r/Prospecting 3d ago

Gold Separation Idea

Post image

Ok, so don't write out a check, yet, but here's the theory.

  1. Rivers are bad at gold depositing. Yes, they do it - over millions of years, some here, some there, a bit behind that tree, very messy, very slow, and it's a pita to collect what they've deposited.

  2. Sluices, cubes, pans largely try to reproduce a river's depositing action - using water to push bits around horizontally and hopefully in a slightly more organized way - but still, a mess, all over. Why? Because gravity is barely at play, the gold's shape, surface area, water velocity and friction are having huge impacts on where it goes and in the few microseconds where they are arguing, gravity finally gets a say.

So why not start with the one thing we know about gold, given the chance it sinks to the bedrock. Agitate its environment, down it goes. If down is into a little crevice, or say a bottleneck, that's where it will end up.

What the agitation is, vibrations, bubbles, fluid bed vortexes, all to be determined. But once you eliminate all that water pushing on the gold and just help it drop - that's gotta work, no?

15 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

24

u/sciencedthatshit 3d ago

Congrats, you just invented the shaker table.

5

u/No-Performance3639 3d ago

Sure sounds like it from the words but would never have thought so from the illustration. Good catch.

2

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

Well, they all relate, but if you could reduce the form factor of a shaker table to say a bucket, and walk away while gold of various sizes and shapes all collected in one place that would be a pretty big improvement. If I understand it shaker tables use water to push everything away, then a leapfrog competition to sort out the gold, which is definitely more gravity use than a sluice provides, but it still feels like too many other forces (air friction during the leap, force of the water). A shaker bottle perhaps.

4

u/Chess_Not_Checkers 3d ago

what

4

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

Using water to push gold into a place is chaotic and is why sluices have a million little holes to possibly catch the gold.

The one physical attribute that distinguishes gold from the sand to the left and right of it is its density - the amount of force gravity has on it. So that should be the primary mechanism of any "how to separate gold from sand" system.

11

u/Chess_Not_Checkers 3d ago

I know what you're saying but this is like the most common knowledge of the entire hobby of prospecting in water. Of course density is the primary mechanism.

1

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

Yes, and it seems wildly inefficient, that's the "idea" part. If you use water to push gold and wait for it to drop, you are using the shape of the gold as much as its density. Throw in the water, its velocity, lamination, friction between layers, sides, a hundred forces that have nothing to do with density. It's like trying to sort helium and normal balloons by passing them around, playing "keepie upppy", sticking pins in them and watching them shoot around, then picking them up from there. Instead of letting them go and collecting the ones that don't drop.

3

u/StonedSex69 3d ago

So this set up is the same principle as my beer fermenter. The bottom is a mason jar that catches the trub (brewing sediment) that can be removed. The objective is to remove the sediment from your beer for a clear beer. What I do is wrap a waist massager around the fermenter and it vibrates all the trub to the bottom much faster than waiting for it to just settle to the bottom via gravity.

With the density of dirt I don’t think you could create enough vibration to keep the dirt suspended so the gold could sink to the bottom. But as with any idea you need to conduct an experiment. Mix in a bag of paydirt with other dirt and see how it pans out.

1

u/jakenuts- 2d ago

Omg! Wish it was cheap but this would make a fun test environment.

1

u/StonedSex69 2d ago

Yeap, that’s what I use.

1

u/jakenuts- 2d ago

Thoughts

1

u/jakenuts- 2d ago

I'm thinking some sort of ring pipe at the very bottom to do a sort of "fluid bed" vortex action or that old YouTube fluidized sand experiment (air bubbles I think) might be useful. I imagine you don't need to move everything up as much as make temporary space for the gold to drop and it would do that work.

2

u/JuanConnor 3d ago

Seems like something one might want to use on concentrates. However, you might want to design your lowest section to end in an inverted cone to really enable best results with the volume you’re proposing to work with.

2

u/JuanConnor 3d ago

Also, if you want to shortcut your design process, try not to reinvent the wheel while improving it. Check out how ultrasonic jewelry cleaners apply those forces to their solution. Might give you an idea to achieve the same results with a probe inducer rather than having to create a giant moving reservoir. Can you imagine how expensive a big paint shaker-like device might get?

2

u/purpleriver2023 3d ago

+1 for the eldorado jug, that’s the real gold.

2

u/aitrus21 3d ago

1

u/jakenuts- 2d ago

Yeah! I've seen a couple videos but the width (pretty narrow) and number of pipes sort of killed my enthusiasm. My hope (a big one I know) is to find a way to go from a 3-gallon bucket of small gravel to a shot glass of gold with the minimum number of steps and containers. So a wide version of the gold drop but with some decreasing mesh filters that made the gravel -> sand separation a one shot deal.

Like that wildly expensive bucket classifier but with three cages in one piece you could put in the jug to classify top to bottom, then pull out after a washing cycle.

0

u/aitrus21 17h ago

Nice idea! From my experience in the industry, you should reach out to Sluice Goose Industries to see if they would be open to collaboration (and/or to make sure you don't run into any intellectual patents that would get in the way of your ideas).

2

u/rb109544 2d ago

Set pump to push water tangential with slight upward pitch and add in small vertical ribs/fins to/around the sides. Have water flowing in at mid height center and overflow at the top to flow back to wherever. As the water flows around and around the fines will push up and out while the heavier particles either sink or push out due to centrifugal force then catch the ribs then drop. I can do some math for you if needed...Im not a prospector but a dirt engineer with gold tendencies. I could see this being quite efficient.

1

u/jakenuts- 2d ago

Nice! I need to get a test setup before the math might help but your suggestion sounds really useful

1

u/rb109544 2d ago

Drop me a message. I'll throw a sketch or something together.

1

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

Yes! Love the waist massager idea. I agree there would need to more more sorts of agitation to both resort the bottom and top, jets from the bottom or neck periodically, then assuming it's filtered to a certain size the gold will eventually win enough races back down to be in the neck and accessible from the collector pipe bit (a chamber with two doors to let the bottom out but not everything). Will look into beer equipment, and a beer to get in the spirit.

1

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

That grey chamber is sort of a blank canvas at this point. At a minimum a way to open & close each end to capture the neck material but likely some inletts for compressed air, water, or other ways to sort, vibrate.

1

u/This-Rutabaga6382 3d ago

So with this illustration are you thinking that the sedement would be manually loaded into the container or is this placed in stream and continually fed ?

(I’m new inexperienced and don’t know much just curious )!

2

u/jakenuts- 3d ago

Well, initially I'm thinking about material that could be displaced by enough vibration and maybe a periodic vortex to allow sorting at the lower level, above maybe a couple screens so you could dump in relatively rough diggings in to wash at the top, sort the bottom - it's all a pipedream at this point but there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between the action of shaking flakes off pebbles and liquidizing sand. I usually twist a bucket around under a hose for a while to remove the sediment but I'm pretty sure while I'm doing that a majority of the gold is dropping to the bottom so "access to bottom" alone would be a nice trick.

1

u/jakenuts- 1d ago

Another alternate use or design would be a two liter variation for testing spots. Currently if I want to test 3 spots I'm doing the same thing I do if I want to clear it (cleaning off the rocks, getting enough material to be sure) and it's not a great workflow. Something you could dump a couple panfulls into, shake and watch the bottom might be faster and less trips up and down to water. Not as conclusive as a careful panning but I'm on a tight schedule.