new train of thought will be under way for making a smaller one.

Now yes I do have a dolly block setup here, just an empty mapp gas bottle cut in half and a 1" diameter lump of SS which does work a treat in powdering the rocks. I do need to re-think the design of my jaw crusher as it going way too slow and could be the reason it stalls when a nice lump of quartz is thrown in. The fixed and movable plates are bisalloy 500 and using TC16 welding rod's I welded some pad's. I do find by having the moveable jaw relaxed on the first pass works nice then a second pass with the jaw close to closed does get the rocks pretty small and a heap of powder.

I will get the crusher out of my shed so I can take a few pic's and the whole design of the jaw crusher came from some rollers I machined up for making a wacking pad, they have a 10mm throw and the crusher was born from those 2 offest rollers. I setup a triple reduction and got close to 12:1 ratio but by using 2" V-pulley's has proved to be the main problem. I will change the ratio and put larger pulley's on and then see how it goes and hopefully it will solve the problem.

Work has really ramped up and I'm doing 10 hour work days so not getting much time to get any work done in the shed.

Cheers Bryan

 

[jethro]

Hey Ruddy I have made a small jaw crusher as well as a Impact mill. So heres a few observations/ tips. If you want to Hardface something you need to consider whether it will be and abrasive wea,r like the cutting edge on a dozer blade or wear caused by high speed impact with hard objects like in impact mills. Many of the welding consumable companies list their MMA rods and there ideal application on their websites. 16tc's are good for a cushion layer between the base and the hardface. Ive been using CIG Coblarc electrodes bought by the stick from Southern cross Welding supplies, as I dont need a whole Box. I cant remember the exact Code but they were a self air hardening Martenistic Rod. They work very well on both abrasive and impact type wear surfaces.

If your jaw crusher is stalling on the belts you may need to add a flywheel to the concentric end of the eccentric shaft to give it some inertia. The shaft should be turning at between 60 and 100 rpm, also the larger the pulley contact length on the belt the more grip you will have for the same amount of belt tension.

:Y: :Y: