Keith, we had built something very similar to this years ago and was just in the re-design mode for one with the same basic principles you have there. The holy grail in mining has always been to pre-concentrate your head ore as much as possible without loss of gold. This basic equipment design with a few modifications has the makings of a very good pre-concentrator for both hard rock and placer mining. If you want to join forces, just let me know.
Hmm.... sounds interesting. The OTHER holy grail is getting clean concentrates with micro fine gold. That is what I have been working on. Where are you located? Keith
@@hardrockuniversity7283 Keith, I am located in Salome, AZ, about an hour and half west of Phoenix. I would agree with you on the clean cons for fine gold. Dwight
Damn I had that idea to build one for me. Turns out there is such a machine. To build a big plastic pan sold in home depot attached to something that can roll it back and forth and put a piece of metal so that the ore goes under the pan and drops the other side ...👍
Keith! I am totally interested in building a similar unit! I usually pour off the slimes from a 1/2 or less full 5 gal bucket full of water and try to concentrate and remove other light fines from the crushed ore in a similar way.. however manually.. it’s not easy or convenient. I will look for a large stainless steel tub or large container that could be used for making this tool. I am also thinking of a tool that a 5 gal bucket is placed in that shakes and settles the heavier material to the bottom and can be tilted to run off the lights. Thanks so much Keith! You are my favorite concentrated HR knowledge resources! Thanks for all your efforts! Let me know your thoughts sir.. PT
I'm currently working on some (hopefully) improvements to the design. Hope to have more to show on them by fall. To just de-slime material, you can pour in into a slanted pipe (45 degrees or so) with a very slow upwelling of water in the pipe. Thanks for the kind words
good video and explanation. The efficiency is going to be influenced by the depth of the bed you maintain in the machine. The recovery could actually be in the range of 50% for that amount of ore put in the unit. I would put 2 or 3 machines in series but good video, excellent
Very interesting, in general can you recirculate the water without losses going up? Also, generally what is that average bank run cu/yd for placer on this unit?
There are always losses because you are starting with dry material and throwing away wet to damp tailings. 20% moisture content in tailings is a good guess to start. The throughput would depend a lot on gold particle size. For crushed hard rock ore with micro fine gold around 500 mesh, the throughput as about 200 lbs/hr.
I've got a tin mining project where this would be awesome. Sand bars in a river where there is about two teaspoons of SNO2 per shovel. Little bit of gold but I want the Tin. Although could clean up a good amount of gold from below the sand bars. With this I could just shovel it in all day. If my body was up for it that is.
In your opinion would putting a charge of steel balls in the unit help with agitation? This would also take up some of the volume leaving you with less cons
I'm thinking rounded river rock of 1 - 2 inches would do the same at lower cost and with less mass to move back and forth. Good idea. I'll try it when I get a chance.
Could you fathom incorporating the concept on a larger scale in line between a 20-30yd/hr trommel and the sluice to act both as a nugget trap and a way to possibly trap fines prior to reaching the sluice where the water speed then picks up, often taking the super fines with it
If you put it ahead of the sluice and sufficiently large to recover the very fine gold, why use a sluice at all? After the sluice and a fine classification screen, I think it might make very good sense in some applications.
I did a quick internet search and found a used one for 1100$ But it's in Canada. Sure like that machine but I have a question, what really is the advantage to just running it through some sort of recirculating slice type set up?
Hello Keith, how long do you generally wait before notching up to the next tilt position during the material reduction / concentration? I’m still modifying my version of this unit but so far it’s been very good at reducing the amount of material without loosing the heavies.. Thanks sir for your educational HRU video’s PT
I usually wait while I do a test pan, about 4-5 minutes. After the second notch, I will drop back down to the first notch and wait until the charge levels itself and then raise it to the next notch.. Like 1- 1-3-1-4 and so on.
Hard Rock University Okay, very interesting. I will put a pan under the exit water/tailings then stop the shake, notch up, restart the shake and collect the material for a few minutes then see if there’s any gold getting away.. usually it’s void of gold/heavies. I am modifying the system again to use a standard bucket instead of using a permanent tub. I am a small scale prospector so I need a system that is more my size and a simple replaceable bucket maybe the ticket. I am hoping to post a video soon on this small scale ore concentrator. I tried running river dredge cons (coarse material) through it and found did a good job removing the lights and only found 2 tiny flakes in the tailings. I am really impressed with this easy concentration concept and believe it is just the ticket for bringing home a 1/4 bucket of cons and leaving the other 10 buckets of gangue at the site! Thanks Keith.. this is definitely going to make test sampling various sites Way Easier! PT
I suspect it would. You might look at my video on the modifications I made called I believe "The Triple Threat Hydramatic is Kicking ass. The ore I am working with has smaller gold than beach sand, but it may not be as flaky so I can't tell without some to test.
I think the patent owner COULD sue you for home use, but how would they know? And why would it be worth it? They were making these in 1990. That was a long time ago... It is pretty well made though. Heavy gauge steel and plated to prevent rust. Small numbers means high prices. I think I will get some experience and then see what I would change. Compare it to the price of a 1 TPH table and see how expensive it looks then. :-)
