My fiance got me one for our Anniversary!! I have the same set up as the one in this video. I ran a bucket of river sand and after I was done I noticed that I lost a ton of black sand. I'm thinking that if I lost black sand then I'm definitely losing fine gold. I stopped and scrutinized every aspect of the process. I realized that before every use the vortex matting must be hit with water and a brush, or hit with high pressure water before use to get rid of air pockets.( when cube is dry, run water over the matting and you will see air pockets in the matting that needs to be brushed out or hit with high pressure water) If you just turn it on and run it you will lose most of your black sand dew to air pockets in the matting. And a surfactant is a must because you will still have to pan out the cons. Also, I went to the dollar store and bought egg magnets and placed them at the bottom water fall parts (G force separator) so that just before it hits the G force it will slow down the black sand and drop the gold to the bottom! Also, You will want to get a magnetic Hardware tray, place it at the very bottom Outlet at an angled down. this will catch any black sand that maybe trying to escape. Brushing down the matting with water to get rid of air pockets is vital! Also, being level all the way around is a must! The matting must be scrubbed thoroughly when it is first received from the manufacturer because the matting has oil on it and we'll kick off most of your heavies if not clean with dove soap. I still have not physically been able to put gold in a vile because the material from where I live sux donkey balls... I am going to find a place where I can buy dirt that may contain gold!! I'm not in the game for the money, I'm in the game because I love how it looks! I'm mesmerised buy the fact that I have a chance at seeing real life gold in the wild! I'm gonna find it because I will not stop. I'm bound and determined to find the G spot!! lol I'll send you an email with pix on how it's set up! I re-ran the material that I first used and tripled my black sands! All the black sand contains micro fine gold and I'm still working on the panning technique. I'm definitely gonna have to get a bigger pan because I have tried everything. small amounts, hold the pan here and there and tap every direction possible. I can see it but can't get it to reveal itself. I think there is alot of pyrites in the black sand which makes it tougher because when they fall to the back of the pan I can't help but feel like I'm losing gold. Thank you so much for sharing and look forward to seeing more videos with the Gold cube!! :-) I got mine 6 days ago and fell asleep looking at it the first day!!lol The most important to remember is that your material must be super wet before running it in the gold cube. If you run it dry you will lose 80% of the good cons.
I only recently discovered your you tube channel, and I wanted to say well done. I liked this video, and I wanted comment on this one. Any time you are using flowing streams of water to classify material (as in a sluice), the speed of the water is very critical for fine gold recovery as it is easy to blow gold through. Many people use too much water in a gold cube and together with the steepness of the sluice bed and the built in turbulence of the thing, its easy to just blow any fine gold right on through it. Guessing at the results of your testing - the fact that the gold was blown clear through the cube, through the catch basin underneath and into the recirculation basin in the bottom, I am guessing you were running the cube with too much water flowing too fast to allow the gold to be caught. The fact that you used no surfactant is also a problem, and maybe even bigger is that you added the material to the cube dry. Dry ore and no surfactant is like saying please make my gold float. I've seen the G.C. work acceptably well for 100 mesh gold recovery, but you need to: 1. Pre-wet the material thoroughly with surfactant infused water. (you would never test pan ore without thoroughly wetting it). 2. Use a surfactant in the water. 3. Make sure the mat has no air bubbles. 4. Run the water speed at only what it takes to move the crushed ore through the cube. No faster. The incline of the sluice bed in a G.C. is a little steep for fine gold - look at the tilt of a shaker table - its about a quarter of the incline on a G. C. - but still the G. C. can be used to good effect on 100 mesh fine gold if you take the necessary precautions.
Thank you very much for your input. I was skeptical of the 'no surfactant' claim, but though it worth a try. There has been more than one person now who says reducing the flow and adding surfactant along with fine classification has yielded good results. I appreciate the feedback, especially when trying new equipment. Keith
Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing your future videos, especially the one on your shaker table recovery system. Also, if you ever want to write any additional articles for the ICMJ prospecting and mining journal on hard rock mining or ore processing, let me know. I know you did one for us a couple years back, but many of these topics on your youtube channel would be great topics for an article. Feel free to shoot me an email anytime if you want to talk about it. Water flow speed really makes a difference in sluice type systems (shaker tables too as they belong to the same family). A few years ago I picked up a 3/4 ounce solid gold nugget in Alaska in sluice box tailings with a metal detector. Hard to imagine how a 3/4 ounce solid nugget could make its way through a sluice and come out in the tailings, but they were dozing placer gravels unscreened with up to 2 foot boulders into their sluice. You put the water flow in that will roll a 2 foot boulder easily through your sluice and if a nugget finds no place to hide out of the current because your riffles are packed, then yes, you can blow a 3/4 ounce nugget right out a sluice box. The same happens for 100 mesh gold, but of course the flow needed to blow tiny 100 mesh gold is not that great. Screening even to 20 mesh is going to help reduce the amount of flow needed to push the material through. Also a good ball valve to help control the amount of water flow is necessary.
Hello Chris, Thank you for the kind words. I submitted an article several months ago to Scott Harn about my panning technique (Lesson 24 not Lesson 4) and he said he was just waiting for the appropriate sized slot to put it in. I guess it runs a bit long. I think the technique will REALLY help a lot of people. Lesson 4 is also my most popular video with almost 30,000 views now, so I'm sure people are interested in it. I am getting ready to write another article- about my Mining Economics Estimator. That is another tool I think will really help a lot of people. Once I get the patent application in on the table I will be making a video and submitting another article. I am unclear on the most proper method- should I submit the articles to you or Scott? I am also surprised at how few people really take advantage of proper classification- especially undercurrent sluices. Thank you, Keith
I watched lesson 24 - it was well done. Send to me or to Scott is fine, but if you want to have a technical discussion about the article or ask questions, probably I would be better. But either is OK.
Well I already sent the one on lesson 24 to Scott, but you might want to look at it and see if you have any suggestions. I haven't started the one on the Economics Estimator yet, but that seems fairly technical to me, so I presume I would send that to you? Also, have you tried the estimator out yet, and if so, how did you like it? Suggestions? Keith
I beach mine, and the gold I recover is all -100 mesh and smaller. Even to the point where a loupe is required to see it. I use a cleangold magnetic sluice as well as various mats in the sluice to aide in the recovery. I use a Goldcube to clean the cons and have no difficulty in capturing the fine gold. I do use some surfactant to prep the trays before running though.... It is essential the mats be thoroughly wetted before running any material.... NO AIR BUBBLES LEFT IN THE MATS.... I will usually run my material 3 times, first run catches about 95% and the following runs clean up the remainder . As far as the cube missing gold.... water flow which should be around 1100 GPH .. the material does NOT have to be pre-wetted but it doesn't hurt to do it anyway. Surfactants do not need to be used with the exception of prepping the mats as mentioned earlier. I have added deep V mat to the slick plate since it really is wasted space otherwise.... Put it to work it won't hurt a thing. Now with all that said , there is some gold that just doesn't like to be caught and I would imagine gold that has been crushed out of hard rock or is definitely one type that is hard to catch be cause it is so fine and then further crushed into super thin flat tiny flakes. Here is an image of a concentrates cleanup run.... this was the first tray. www.treasurenet.com/forums/sluicing/454120-got-out-little-today-27.html#post5445980 That post is from my thread on treasure net.. I am johnedoe and I do a little beach mining.
My uncle has one of these and loves it .I just ordered one .you want slow water and never run dry material through any sluice or cube and always use jet dry or at least dawn
Hi Keith, I really appreciate your informative videos. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Did you ever rerun that material with a surfactant? Did it improve recovery? Thanks so much.
Bit late to the party here, but if the majority of your gold is in the last overflow catch basin, that means the flow rate was too high and possibly also your mats had an issue. If you got the air bubbles out then it's all flow rate. For the gold to end up in the last bin, it has to be moving too fast to settle out in the catch basin catching the stuff coming out of the Gold Cube, and it has to be moving too fast for the mats to catch it. The Gold Cube works brilliantly if the water flow rate is correct, and even better with Dream Mat appropriate to the gold size and shape.
It takes a while to get used to whatever piece of equipment you use. You shouldn't expect it to work perfectly off the bat. Water flow and surfactant, jet dry, is the secret to fine gold recovery with any gravity concentrator. I use a cube in my operation, I.e., hard rock ore, jaw crusher, chain mill, screen to under 1/8", gold cube, pan cons, run tailings across shaker table set up to catch micro gold, de - mag, fine panning, cleaning, roasting, 2nd de- mag. Results - super fine dore to smelt or acid wash depending on the ore. Anything else requires flotation or chemical extraction. Nothing new about a gold cube. My dad had one made out of dynamite boxes back in the thirties that I used when I was a kid in the sixties! It worked exactly like Pungs cube only the riffle trays were made out of old tin cans cut into strips and rolled into a half circle, the rest was wood. The trays were covered with corduroy material instead of rubber mats. I still have my dads old wood and canvas dry washer that he had during the depression. The stack sluice (gold cube) burned up when the cabin burned down. I was going to build one out of aluminum until I found Mike Pungs Gold Cube. Saved me a lot of work! Thanks Mike, but you didn't invent it, the Chinese most likely came up with the idea!?
I've run into the same problems with my gold cube and even shaker table, rp4. had to figure a way to filter it because as it ran into my catch basin, it would catch the turbulence and ride it out of the catch system.
It can be a pain. The RP-4 didn't seem to get very good recoveries of the micro gold with my ore and also had a lot of middlings to deal with. Some surfactant along with minimal turbulence seems to be the best. I'm working on a solution and should be able to announce it in a few months. Looking for different ores to try it on for free if you are close enough to Tucson to swing by. Keityh
Hard Rock University up in Pahrump NV. We have very fine gold, and low grade to boot! So I'm trying to figure out how to get every speck of it. Do you think the Gold well is worth the money? Thnx...nt
Well, low grade is not the best. :-) However, 'low grade' is a reltive term. Do you have any assays as to exactly what the concentration is in PPM or Oz/T? And what is the extent of the ore body? Ho large is it? These are important factors. Keith
Hi, great lesson. I understand the question has already been answered somewhere else but i have not got there yet. So how did the cube go when surfactant was added ? Im betting it performed a whole lot better.
why would you not use a surfactant especially with that fine gold. the secondary pan worked like a fluid bed. use a surfactant and decrease the flow rate, use the cascades as a fluid bed.
that's the bad thing about the blue bowl is you have to have all the particles basically classified to the same size or the gold particles will lift and washout before black sand that is 2 times larger than the gold will. Same thing with the gold cube the finer the material the slower the flow, add material wet not dry use jet dry classify larger particles out before using gold cube the closer the particles are in size the better things will separate. factory gold cube flow with the pump they send is too fast for fine gold slow it down, classification is key with any kind of density separation
Thank you for the input. One of the difficulties of gravity techniques is getting one that operates over a relatively wide variety of particle sizes. My experimental table seems to do well from a -30 mesh input with recovery down to .002" / 270 mesh gold particles. I am not sure if it can recover smaller, or whether my ore simply doesn't have much in the way of smaller gold particles. That is why I need to do more testing. Interesting challenge. Keith
Dream Mat will change this with its NEW MAT product designed for crushed material & fine black sands this spring. The regular Dream Mat gets a higher recovery rate on crushed material than the 2 sluice mentioned below & have replaced those sluices mentioned below on established systems w/ significantly higher recovery rates. Its time to let good engineered fluid dynamics have the ball here. Rather than recycled conveyor belt & 1-1/2' thick aluim. plates.
My physical address is 1025 S Kroeger lane, Tucson, AZ 85745. Please send recommended operating parameters also. If you contact me by email when you send them, I will keep you apprised of my experience with them. Thank you Keith
When you're crushing ore, you end up with a lot of slimes, which is basically clay. Unless you have super rich ore, there is no need to run anything larger than 30 mesh. At this size most of the gold is liberated from the host rock. This also allows you to run the Cube at 500 gph which is enough to move this size material and allow the particles to settle. I use jet dry mainly to prep the mats and get rid of the air bubbles. The residue is enough to act as a surfactant while you sluice. Too much soap or jet dry will cause your concentrates and gold particles to be trapped in the soap bubbles, similar to the floatation process. Feed your material slow and wet and you don't have to do it over again three times. Remember, the Cube was designed to catch super fine gold from Lake Michigan and Lake Superior without any fancy gadgets or mats. Gold Hog uses the Cube to check for losses on their mats.
Have you tested this on actual hard rock gold ore? It is considered general practice to grind to minus 60 mesh at a minimum for liberation. They often even go to 100-200 mesh.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 I've collected many samples from gold mine tailings and dumps over the years. I use a Keene RC 1 crusher, which means I have to hand crush the ore to 1 inch or less before feeding. It takes about 4 runs to get everything down to 30 mesh minus with the majority being 100 to 200 mesh. This is also the size of the gold I'm recovering. The finer the material, the harder it is to recover the gold with gravity means, because it stays in suspension. Ideally you want to classify the material to the different sizes before running but when you're spoon feeding a whole 5 gal bucket, things get boring real quick. So far the ore I'm running has been very low grade and I won't even do the math on it. I'm happy if it pays for my Jet Dry! Hard rock mining is not for the squeamish, that's for sure. Thanks for responding and Happy Prospecting! ⛏️
@@hardrockuniversity7283 Mine is simple, because I only see the few specks I recover. I never see all the 500 mesh gold that I end up fertilizing my shrubs with. Just as well.
The spectrum of chemicals possible is heavily dependent on the ore type due to the reaction of the gangue minerals with the leachant. There are also cost and safety and regulatory issues to sort out. If you run head ore through the leaching circuit, cost is more important than when you have a good concentrate. You also run into the issue of more chemically treated tailings to dispose of: a possible serious hazmat issue. For all of these reasons I try very hard to find some way to gravity concentrate first and then leach or smelt the cons. That is also why I am working on my extraction table. However, for this exercise, let us assume that you can't get a really good con from a gold cube, table, or other device. Let us further assume that liberation is not the problem (as apparently in this case). The first gravity technique (gold cube in this case) gets some of the gold, but not the fine stuff. The coarser tailing seem to be barren (needs double check to be sure- pulverization + panning, or assay, or both). But the SLIMES seem to concentrate the very fine gold which floats through the primary extraction device... First, we can try some sort of gravity technique on this material by itself using a much gentler process. For example, you could re-run the slimes over another gold cube at a slower flow rate or some other extraction technique that no longer has to push the coarse tailings also. And here is another- easy to test- idea: run the slimes over a screen that has the same size hole as the largest gold in the slimes. This reduces the bulk even more. Then wash the slimes through a basin large enough to settle the gold but which lets some of the more easily suspended fines through. If this is a continuous flow process, this settling device is called a 'thickener'. Now you have separated the finest gold from both the coarser and finest slimes, thereby reducing the bulk even farther. If this reduces the total to a pannable volume, you might be able to get it even more concentrated. If you don't wind up with clean gold, at some point you will either have to smelt the cons, send them to a refiner, or leach them. In any of these cases you should have a much easier time making a profit as you have to process much less material which should result in much lower costs. Which one is the best will depend on circumstances, but in terms of leaching you should have a better chance of making a profit with a fast leaching, and preferably low toxicity leach. Remember in leaching you still have to get the gold out of solution and then probably still smelt a dirty gold electrowinning residue. All of these steps need to be tested and verified before you can be confident you are being efficient. I am not personally familiar with any leachant other than sodium cyanide with activated carbon recovery and a stripping circuit and smelting. I guess you would need to talk to various manufacturers and some of there customers for more info. DON'T trust a manufacturer's word alone, especially if his process 'works on everything'! keith
Thank you for the input. I just don't have the time. money, and imagination to accomplish all the trials all of our students can. I really appreciate everyone contributing. Keith
I had a Gold Cube and did not like it. Next time please try a Gold Well sluice from HM Research and/or an Underflow Sluice from Grumpy Prospector on crushed hardrock material.
I agree that would help. Others who are getting good recovery also suggest reducing the flow rate. The reason we did so was to test the manufacturer's claim that it wasn't necessary. I think we disproved that. Doesn't mean it can't be MADE to work just fine. I usually start with the manufacturer's recommendations and then go from there. keith
It may work for you and your ore, but I would try to test it on a borrowed cube first if possible. The crushing and screening to 120 mesh as recommended by Vahagn can be time consuming, but using an air classifying mill might make it simple. No technique or equipment works best on everything. Keith
i disagree. Because i have gold cube only 2 trays(the top one just runs the dirt). I crushed 1 bucket ore from this vein i found, classified with 120# mesh size. I bought a valve from homedepot attached to the pump of gold cube,and run it little bet more than half the flow of water. Run the dirt smaller than 120# mesh size through the gold cube and it recovered everything, smaller than 120# mesh size. Added jet dry once awhile. I checked the piles inside the tub and found almost nothing other than few specs that where attached to the rock. Recovered 0.3 gram of gold. If you find lots of missed particles just reduce the flow of water, and put 120# mesh size classifier on the top of the gold cube. By doing so you don't end up trapping big rocks inside the gold cube, and allowing small pieces of gold to be settled because of the low flow of water.
Thank you for the info. Fine classification plus lower flows would make sense. How did the Jet dry work? Did it make a difference? And how did you classify to 120? What was the throughput? Keith
Glenn Chivers the guy at homedepot will tell you there is no valve designed for this pump. yes there is. Buy PVC compression coupling tee and 3/4 size pvc valve. throw away the tightening plastic and tighten the hose of the cube to leg on one side of the compression coupler (with the rubber on it). Than the other leg of the compression coupler to the pump(leave the rubber on it). The middle leg of the compression coupling attach the 3/4 size pvc valve. And you can add little bit Teflon tape, even thoughit's not necessary
Hard Rock University Honestly whenever i see a pyrite shiny flakes running in the tub, i add jet dry. I tilt the bottle 1 second and that's it. Too much makes bubble all around. And once awhile add jet dry. I can't say how it effects,but it will definitely help to make sure that the gold doesn't float.
Hard Rock University i classify with the green round classifier with hands, after it came out from rock crusher. And because i reduced the water almost by half(open the 3/4 pvc valve by half,than close little bit) i added slowly until it cleared off in the top tray,without overloading. I tested though using 1.5 bucket of dirt. So could be it was too slow that eventually will cause the gold cube to be clogged. In that case you eighter have to cleanup the cubes often or classify to maybe 130# mesh. And i don't use that top classifier that you have, i directly apply the dry dirt into the top tray, because i already classifed with hands. But if you want you can put a 120# mesh screen in the top and it will do the job for you.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 well keith .. its old regimental english .. you know when ya sittin there enjoyin a cuppa tea (tipple) and the natives are throwin spears at ya .. you dont let it get ya doon .. just stiff upper lips finnish ya tea and scones .. then lay them to waste ... jolly good carryon pip pips ..😁
@@patrickjobling8676 I have heard the 'pip, pip, carryon' before but was just curious as to the exact eytemology of same. I find language interesting at times.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 i grew up watchin .. f troop .. the goodies ..kenny everit ..oh and the carryon gang ... when life was good and funny gutts.. now is one big political correctness concerto in flat c ...😁pip pips and carryon 😁happy trails pilgrim
![แม่กลองสองใจ - ซีแกรม โตเกียว มิวสิค [ OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GSQfVjcr_f4/mqdefault.jpg)
My fiance got me one for our Anniversary!!
I have the same set up as the one in this video.
I ran a bucket of river sand and after I was done I noticed that I lost a ton of black sand. I'm thinking that if I lost black sand then I'm definitely losing fine gold. I stopped and scrutinized every aspect of the process.
I realized that before every use the vortex matting must be hit with water and a brush, or hit with high pressure water before use to get rid of air pockets.( when cube is dry, run water over the matting and you will see air pockets in the matting that needs to be brushed out or hit with high pressure water)
If you just turn it on and run it you will lose most of your black sand dew to air pockets in the matting.
And a surfactant is a must because you will still have to pan out the cons.
Also, I went to the dollar store and bought egg magnets and placed them at the bottom water fall parts (G force separator) so that just before it hits the G force it will slow down the black sand and drop the gold to the bottom!
Also, You will want to get a magnetic Hardware tray, place it at the very bottom Outlet at an angled down.
this will catch any black sand that maybe trying to escape.
Brushing down the matting with water to get rid of air pockets is vital! Also, being level all the way around is a must!
The matting must be scrubbed thoroughly when it is first received from the manufacturer because the matting has oil on it and we'll kick off most of your heavies if not clean with dove soap.
I still have not physically been able to put gold in a vile because the material from where I live sux donkey balls...
I am going to find a place where I can buy dirt that may contain gold!!
I'm not in the game for the money, I'm in the game because I love how it looks!
I'm mesmerised buy the fact that I have a chance at seeing real life gold in the wild!
I'm gonna find it because I will not stop. I'm bound and determined to find the G spot!! lol
I'll send you an email with pix on how it's set up!
I re-ran the material that I first used and tripled my black sands!
All the black sand contains micro fine gold and I'm still working on the panning technique.
I'm definitely gonna have to get a bigger pan because I have tried everything. small amounts, hold the pan here and there and tap every direction possible.
I can see it but can't get it to reveal itself.
I think there is alot of pyrites in the black sand which makes it tougher because when they fall to the back of the pan I can't help but feel like I'm losing gold.
Thank you so much for sharing and look forward to seeing more videos with the Gold cube!! :-)
I got mine 6 days ago and fell asleep looking at it the first day!!lol
The most important to remember is that your material must be super wet before running it in the gold cube. If you run it dry you will lose 80% of the good cons.
I only recently discovered your you tube channel, and I wanted to say well done. I liked this video, and I wanted comment on this one. Any time you are using flowing streams of water to classify material (as in a sluice), the speed of the water is very critical for fine gold recovery as it is easy to blow gold through. Many people use too much water in a gold cube and together with the steepness of the sluice bed and the built in turbulence of the thing, its easy to just blow any fine gold right on through it. Guessing at the results of your testing - the fact that the gold was blown clear through the cube, through the catch basin underneath and into the recirculation basin in the bottom, I am guessing you were running the cube with too much water flowing too fast to allow the gold to be caught.
The fact that you used no surfactant is also a problem, and maybe even bigger is that you added the material to the cube dry. Dry ore and no surfactant is like saying please make my gold float.
I've seen the G.C. work acceptably well for 100 mesh gold recovery, but you need to:
1. Pre-wet the material thoroughly with surfactant infused water. (you would never test pan ore without thoroughly wetting it).
2. Use a surfactant in the water.
3. Make sure the mat has no air bubbles.
4. Run the water speed at only what it takes to move the crushed ore through the cube. No faster.
The incline of the sluice bed in a G.C. is a little steep for fine gold - look at the tilt of a shaker table - its about a quarter of the incline on a G. C. - but still the G. C. can be used to good effect on 100 mesh fine gold if you take the necessary precautions.
Thank you very much for your input. I was skeptical of the 'no surfactant' claim, but though it worth a try. There has been more than one person now who says reducing the flow and adding surfactant along with fine classification has yielded good results.
I appreciate the feedback, especially when trying new equipment.
Keith
Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing your future videos, especially the one on your shaker table recovery system. Also, if you ever want to write any additional articles for the ICMJ prospecting and mining journal on hard rock mining or ore processing, let me know. I know you did one for us a couple years back, but many of these topics on your youtube channel would be great topics for an article. Feel free to shoot me an email anytime if you want to talk about it.
Water flow speed really makes a difference in sluice type systems (shaker tables too as they belong to the same family). A few years ago I picked up a 3/4 ounce solid gold nugget in Alaska in sluice box tailings with a metal detector. Hard to imagine how a 3/4 ounce solid nugget could make its way through a sluice and come out in the tailings, but they were dozing placer gravels unscreened with up to 2 foot boulders into their sluice. You put the water flow in that will roll a 2 foot boulder easily through your sluice and if a nugget finds no place to hide out of the current because your riffles are packed, then yes, you can blow a 3/4 ounce nugget right out a sluice box. The same happens for 100 mesh gold, but of course the flow needed to blow tiny 100 mesh gold is not that great. Screening even to 20 mesh is going to help reduce the amount of flow needed to push the material through. Also a good ball valve to help control the amount of water flow is necessary.
Hello Chris,
Thank you for the kind words.
I submitted an article several months ago to Scott Harn about my panning technique (Lesson 24 not Lesson 4) and he said he was just waiting for the appropriate sized slot to put it in. I guess it runs a bit long. I think the technique will REALLY help a lot of people. Lesson 4 is also my most popular video with almost 30,000 views now, so I'm sure people are interested in it.
I am getting ready to write another article- about my Mining Economics Estimator. That is another tool I think will really help a lot of people.
Once I get the patent application in on the table I will be making a video and submitting another article.
I am unclear on the most proper method- should I submit the articles to you or Scott?
I am also surprised at how few people really take advantage of proper classification- especially undercurrent sluices.
Thank you,
Keith
I watched lesson 24 - it was well done. Send to me or to Scott is fine, but if you want to have a technical discussion about the article or ask questions, probably I would be better. But either is OK.
Well I already sent the one on lesson 24 to Scott, but you might want to look at it and see if you have any suggestions. I haven't started the one on the Economics Estimator yet, but that seems fairly technical to me, so I presume I would send that to you? Also, have you tried the estimator out yet, and if so, how did you like it? Suggestions?
Keith
I beach mine, and the gold I recover is all -100 mesh and smaller. Even to the point where a loupe is required to see it.
I use a cleangold magnetic sluice as well as various mats in the sluice to aide in the recovery.
I use a Goldcube to clean the cons and have no difficulty in capturing the fine gold.
I do use some surfactant to prep the trays before running though.... It is essential the mats be thoroughly wetted before running any material.... NO AIR BUBBLES LEFT IN THE MATS....
I will usually run my material 3 times, first run catches about 95% and the following runs clean up the remainder .
As far as the cube missing gold.... water flow which should be around 1100 GPH .. the material does NOT have to be pre-wetted but it doesn't hurt to do it anyway. Surfactants do not need to be used with the exception of prepping the mats as mentioned earlier.
I have added deep V mat to the slick plate since it really is wasted space otherwise.... Put it to work it won't hurt a thing.
Now with all that said , there is some gold that just doesn't like to be caught and I would imagine gold that has been crushed out of hard rock or is definitely one type that is hard to catch be cause it is so fine and then further crushed into super thin flat tiny flakes.
Here is an image of a concentrates cleanup run.... this was the first tray.
www.treasurenet.com/forums/sluicing/454120-got-out-little-today-27.html#post5445980
That post is from my thread on treasure net.. I am johnedoe and I do a little beach mining.
My uncle has one of these and loves it .I just ordered one .you want slow water and never run dry material through any sluice or cube and always use jet dry or at least dawn
Correct
Hi Keith, I really appreciate your informative videos. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
Did you ever rerun that material with a surfactant? Did it improve recovery?
Thanks so much.
Bit late to the party here, but if the majority of your gold is in the last overflow catch basin, that means the flow rate was too high and possibly also your mats had an issue. If you got the air bubbles out then it's all flow rate. For the gold to end up in the last bin, it has to be moving too fast to settle out in the catch basin catching the stuff coming out of the Gold Cube, and it has to be moving too fast for the mats to catch it. The Gold Cube works brilliantly if the water flow rate is correct, and even better with Dream Mat appropriate to the gold size and shape.
Thank you.
It takes a while to get used to whatever piece of equipment you use. You shouldn't expect it to work perfectly off the bat. Water flow and surfactant, jet dry, is the secret to fine gold recovery with any gravity concentrator.
I use a cube in my operation, I.e., hard rock ore, jaw crusher, chain mill, screen to under 1/8", gold cube, pan cons, run tailings across shaker table set up to catch micro gold, de - mag, fine panning, cleaning, roasting, 2nd de- mag. Results - super fine dore to smelt or acid wash depending on the ore. Anything else requires flotation or chemical extraction.
Nothing new about a gold cube. My dad had one made out of dynamite boxes back in the thirties that I used when I was a kid in the sixties! It worked exactly like Pungs cube only the riffle trays were made out of old tin cans cut into strips and rolled into a half circle, the rest was wood. The trays were covered with corduroy material instead of rubber mats. I still have my dads old wood and canvas dry washer that he had during the depression. The stack sluice (gold cube) burned up when the cabin burned down. I was going to build one out of aluminum until I found Mike Pungs Gold Cube. Saved me a lot of work! Thanks Mike, but you didn't invent it, the Chinese most likely came up with the idea!?
I've run into the same problems with my gold cube and even shaker table, rp4. had to figure a way to filter it because as it ran into my catch basin, it would catch the turbulence and ride it out of the catch system.
It can be a pain. The RP-4 didn't seem to get very good recoveries of the micro gold with my ore and also had a lot of middlings to deal with. Some surfactant along with minimal turbulence seems to be the best. I'm working on a solution and should be able to announce it in a few months.
Looking for different ores to try it on for free if you are close enough to Tucson to swing by.
Keityh
Hard Rock University up in Pahrump NV. We have very fine gold, and low grade to boot! So I'm trying to figure out how to get every speck of it. Do you think the Gold well is worth the money? Thnx...nt
Well, low grade is not the best. :-) However, 'low grade' is a reltive term. Do you have any assays as to exactly what the concentration is in PPM or Oz/T? And what is the extent of the ore body? Ho large is it? These are important factors.
Keith
Did you brush the air bubbles out of the mat? That will make a definite difference on having fine gold settling in the riffles of the mat.
Did the best I could.
Hi, great lesson. I understand the question has already been answered somewhere else but i have not got there yet. So how did the cube go when surfactant was added ? Im betting it performed a whole lot better.
Not sure if I tested both. Been a while.
why would you not use a surfactant especially with that fine gold. the secondary pan worked like a fluid bed. use a surfactant and decrease the flow rate, use the cascades as a fluid bed.
that's the bad thing about the blue bowl is you have to have all the particles basically classified to the same size or the gold particles will lift and washout before black sand that is 2 times larger than the gold will. Same thing with the gold cube the finer the material the slower the flow, add material wet not dry use jet dry classify larger particles out before using gold cube the closer the particles are in size the better things will separate. factory gold cube flow with the pump they send is too fast for fine gold slow it down, classification is key with any kind of density separation
Thank you for the input. One of the difficulties of gravity techniques is getting one that operates over a relatively wide variety of particle sizes. My experimental table seems to do well from a -30 mesh input with recovery down to .002" / 270 mesh gold particles. I am not sure if it can recover smaller, or whether my ore simply doesn't have much in the way of smaller gold particles. That is why I need to do more testing.
Interesting challenge.
Keith
YeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaa
Ive always been told that surfactant is absolutely required for the gold cube to operate correctly.
Dream Mat will change this with its NEW MAT product designed for crushed material & fine black sands this spring. The regular Dream Mat gets a higher recovery rate on crushed material than the 2 sluice mentioned below & have replaced those sluices mentioned below on established systems w/ significantly higher recovery rates. Its time to let good engineered fluid dynamics have the ball here. Rather than recycled conveyor belt & 1-1/2' thick aluim. plates.
And where to you obtain Dream Mat?
Keith
Send your address to prospectorsdream@hotmail.com they are not for sale yet, but I can send you some test mats.
My physical address is 1025 S Kroeger lane, Tucson, AZ 85745. Please send recommended operating parameters also. If you contact me by email when you send them, I will keep you apprised of my experience with them.
Thank you
Keith
When you're crushing ore, you end up with a lot of slimes, which is basically clay. Unless you have super rich ore, there is no need to run anything larger than 30 mesh. At this size most of the gold is liberated from the host rock. This also allows you to run the Cube at 500 gph which is enough to move this size material and allow the particles to settle. I use jet dry mainly to prep the mats and get rid of the air bubbles. The residue is enough to act as a surfactant while you sluice. Too much soap or jet dry will cause your concentrates and gold particles to be trapped in the soap bubbles, similar to the floatation process. Feed your material slow and wet and you don't have to do it over again three times. Remember, the Cube was designed to catch super fine gold from Lake Michigan and Lake Superior without any fancy gadgets or mats. Gold Hog uses the Cube to check for losses on their mats.
Have you tested this on actual hard rock gold ore? It is considered general practice to grind to minus 60 mesh at a minimum for liberation. They often even go to 100-200 mesh.
@@hardrockuniversity7283
I've collected many samples from gold mine tailings and dumps over the years. I use a Keene RC 1 crusher, which means I have to hand crush the ore to 1 inch or less before feeding. It takes about 4 runs to get everything down to 30 mesh minus with the majority being 100 to 200 mesh. This is also the size of the gold I'm recovering. The finer the material, the harder it is to recover the gold with gravity means, because it stays in suspension. Ideally you want to classify the material to the different sizes before running but when you're spoon feeding a whole 5 gal bucket, things get boring real quick. So far the ore I'm running has been very low grade and I won't even do the math on it. I'm happy if it pays for my Jet Dry! Hard rock mining is not for the squeamish, that's for sure. Thanks for responding and Happy Prospecting! ⛏️
Most of the hard rock ores I have dealt with have between 20 and 80 percent of the gold particles in the 500 mesh minus range. Glad yours is simple.
@@hardrockuniversity7283
Mine is simple, because I only see the few specks I recover. I never see all the 500 mesh gold that I end up fertilizing my shrubs with. Just as well.
Ah.... I see. OTOH, I see a challenge. 🙂
hey Keith, what kinda chemical technique would you recommend for that gold?
The spectrum of chemicals possible is heavily dependent on the ore type due to the reaction of the gangue minerals with the leachant. There are also cost and safety and regulatory issues to sort out. If you run head ore through the leaching circuit, cost is more important than when you have a good concentrate. You also run into the issue of more chemically treated tailings to dispose of: a possible serious hazmat issue.
For all of these reasons I try very hard to find some way to gravity concentrate first and then leach or smelt the cons. That is also why I am working on my extraction table.
However, for this exercise, let us assume that you can't get a really good con from a gold cube, table, or other device. Let us further assume that liberation is not the problem (as apparently in this case). The first gravity technique (gold cube in this case) gets some of the gold, but not the fine stuff. The coarser tailing seem to be barren (needs double check to be sure- pulverization + panning, or assay, or both). But the SLIMES seem to concentrate the very fine gold which floats through the primary extraction device...
First, we can try some sort of gravity technique on this material by itself using a much gentler process. For example, you could re-run the slimes over another gold cube at a slower flow rate or some other extraction technique that no longer has to push the coarse tailings also.
And here is another- easy to test- idea: run the slimes over a screen that has the same size hole as the largest gold in the slimes. This reduces the bulk even more. Then wash the slimes through a basin large enough to settle the gold but which lets some of the more easily suspended fines through. If this is a continuous flow process, this settling device is called a 'thickener'. Now you have separated the finest gold from both the coarser and finest slimes, thereby reducing the bulk even farther.
If this reduces the total to a pannable volume, you might be able to get it even more concentrated.
If you don't wind up with clean gold, at some point you will either have to smelt the cons, send them to a refiner, or leach them. In any of these cases you should have a much easier time making a profit as you have to process much less material which should result in much lower costs. Which one is the best will depend on circumstances, but in terms of leaching you should have a better chance of making a profit with a fast leaching, and preferably low toxicity leach. Remember in leaching you still have to get the gold out of solution and then probably still smelt a dirty gold electrowinning residue.
All of these steps need to be tested and verified before you can be confident you are being efficient.
I am not personally familiar with any leachant other than sodium cyanide with activated carbon recovery and a stripping circuit and smelting. I guess you would need to talk to various manufacturers and some of there customers for more info. DON'T trust a manufacturer's word alone, especially if his process 'works on everything'!
keith
Thank you Keith
Oh and just to chime in again, I forgot to mention that I had the same problem with my gold cube losing the gold and I did use a Jet Dry.
Thank you for the input. I just don't have the time. money, and imagination to accomplish all the trials all of our students can. I really appreciate everyone contributing.
Keith
I had a Gold Cube and did not like it. Next time please try a Gold Well sluice from HM Research and/or an Underflow Sluice from Grumpy Prospector on crushed hardrock material.
Thanks for the tip. Does anyone near Tucson have either of these they woulf like to demonstrate?
Keith
Micro fine gold loss?
Jet Dry.
Real easy fix.
I agree that would help. Others who are getting good recovery also suggest reducing the flow rate. The reason we did so was to test the manufacturer's claim that it wasn't necessary. I think we disproved that. Doesn't mean it can't be MADE to work just fine. I usually start with the manufacturer's recommendations and then go from there.
keith
And I was thinking about buying a gold cube so thanks .
It may work for you and your ore, but I would try to test it on a borrowed cube first if possible. The crushing and screening to 120 mesh as recommended by Vahagn can be time consuming, but using an air classifying mill might make it simple.
No technique or equipment works best on everything.
Keith
i disagree. Because i have gold cube only 2 trays(the top one just runs the dirt). I crushed 1 bucket ore from this vein i found, classified with 120# mesh size. I bought a valve from homedepot attached to the pump of gold cube,and run it little bet more than half the flow of water. Run the dirt smaller than 120# mesh size through the gold cube and it recovered everything, smaller than 120# mesh size. Added jet dry once awhile. I checked the piles inside the tub and found almost nothing other than few specs that where attached to the rock. Recovered 0.3 gram of gold. If you find lots of missed particles just reduce the flow of water, and put 120# mesh size classifier on the top of the gold cube. By doing so you don't end up trapping big rocks inside the gold cube, and allowing small pieces of gold to be settled because of the low flow of water.
Thank you for the info. Fine classification plus lower flows would make sense. How did the Jet dry work? Did it make a difference? And how did you classify to 120? What was the throughput?
Keith
Thank YOU.
Keith
Glenn Chivers the guy at homedepot will tell you there is no valve designed for this pump. yes there is. Buy PVC compression coupling tee and 3/4 size pvc valve. throw away the tightening plastic and tighten the hose of the cube to leg on one side of the compression coupler (with the rubber on it). Than the other leg of the compression coupler to the pump(leave the rubber on it). The middle leg of the compression coupling attach the 3/4 size pvc valve. And you can add little bit Teflon tape, even thoughit's not necessary
Hard Rock University Honestly whenever i see a pyrite shiny flakes running in the tub, i add jet dry. I tilt the bottle 1 second and that's it. Too much makes bubble all around. And once awhile add jet dry. I can't say how it effects,but it will definitely help to make sure that the gold doesn't float.
Hard Rock University i classify with the green round classifier with hands, after it came out from rock crusher. And because i reduced the water almost by half(open the 3/4 pvc valve by half,than close little bit) i added slowly until it cleared off in the top tray,without overloading. I tested though using 1.5 bucket of dirt. So could be it was too slow that eventually will cause the gold cube to be clogged. In that case you eighter have to cleanup the cubes often or classify to maybe 130# mesh. And i don't use that top classifier that you have, i directly apply the dry dirt into the top tray, because i already classifed with hands. But if you want you can put a 120# mesh screen in the top and it will do the job for you.
... i agree ..😁pip pips and carryon
BTW Rick, what does Pip Pip mean precisely?
@@hardrockuniversity7283 well keith .. its old regimental english .. you know when ya sittin there enjoyin a cuppa tea (tipple) and the natives are throwin spears at ya .. you dont let it get ya doon .. just stiff upper lips finnish ya tea and scones .. then lay them to waste ... jolly good carryon pip pips ..😁
@@patrickjobling8676 I have heard the 'pip, pip, carryon' before but was just curious as to the exact eytemology of same. I find language interesting at times.
@@hardrockuniversity7283 i grew up watchin .. f troop .. the goodies ..kenny everit ..oh and the carryon gang ... when life was good and funny gutts.. now is one big political correctness concerto in flat c ...😁pip pips and carryon 😁happy trails pilgrim