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

[Noob Luke]

Wow thank you all for freely sharing your methods and “secrets “ great ideas and I am keen to try some of them out.

I tossed out my concentrates as I thought it likely that it was pyrites or mica. But I still have some quartz rock so I guess I can dolly it and try some of these methods. Im thinking of dollying the ones that feel heavy for their size/heavy mineralisation and stained and the calcrete that feels heavy.

Busy at work for the next 2 weeks but I will give it a go after that and post some pictures of the result in this post!

I actually have a jar of crushed qtz which has mica (I presume it’s mica as it it biggish easily visible with the naked eye and plate like and lots all through and shiny like glitter and about the same size or perhaps but green tinge. From a known gold in hard rock area in the western yilgarn area. I guess i can try that too.

I am thinking I might try the mapp torch and borax and potato. I see bunnings have a few mapp torches and gas for sub $100.

Thanks again everyone for your detailed advice! Much Appreciated!

 

[Pogo]

if you’ve got a fair bit to get through the little miller table would be good.

Ild like one but I don’t have enough cons to justify one.

 

[Nightjar]

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

Fine gold does float, as already mentioned adding rinse aid will prevent this.

 

[Hawkear]

I once had a lot of fine mustard gold in crushings. They were almost impossible to pan out so I put the crushings in a Hornady cartridge case cleaner with a little water and very small amount of mercury. Turned on the case cleaner and let it run run for about a day and then panned everything off and found it quite easy to recover the mercury and gold amalgam.
The vibrating case cleaner had ensured that the small amount of mercury had permeated every part of the crushings and scoured the fine gold into the amalgam.
When I replanned the crushing s I could see none of the fine mustard gold left so I was fairly happy that most had been recovered.

 

[user 4386]

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.

Nope , nor me.

Nor me. Yes, fine gold can float because of the surface tension of water, But first check that you have gold.....