The following is a guide for the advanced hobby miner, although you can prospect and recover gold with much less equipment, the equipment and instructions listed here allow the hobby miner to recover 90-95% of the available gold rather than 50-70% without these techniques. In the 1800's the 49'ers lost as much as 80% of the gold in their pans and sluices due to the primitive equipment used in the day. I hope you find this guide entertaining and useful! Please feel free to rate this guide after you are done reading it. thankyou!

Sincerly,

Luigi Del-Ciotto 
 

GUIDE TO MAXIMUM GOLD AND PLATINUM RECOVERY WITH HOBBY MINER'S EQUIPMENT

       This guide has been written by me through personal experience and knowledge although there may be more efficient ways or more productive ways to recover even more gold and platinum such as chemical means i am only going to cover what i have personally done and only make brief mention of some other methods you may want to try in a safe environment. The process i use can recover better than 95% of gold 250 mesh size (flour gold) or larger. I hope novice and intermediate prospectors will find this information useful.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• 3 DIFFERENT GOLD PANS OF DIFFERENT SIZES I USE 8,12,16 INCH GARRETT SUPER SLUICE PANS (SOLD IN A SET THAT INCLUDES A 1/4 INCH CLASSIFYING SCREEN TO GET THE REALLY CHUNKY ROCKS OUT) AND FOR THE FLOUR GOLD I USE A 12 INCH ESTWING PLASTIC PAN WITH TWO SIZES OF RIFFLES ONE FOR LARGE MATERIAL AND TINY RIFFLES TO WORK THE SMALLER SANDS.
• A MINI RE-CIRCULATING SLUICE BOX (LARGER ONE IF YOU HAVE IT)
• CLASSIFYING SCREENS THAT FIT OVER A 5 GALLON PAIL. I USE 8,12,20,30,50,100,AND 250 MESH (250 IS OPTIONAL) CLASSIFIERS
• SEVERAL LARGE RUBBERMAID CONTAINERS
• A GOLD SPIRAL WHEEL (I USE THE DESERT FOX MODEL)
• SNIFFER BOTTLE
• TWEEZERS
• JET DRY DISH WASHING SOAP
• A SCOOP
• SEVERAL VIALS AND SMALL CONTAINERS WITH TIGHT FITTING LIDS
• A BIG AND STRONG AND HEAVY MORTAR AND PESTLE
• A CAST IRON SKILLET
• SALT
• AQUA REGIA IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT (NOT TOO MUCH WILL BE SAID ABOUT THIS DUE TO DANGERS IN DEALING WITH STRONG ACIDS I RECOMMEND LOTS OF READING AND STUDY ON THIS BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT IT
• A BLUE BOWL CONCENTRATOR
• AND LOTS OF DETERMINATION AND PATIENCE!
• A GOOD GPS UNIT IS OPTIONAL BUT INDISPENSABLE IF YOU FIND A GOOD PAY STREAK!

HERE WE GO!

       O.k. let's start at the river, creek or other sweet spot you are working... Of course the first step is to find and prospect your digs, personally i like to create a map of the area i want to work and separate it into a grid about 10 feet by 10 feet for each grid section going up my creek (this applies to all forms of hand prospecting.) At each grid section i sample thoroughly if possible digging to bedrock or false bedrock (compacted earth/clay layers). I run my digs through my sluice after classifying with a 1/4 inch classifying screen. I spend about 2-3 hours in each grid section or until i am convinced there is better material further UPSTREAM. As i do this i log my findings into my note book and log the GPS co-ordinates as well. I also keep a five gallon pail of concentrates from the sluice box from each grid section, properly label it in conjunction with my notebook and GPS co-ordinates. This is for later study and sampling at home to locate the amount of micron and fine gold each grid contains, sometimes black sands can carry up to 4 times as much micron gold as coarse visible gold and it all counts! Once I have found a grid section that is showing coarser gold that is worthwhile to sluice out in the field for larger nuggets I also bin up and trailer home the concentrates from this area as i don't have enough time to do it all on the field (also i keep a large amount for my unsearched pay dirt sales that has only been classified down to 1/4 inch mesh otherwise untouched.) Generally i trailer home about 2-3 tons of material half for pay dirt sales and half for me to process. As you search your grid it is very important to note down things such as quantities of black sand recovered (I use a per 5 gallon pail scale) The condition of the larger visible nuggets (smooth and worn or bumpy and coarse) I also note down the presence of other heavies and amounts of quartz or other gold bearing rocks present especially gold in rock matrix this indicates you are very close to the source of your gold because it has not travelled far enough to lose all the surrounding rock on it! Lucky you!

       Now you have done your sampling work (these insructions also apply to production once you find your sweet spot) And you are now ready to process your concentrates from the sluice or diggings that have been classified down to 1/4 inch. Make sure while classifying at the 1/2 or 1/4 inch stage you keep your eyes open for nuggets it would be a shame to throw large nuggets into your tailings pile lol! First stage is to classify all your material using the classification screens mentioned in the what you need list... I stack all my classifyers onto each other and fit them over a clean 5 gallon pail and one scoop at a time i shake it all down, once a classifying screen becomes loaded (3/4 full) i use one of my rubber maid containers (usually the 30-50 gallon size) to store that class of gravel using a different container for each class, generally for the 50,100 and 250 mesh screens a 5 gallon pail is big enough. Once this is done for each grid i searched on a specific trip (i usually search 3-5 grids per outing as i have to travel a long distace and cant go every weekend. You have probably figured out that i have a large trailer by now lol) I use my re circulating sluice first on the 1/4 inch and 8,12 and 20 mesh sizes of gravel, if it is good stuff i re sluice it up to 2 more times as no sluice is perfect. Then i pan out the cons from the sluice. DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR PANNING TAILINGS! PAN OVER A EMPTY RUBBERMAID BIN TO KEEP FOR FURTHER PRODUCTION! 

       Now that you have recovered the majority of your larger gold it is time to get it down to the really profitable stuff, First pan out the different classified gravels into a rubber maid container use a couple of drops of jet dry dishwasher fluid to break the surface tension of the water or you will lose a lot of the fine gold as air attaches to it and makes it float away because it is so light this is really important so please don't skip this step, pull out the smaller gold with your sniffer bottle but remember to keep the tailings classified still dont dump it all into the same container it is important to classify because larger stones and pebbles are notorious for knocking gold out of the pan if the sands and gravels are uniform it assure you that the heaviest stuff in the pan is gold and everything else will move without disturbing the gold too much. Once you have finished panning all your classified sand and gravel (which you have still kept in their separate classifications!) It is time to go after the flour and micron gold!

       Okay you now have all this wet classified sand and gravel that looks like there is little or no gold in it, if your digs were any good think again, there is probably as much if not more gold in that than what you have already panned out! The next step is to dry out each bin of sand seperatly, once dry it is time to get your mortar and pestal or if you are lucky you have access to a ball bearing milling machine. Go get your classifiers as well. Stack your classifiers onto a very clean 5 gallon pail and start crushing each stage of the sands and gravels. What I do is crush say my 30 mesh stuff once then i look at the top (20 mesh) classifier and use my tweezers to pick out any missed nuggets or nuggets that have been released or flattened by the mortar and pestal (i use a 30 pound smasher) then keep smashing the remainder until all 20 mesh plus gold is removed and the rest of the sand and gravel has passed through to the 30 mesh screen. Reapeat this process for the 30,50 mesh screens as well so that all you are left with is less than 50 mesh material. once this is done use separate containers to store each class of sand you have at this point.

Okay now we get to play with our gold spiral wheel for each classification of sand... make sure to save the tailings again there is still a couple more ways to get the rest of the gold out. run each classification of sand through your spiral wheel one table spoon at a time to collect the free milling gold contained in these small classifications as this method in my experience seems to recover the most gold. Gold spiral wheels run about 250-500 dollars depending on the model. once you have finished a classified batch of sands remove the gold and other heavies from the rear of the gold spiral wheel and process them and clean out the gold and platinum, you can use a blue bowl for this if you like. with the tailings, they are pretty much cleaned of free milling gold but the black sands may contain much more micron gold locked in with sulphides. So what you should do is pan or sluice the blond (light) sand away so all your left with is the black sand of the classification you are working on. (I cannot stress how important it is to keep these sands classified) dry out the classified black sands and go get your iron skillet and salt, you will need an outdoor stove/fire for this next step. add black sands and about half the amount of salt as you have black sand into the cast iron pan and cook this to hot temperatures shaking it as you go. This will crack open the sulphides and realease the gold trapped in them. go back to your blue bowl preferably or your spiral wheel and repan it to recover the released gold. Repeat this step for each classification of sand. But this time you can let all the black sands mix together or you can throw them out because the next step if you want complete gold and platinum recovery is to use the aqua regia solutions on it to precipitate the left over gold and platinum out (this can be profitable or a money hole only do if the sands and gravels were rich) As I said above i will not detail these steps as the methods used involve dangerous chemicals and really is no safer than mercury almagation that the 49'ers used. (do not do it mercury can cause hair and tooth loss, madness and even death!) mercury almagation should only be done in a laboratory setting. aqua regia is slightly safer but must be done outside in a very safe and well ventilated environment with proper safety gear! Other options include sending to the smelter or cyanide leaching, but at this point i recommend professional help and an assay to determine if these steps are worthwhile.

I hope this guide has helped answer any questions you may have about complete gold recovery, nobody said it was easy and if they did they were pulling your leg. recovering gold to this degree can be frustrating and boring especially during the final stages because the gold is invisible to the naked eye and you don't see any results till the end if any are to be had. As I said before lots of patience and determination, or go find a spot with enough coarse gold that you dont care about the small stuff! You can always give it to me lol!

Luigi Gino Del-Ciotto

The Mineralman