Use of Trommels?

[Bonaro]

In California a trommel is considered a classifier and is unregulated. You can use it year around and about the only restriction you have will be discharge of muddy water back to the stream or digging in the wrong upland areas. Now if you start moving 100's of yards of gravel I imagine you will have to post a bond and file and reclamation plan etc etc... but anything you do with a small portable trommel is completely allowed.

I have a Gold Screw trommel and it's one of the finest mining machines ever produced. It has a reverse helix spiral to pull out the concentrates and a built in gold wheel to finish the cons. Everything runs off one motor including the pump and there is no further cleanup. You shovel into one end and gold falls out the other in about one minute, completely automatic.
You can even feed it with a small excavator with the proper grizzly attached.

Email me if you want to buy it, I would rather dredge and I have way to many toys. bonaro123@yahoo.com

[Geo-George]

That's a pretty cool unit!
Thanks for the offer but I'm goin' ahead with my project.
To me, half the fun is makin' somethin' that works.
It's a personal satisfaction thing.

[Hoser John]

Good ol' Ivans(RIP) Gold Screw is a good trommel but the classifier setup requires toooooo much work. A simple shaker classifier screen with a incline to feed and roll off heavies works just fine. To much work picking through and manual lifting all over sized materials off the grate mandate a 2 man op(split gold ) and I do like to keep it all and a huge production increase that does not hamper the unit at all-tons a au 2 u2 -John

[Geo-George]

I agree John, double handling any material is a big waste of time.
An angled grizzly cuts out the step of cleaning out the hopper.
And it needs a water bath/spray to wash the material.
Geo-

[Hoser John]

PS-ALL mining euipment is regulated to some extent in kalif,land a environutz. SMARA is the mother and engine sizes,length a stay,NOI,POO and all the lovely new hoops to jump through are whatzup here now. FS/BLM trying to play god so my personal advice to you,no matter what ya use, is lean,mean,small,quiet, work like LL and move around. John

[CaribooAu.]

I just use high-bankers.......trommels are good at moving material but most of the one's I see have one problem..

They are running more gravels but the sluice is the wrong size for the volume of material......if you put through twice as much
gravels then A river sluice stuck under it all will over load........I like high banking cause it runs on one pump and it's A fast set-up
and less to fiddle with.......I have A trommel but it needs A permit/bond and A hoe......it's good for 10 yards A hour so I'm going to take
A cutting torch to it and open it up at the hopper end and change the drum classifier and up the volumes.....more water bigger sluice and
take it up to 40% more production........I think everything has A place and job.

[Geo-George]

So true, you need to balance your operation for the best effectiveness.
More material is not always good, you have to be able to properly process it too.

[rwells]

A Trommel is just like any other highbanker, except that it works alot better. This one will process material at the same rate as a six inch underwater dredge & breaks down into small enough components for one person to pack in.

I was wondering where you get the perf plate or screen you use on your trommel?
thanks Rick

[Geo-George]

Expanded metal is cheeper, easier to find, and works just as well.
The drilled sheets are more durable, but then it's generally used where
they're running larger material in greater volume.
A personal sized, mobile unit needs to be a whole lot lighter.
You can also get expanded metal in Aluminum.
Low weight, fairly durible, and non-motorized is my plan.

[Hoser John]

Same as a 6" dredge???? John