Dry blowing in Moliagul

[1968falconxt]

Hi guys,

I finally took my dry blower out to the gold fields over the weekend. I picked the closest mullock heap to the car (due to convenience) which didn't have many others around it. I reckon I probably should have picked one that was surrounded by other diggings.

Found a few tiny nuggets though and well and truly have gold fever now

 

[Goldfreak]

Looks like a really great machine and must be very satisfying building it all yourself :Y: Added bonus of being that colour is you will never get lost wondering around the diggings

 

[shakergt]

Good to see some photos of it in action. How did it go? I do see some yellow in the last photo

 

[1968falconxt]

I found a small amount of yellow from what I cleaned up so far. My clean up sluice needs to be classified with size 8 mesh. I still have to clean up a bucket of the larger concentrates. I am just throwing together a little washer for that over the next day or 2 to see if there is any larger nuggets.

I only processed the 1 small mullock heap in the photo before the rain came in. At least I got some good weather and was able to run it before winter really set in

 

[Luvgold]

Hi Falcon ,I'm a newbie to this forum but have been on some other forums for years.I'm an all rounder and have done heaps of detecting ,sluicing, crevicing and other forms but never dry blowing. I'm really interested in your dry blowing set up.Was wondering what brand is it,where and how much it cost to set up and also the blower.How is the blower powered,if I may ask.Thanks Trevor.

 

[1968falconxt]

Hi LUVGOLD, I built the dry blower myself I have a detailed thread in the DIY Project section on this forum. The blower itself is a fairly small Ryobi $200 one from bunnings. Dry blowing is great. It is a bit dirty but you can process dirt where sluicing just isn't possible or practical. Feel free to send me a private message if you want to know anything about the dry blower.

 

[Teemore]

Hi there XT
Good to see some dry blower action, I usually break mine out over the dryer months and generally do OK.
The one place that hasn't really paid off for me to date are old bullock heaps, generally too compacted although the one you tried looks as though the dirt broke up quite well.
Good option now that you've got yours going well is dry creek bed ... have been most productive location for me ..... until I find that magic bullock heap that an inexperience old digger was working.
Shame the wet is settling in, might have to organise a get together when things dry out.
Cheers T.

 

[1968falconxt]

This mullock heap was easy to break up, but that might have had something to do the recent rain. it was surprisingly easy going, although there wasn't much gold in it. I will look into some dried up creek beds to try. Thanks for the tip

 

[Goldfreak]

By the way falcon thanks for posting all the pics and explanations on the build. Its very helpful.

 

[MJB]

Just remember that old Mullock heaps are exactly that...Mullock! We are hoping that the old timers did not realise that they had hit the pay layer already and inadvertently tossed some gold into the waste pile(mullock). Another type of tailings pile are the ones with rounded quartz stones in amongst the smaller rocks and gravel. If it is located by a water race or other water source it is likely to be a pile of raked rocks that the old timers forked out of their sluice box or long tom when it got clogged up. They washed it but as we all know sometimes a rock needs a good scrub to get all the dirt and clay off it. They did not care for it so they just got them out of the sluice box. Now all those little bits of clay and dirt have come loose and we can reprocess the same dirt and rocks to pick up the AU they left behind with our dry blowers.

 

[Luvgold]

Thanks Falcon for your reply and assistance.I will pm you, but as a newbie I am not sure how to do that on this forum yet,or even if I can.Maybe I have to upgrade .Are you able to let me know how it is done if you can. :Y:

 

[Luvgold]

Hi Falcon,have had a few more thoughts and questions on your dry blower.The first is the mesh size of the hopper grizzly mesh.How big is too big and how small is too small? My feeling is if the gaps were too big then the sluice would load up on particles too heavy to clear the end of the sluice.Too small and you will be missing some potential gold.
And what of the material that is cast off and doesn't make it thru the GB mesh?There is a small potential for small nuggets to be missed and a greater potential of the larger clods that don't make and are shed,also missing potential gold.I am very familiar with the sort of dirt in the the Triangle and particularly of mullock heaps.Anyone who has sampled and panned triangle dirt will know it is very clayey and requires lots of puddling to break it down before final panning,thus the old puddlers you find throughout the area.What I am getting at is that this larger material that doesn't go through your grizzly can and probably will have gold particles stuck to them or encased in them.
Second question I wanted to ask was, after doing your inaugural run on the mullock heap did you isolate and gather the tailings and spillovers and pan them down to check if any gold was lost from the Dblower?
Thirdly ,I can understand how the airflow is distributed and directed to create disturbance of the material and the settling out of the heavier particles,but what I don't fully grasp is the vibration side of things,since, as I gathered, there is also a vibration element in the processing of the screened dirt.
That's about all for now ,but will probably have further thoughts and questions further down the line knowing me.Cheers,Trev.('TREV's GOLD and OUTBACK ADVENTURES' ....YouTube).

 

[1968falconxt]

I am still relatively new to dry blowing so others on this forum could probably answer some of the questions better.

I run a 12x6mm expanded raised mesh on the hopper. Being raised, it has a rough surface and helps break up the dirt on top. I run my detector over the dirt that falls off the top of the hopper and have not found any detectable nuggets at all. The dry blower can handle quite large sized particles so there is no need to go a really fine mesh screen. It shakes as well as blows, so the majority of the gravel will flow down the riffle bed and out the end.

Dry blowing is not the most efficient form of gold recovery and I am sure some fine gold will not make it into the hopper. I am not too concerned by this as I don't go out to get 100% of the fine gold. I go to get the majority and move on to somewhere else. I believe chasing small amounts of fine gold is not always worth the extra effort.

As for checking the tailings pile, I took sample scoops all day from the tailings and ran them through my recirculating clean up sluice. I am pretty confident that almost no gold at all is missed by the sluice. I found no gold in the tailings pile.

It is surprising how well the dry blower processes the dirt. It comes out the other end in a fine dust form. The vibration helps break the dirt up, and it also forces the heavier particles to the bottom of the riffle bed. The dry blower catches very fine, almost flour gold. So fine that I can't be bothered cleaning some of it off the riffle bed as it seems more hassle than its worth to me.

I have heard many people say that dry blowers are less efficient than sluicing, but some areas it just is not possible or practical to use water to help the gold recovery. It is noisy, dusty, but is great fun!

 

[Luvgold]

Hi Falcon again,thanks for clearing up those points I raised.I was wondering about the details of the catchment bed beneath the sluice bar plate.I'm not clear on whether you are using some sort of permeable miners moss ,or cloth,or other.
Also found out I can't PM you until I have put up at least 10 posts.

 

[1968falconxt]

I run a dry blower cloth purchased from Reeds Prospecting in WA. It allegedly holds an electrostatic charge to help fine gold stick to it. It is cheap to buy

 

[Luvgold]

Thanks Falcon,that's really interesting.Do you think you may be interested in selling it or a copy,and if so, what would you be asking,that is minus the blower.? It would just be for my personal use ,not commercial uses.
Feel free to email me on my alternative email,as I don't give out my primary email online for secure reasons. My seldom used auxillary email is *********** As I mentioned before ,I am not able to PM yet on this forum.

Mod edit, no personal contact details in threads, use the email or PM buttons

 

[MJB]

The cloth from reeds is what I use also and supposedly what is used in the Keene Dry Washers. The Electrostatic claim they have put out there I think is hokus pokus! If you are relying on a small amount of electric charge to supposedly catch fine gold then your dreaming. I have read that it needs to be used in conjunction with a nylon tray under it or similar, apparently to assist in the electrostatic effect. Aside from that, it is a good cloth for the dry blower and works well enough for me.

 

[1968falconxt]

Luvgold, I have sent you an email.

MJB, I agree with you. I don't see how an electrostatic charge is happening in there. It does work very well as a dryblower cloth, and it tough. My hopper drops quite large sharp rocks onto it with no issues.

 

[Luvgold]

Hi Ryan ,I am still trying to get around how everything works in the sluice area.You'll have to excuse my ignorance but I was wondering what is the blue plastic catch plate and how does it fit into the picture in terms of function and in relation to the cloth screen.?

 

[1968falconxt]

Oh, the blue thing is a clean up sluice I made to process the concentrates. It isn't part of the dry blower.

I use the clean up sluice to check what gold is being collected by the dry blower and to make sure no gold is making it out the end.