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A New Concept In Gold Recovery.....


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I've been trying to come up with a unit to recover gems dry, but finally realized that the "granular convection" problem can't be defeated. In the process of building and trying various ideas, I came up with this unit. While the dry recovery of gems requires some very tight classifying, and thus isn't practical, I tried it for gold, and was simply amazed at its abilities for heavy metals. I have tried it on all sorts of raw materials, running bank feed at roughly 2" minus, and have yet to find a material it doesn't work on to one extent or another.

 I ran it dry...no water, on damp material at the LDMA Blue Bucket outing near Baker, Oregon a few weeks ago, and recovered flour and black sand from old tailings from previous outings. Running wet, the day before, on new material I recovered very near 100% on black sand and gold in front of several witnesses. They suggested re-running the tails, and zero black sand, or gold was found. Last weekend I attended a local club outing at Salmon, Idaho. The material was a heavy clay with lots of rocks....not a fun material, at all. At the common dig, one of the guys next to me, running a highbanker, mentioned that my little unit was handling the clay really well. I was the only person running 2" minus directly into the machine, and the rocks were agitating the material so the clay broke down, and the rocks were mostly clean before they went out to tails. The day prior to the common dig I went down to the locale the common material had been hauled from, and ran the material dry. This was  a nasty, damp material. I expected nothing and was surprised to see both black sand and gold when I did the cleanup. Certainly I lost quite a bit, but any recovery working dry from damp material is an accomplishment. This unit works wet or dry. Very little dust running dry. Very low water requirement when running wet...roughly 50 gallons/hour.

 The full utility US Patent has been applied for.

 You can see the prototype running at Bonanza Bar on the Snake, along with pics of the recovery here:  

 

Jim

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Here's a few pics of the commercial version. I have four of these ready to ship. I'm charging $550 + shipping. They run on 12V power, and are very quiet. I also build a skeletonized aluminum version that only weighs 11lbs. That can be easily packed into remote areas.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

YEEEHAA!!!! i  was notified by mail today that my patent application has been approved! I need to send them a check for $250, and my patent will be issued. Only 5% of the patent applications are approved on the first run-through, so I'm really pleased to be in that group. I put 250 hours into the application. I'm really happy all that effort paid off. I may never make any money from the machine, but it's still nice to have a patent.

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congratulations jim, you have a great idea there. does the gold and black sand migrate to the center of the flexible membrane? if so how do you get it ? 

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Yup...the diaphragm sags in the center, and the heavies end up there. You have to stop every couple of hours and empty the diaphragm so you can pan out the cons. The unit requires very little water. The water is just to make the damp, or sticky material let loose of the gold. Other than that, the water has nothing to do with the recovery. That's why the machine works either with, or without water. I've been surprised to see how well it works with even damp material with no water. Still recovers about 60%, and very small gold. The ones I sell are 18" in diameter, but I can build them to any size desired. The prototype was built in a cutoff 55 gallon drum...about 22" in diameter. The only place they don't work is on the heavy black beach sand. But, not many machines will separate gold from black sand, so I don't feel bad that mine won't either, though mine has not been tested on beach sand when running wet...only dry. The 18" machine weighs under 20lbs, so can easily be backpacked to where it's needed.

Jim

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Thats quite and accomplishment Jim, both the machine and the patent.  Roughly how much material does it process in an hour?

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Roughly 20 gallon/hour, DD. It depends somewhat on the material. Running wet increases the throughput, as does more granular material. Running dry, with a powdery material, slows the volume. Sandy material increases it. Running that powdery carbonaceous material at the Peg Leg, when I was trying to recover pyrites, I was only running about 12 gallons/hour. This is for the 18" diameter unit. Going to a 24" model almost doubles it.

Jim

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So classification down to 1/2 inch wet may increase processing I'm guessing.  Elimination of material below that would impact separation and self cleaning capability of the material especially with clays.  I understand it depends on the media so thats a supposition.  Interesting.  How do you determine its time to clean out the con's?  I take it your diaphragm is a heavy mil abs plastic.  No I'm not looking to make one just understand the one your making.  Kinda reminds me of a dry blower without the air ?

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