Miller Table

[ayeyou]

Sorry fellas,
I guess I didnt do a very good job of explaining myself. I only plan to use the miller table as a final cleanup device for the cons that come off my main sluice which is a 48 '' x 10 foot . The procedure we used during testing was to take the cons from that and run them thru a little 2.5'' dredge sluice we have which brought the cons from a 6 cu mt test pit down to about 5 pounds or so. But being as this was testing to prove up reserves and grade I needed to know exactly what was in those cons. Those cons were then run thru a gold wheel after removing small nuggets and pickers.
The gold retained by the gold wheel and the nuggets and pickers we had removed were added together to weigh and establish a grade for that particular pit. The black sand cons that were left after being processed thru the gold wheel were then mixed and cut into 1 ounce samples and sent for assay. That is where the 306 gram per ton assay came from as well as 1 for 83 grams and 1 for 188 grams per ton. This told me that the gold wheel was missing an awful lot of gold and was not giving me a saleable product either as quite a bit of impurities were still mixed with the gold.
So I aim to use the miller table in place of the gold wheel and hopefully wind up with a cleaner product and better recovery. All the concentrates will be saved and run thru a Knelson Concentrator in the off season at home. The values have been so high that it just seems like to not pay attention to them would be crazy.100 tons of cons , which is what I expect to create thru the season because I will be using an undercurrent sluice as well that is 30'' x 10 feet , is a lot of black sand with an average grade of 192 grams per ton . So in theory anyway It should return almost 20,000 grams of gold in off season.I just feel thatto spend my summer chasing micron gold in blacksand is not a very wise use of the precious short season at 6000 ft elevation in B.C.
So in short Miller table for cleanup of +100 mesh cons out of primary sluice only in order to obtain clean saleable gold which I am fortunate enough to have running at 960 fine on these placers. The nuggets will be kept back and only the smaller non jewelry gold will be sold. I will post a pic of the gold from my claims . Sorry but its not the best pic.

This is the gold from one 6 cubic yard test pit.

Pirate pit gold.JPG (25.55 KiB) Viewed 4597 times

[russau]

but still, it is looking good!

[Gold Seeker]

Sorry fellas,
I guess I didnt do a very good job of explaining myself. I only plan to use the miller table as a final cleanup device for the cons that come off my main sluice which is a 48 '' x 10 foot . The procedure we used during testing was to take the cons from that and run them thru a little 2.5'' dredge sluice we have which brought the cons from a 6 cu mt test pit down to about 5 pounds or so. But being as this was testing to prove up reserves and grade I needed to know exactly what was in those cons. Those cons were then run thru a gold wheel after removing small nuggets and pickers.
The gold retained by the gold wheel and the nuggets and pickers we had removed were added together to weigh and establish a grade for that particular pit. The black sand cons that were left after being processed thru the gold wheel were then mixed and cut into 1 ounce samples and sent for assay. That is where the 306 gram per ton assay came from as well as 1 for 83 grams and 1 for 188 grams per ton. This told me that the gold wheel was missing an awful lot of gold and was not giving me a saleable product either as quite a bit of impurities were still mixed with the gold.
So I aim to use the miller table in place of the gold wheel and hopefully wind up with a cleaner product and better recovery. All the concentrates will be saved and run thru a Knelson Concentrator in the off season at home. The values have been so high that it just seems like to not pay attention to them would be crazy.100 tons of cons , which is what I expect to create thru the season because I will be using an undercurrent sluice as well that is 30'' x 10 feet , is a lot of black sand with an average grade of 192 grams per ton . So in theory anyway It should return almost 20,000 grams of gold in off season.I just feel thatto spend my summer chasing micron gold in blacksand is not a very wise use of the precious short season at 6000 ft elevation in B.C.
So in short Miller table for cleanup of +100 mesh cons out of primary sluice only in order to obtain clean saleable gold which I am fortunate enough to have running at 960 fine on these placers. The nuggets will be kept back and only the smaller non jewelry gold will be sold. I will post a pic of the gold from my claims . Sorry but its not the best pic.

Pirate pit gold.JPG

Do you know if when the assay was done, was the gold "free gold"/visible gold or locked up/attached to the blacksands?

The reason I ask this is because here in the SE USA we find a lot of blacksand that has gold attached or lockup within the blacksand, if this is the same in your case the best way is to do a refining process of the blacksands to get the gold, a cleanup device will not do the job of getting clean gold, looking at your blacksand under a microscope will give your a good idea if that is the case with your blacksands.

Skip

[ayeyou]

Yes I did the assays just in the past couple months. The gold is free gold it is just real fine micron gold in the -150 mesh size for the most part. In the assay below you will see that there was 788 grams per ton AU in the -150 screen portion of the assay and only 2.45 grams per ton of AU in the +150 mesh screen portion.
So that tells me that the gold wheel did a descent job of the over 150 mesh gold but fell far short of catching -150 mesh gold. I know -150 mesh is puny little powder gold basically but at 788 grams per ton I gotta at least put in an effort to catch it . If the miller table wont do it the I will have to spend the big money and get me one of them fancy extruder shaker tables. I probably will buy one anyway after I get mining for a month or so but I will need the cash flow before I can justify a 25K purchase for a shaker.
I did look at my blacksand under the microscope and yes it was loaded with free gold. The cool thing was that the little specs of gold looked just like big nuggets under the microscope. They had same depth and rounded irregular shape as a 1/2 ouncer just in micron form. I also talked to the assayer that did my sample on the phone and he said that due to the high assay he also checked some of the sample under the scope and commented to me about how much fine gold was in it.

porc assAy.JPG (26.3 KiB) Viewed 4546 times

porc assay2.JPG (22.99 KiB) Viewed 4546 times

[russau]

i personally think the Miller table will do your -150 gold but youll have to screen it down to and including -200 and run each screening seperatly in a self contained recirculating system. and each lower screening youll have to slow the feed and the water down and probly hand feed it to keep from slugging your table.absolutly no bubbles or rippels in the flow. i found that the samller the gold the slower you need on the water supply and the feed for best results.but if your doing a commercial job where your getting LOTS of cons to run, then youll need a shaker anyway. but id still rerun those cons across the miller table. good luck!

[ayeyou]

Thanks Russau,
I think the miller table will work as well.These pics showing the fine gold that can be caught with a Miller table sold me on the idea originally. I am about 75% done my miller table build and I hope to run a test with it next weekend.

miller pic.JPG (46.41 KiB) Viewed 4539 times

miller pic2.JPG (59.76 KiB) Viewed 4539 times

[russau]

looks lik you got it nailed! but, with the water supply up high to your sluice, how do you keep the rippels down in the water? i have mine going into the back of my Miller table sluice and a sponge in front of that to keep it all even,like a peice of glass so i wont disturb anything.and i also get small fines like you have there. i guess a person cant argue when you have success as you do! it looks good in any event! i used 3/8 inch slate material(old chalkboard) on mine,it appears that you used the blackboard spray paint??? i used that originally but it needed maintainance occasionally (repainting) and i got the slate for free and tried it and i like it better!

[Gold Seeker]

While I think the miller table will do well and you can even setup an automatic feeder, it's still going to be labor intensive, you stated you expect to have 100 tons of cons at $35,000+ per ton I would go with the table if I had that many tons to run.IMHO


Skip

[russau]

i have a autofeeder to run my cons.it works great on the bigger small stuff(+20). but when you do the _20 on down you really need to set your feeder as close to the sluices surface as you can and slow the feed rate down even slower.i ran mine last week getting gold dust and if the feeder is to high,itll cause ripples in the water and (worse yet) bubbles when the water/material hits your SMOOTH stream of water,and this will cause the really small stuff to move around on the table and possibly over the end.ive also seen that nomatter waht you do to the end of the slates tailings edge(round it over or squared edge) the cons will build up right at the edge. i was told that rounding it over would eliminate this problem. but as it turns out,i dont mind a small amount stopping there so i can eyeball it to see if i missed any of the micro fine gold. the +20 gold stays towards the top of the sluice bed and dont move. but you need to keep a eye on the really small stuff and use a few small drops jet dry(depending on your tank size)and some clay-gone wont hurt anything either!i have my bilge pumps on my battery charger and set the charger for 6 vdc to slow them down. i have 2 750 GPH pumps but you dont need near the GPH. 500 or lower would do just fine.i have valves on these pumps to furter tune my system and the suto feeder has 2 adjustments aswell. up/down/tilt. the smaller the gold, the slower you need to go to capture it. HEY! a guy has to have some fun during this nasty weather! im still looking for my bucket of cons from dredgeing the Arkanas River with Leonard.ill mark my buckets next time!!!

[dickb]

ONE more item to add to Russ's TO DO LIST!!!!!!!!!!

Dickb

PS: by the way you put it in the nose of the trailer.