How do I recover my fine gold, that the Blue Bowl won’t capture?

I have crushed quartz to minus 100 mesh. I tried panning but the gold is too tiny… I bought a Keene Blue Bowl(BB) and it is too small for that to capture. My gold floats and I am using rinse aid.
I am so annoyed

Noob Luke said:

I have crushed quartz to minus 100 mesh. I tried panning but the gold is too tiny… I bought a Keene Blue Bowl(BB) and it is too small for that to capture. My gold floats and I am using rinse aid.
I am so annoyed

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I added a Lego drop riffle mini sluice and can see all the tiny gold that the BB is losing.

The tweezers in there for size reference. The green Lego base plate is upside down and sluices the BB funneled waste. I hope the pics are clear enough to show all the tiny gold in the Lego.

Here is some of the gold that made it past the Lego sluice. It’s in a hold pan placed to catch the overburdened from the sluice and yeah it’s Zoomed in , tiny smaller than 100 mesh gold. I got now idea how to get it… could I buy a small furnace and just smelt it sand and all? Or mercury? Or any other ideas? Really small gold… table salt size and lots smaller and likes to float.

Or is this just mica or perhaps phyrites . The bigger bits are thin plates

Mercury

Pogo said:

Mercury

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Thanks for the reply. Pogo.
Hmmm okay perhaps I should do some research on how to use it safely.

Doesn't look like gold to me.

You're right, mica / pyrites. Fools gold.
Gold and mercury don't float.

Harald Hardrada said:

Doesn't look like gold to me.

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Okay thanks I am also not 100% sure it’s gold, but still shiny in shade and smaller than the other concentrates in the pan- so it must be heavy. The picture with the black gold pan the specks are through the concentrates - mot just at rear. Of the pan

EVIE/BEE said:

You're right, mica / pyrites. Fools gold.
Gold and mercury don't float.

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I don’t have any mercury… and I believe tiny gold can float as does mica.

Thank you all for your responses much appreciated on my journey to learning more about all things gold.

Gold only floats in bad water, town water can do it or greasy hamburger hands in the water. Blue bowls can be tuned to not miss gold, usually rinse aid solves all gold floating issues so yeah could be pirites.

Harald Hardrada said:

Doesn't look like gold to me.

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Nope , nor me.

it's an easy one.....smelt it.....you may need to learn some new skills...but that aint such a bad thing...blowing off the qtz etc in the furnace is the easiest way to go.

There's not much (of value in small quantities) a well set up 'blue bowl' will miss...
Then you are looking at sulphides and mercury/cyanide/retort I believe to get anything back??

If your not keen on the whole mercury process.

try floating your gold off.

gold will float, it’s hydroscopic.

try using water in a small pan, no rinse aid or detergent.

very gently swish the water with About the amount of water you would use at the final stage of panning. The surface tension of the water should float the tiny gold particles, if there are enough of them they will start to clump together.

pick them up with a tiny paintbrush.

it’s painstaking but it does work..

watch the last few minutes of this to see how it works.



I now basically do this process and the when I’ve panned down to about a teaspoon of super heavy sand and tiny gold I put it in a vial with a tiny blob of mercury, about the size of a match head. I’m still on my first blob, it’s now almost the size of a pea with the gold it has picked up. Each time I have some more super fines I pan of the mercury blob, ditch the old sands and add the new sands and blob in the vial.

I got the little bit of mercury I have from an old motion detector/ tilt switch and an old mercury thermometer and from amalgam from crevicing panning and sluicing alluvials where the OTs had been using mercury.

You can now purchase a miller table for the home. Slow and steady and you'll be amased at how much gold appears. See videos of Chris at Vogus Prospecting on youtube as he now uses one instead of the blue bowl.

If you sre gonna melt it youll only need a few things.

1 big potato as a crucible.
Borax, to work as a flux.
Heat torch. You can use an oxy but a mapp torch will do fine.
Gloves suitable to handle hot objects, I use welding gloves
Bucket of cold water made out of steel.


Just be careful not to blow the fines out, but if you slice a bit off the top of the potato and hollow it out you can make it so it wont fly out the top.

Slice a piece off the bottom so it can stay sitting flat. Give it a few blasts to blacken it up and carbon to form before adding anything.

Heat fines to bring temp up, add teaspoons of flux and melt gold together.

You can do it the other way around, and some folk swear by it.

Dont over do it. Once it balls together flick it into the bucket. You can move it with the heat source or picking up and tipping the potato. The borax will form on it at times, just some gentle tapping will release it and any impurities.

Youll know if you got gold that way for sure. If not probably be a spectacular waste of time.

I try to melt at least few grams at a time to make it worthwhile.

And dont eat the potato. I only have the Mrs at home so I let her know not to interfere, if you got pets or kids keep them away. Best outdoors on a mostly still day.

Way safer than mecury, more efficient than any other method if you have the right set up.

Good luck.