johnedoe

Hey Tres

I'm not sure when I will get up to the cape again .... Hopefully soon.... But I would be happy to give you a call.

PM me your phone # and I'll call you ... also I could answer questions you may have as well.

You can call Calum Stevenson. He will be able to answer your questions ... He can be contacted at 541-888-9324

Also here is a link to the state regs.... They are absurd, and if you interpreted them literally we still couldn't beach mine....What a joke.......

Anyway here's the link....  https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=3421

Below is a screenshot of the rules and the definition of the states boundaries .... The oregon beaches are considered state park lands and extend from mean low water line to the mean high water line or prominent vegetation line. You may set up a recirculating unit and carry the sand to and from it if you are above means high water line... Depending on the ownership of that section will also determine if you can set up there.... It can get very convoluted.

Fine gold can be a real challenge especially at cleanup time.

I beach mine when I can so fine gold is all I deal with.

The problem with elutriation of fine gold is that the black sands are competing with the gold  the reason is the black sands are as a rule round in shape and fine gold has many different surface configurations which is mostly more flat... This gives it a real kite like action in the upwelling of the elutriation tube water.

Something you may find more useful and efficient would be something like the video of the fine gold cleanup slice video below.

If you have more questions I will be happy to answer if I can. you might look over my thread here as well, there maybe some helpful hints...  

Interesting gizmo..........

You realize your just talking yourself into this gizmo don't ya?....

Man Don't ask me what I think....LOL...

Shame he hasn't been back ... He could certainly make a few bucks with that case.

Here is a site for batteries they even have higher capacity LiPo's up to 9800 mAh .....

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=18650+3.7V+battery

LOL... Thank's It was a good day and I was pretty jazzed to say the least.... Even if it is butt ugly, gold is gold...

While TIDs are nice they can also cause you to miss a good target.... 

I use them as a rough reference and dig most targets in any questionable range.

We tend to get a little lazy and place too much trust in a target ID...

I would have missed this if I depended on TID as it cam in as a screw cap if I remember correctly........

415 grains of 10k

Personally I like the V3i.....

A bit of a learning curve but in my opinion worth it.

I have hunted with a guy that has a nox 800.

I hit everything he did.... Not saying there won't be times when that doesn't happen but there were no real advantages or disadvantages demonstrated on our outings.

As to the extreme level of adjustability of the V..... Once you find a range of settings that fit your hunting you really don't have to tinker with the settings much.. Just make sure you have a good ground balance and if there is EMI you may have to make some adjustment for that but I haven't really had much problems in that regard.

So............. Whats the bottom line. Learn your machine and you will do fine with whichever one you buy.

OK, Got the beach gold Boraxed ....
Not as nice a pour as the first button, and there is still gold left in the melt dish but I will redo the melt and collect it later.

Actually there was one that was approximately 30 mesh +/- a little... Real thin and flat though..... Actually they both were thin and flat... the bulk was approx. -150 mesh +/- a little.

There is another smaller one just to the right and slightly below the one I put an arrow to as well.

.485 gram.. without the pickers..... BUT there is some really fine non magnetics that I just couldn't get panned out. So I'm gonna say there is probably half that weight is good stuff and the other will just get glassed in the smelt....

That super fine black material is just a mother to try and separate........ but all things are cleansed with fire,....LOL Not a very good image and the impurities kinda hide the good stuff.... 

But like I said it will all cleanup with the burnout......... 

While I wait for the fines to finish drying here is a pleasant surprise out of my cleanup.....

2 pickers.

There was also a fair bit of platinum in the mix.

A buddy of mine and I went to whiskey run yesterday and did some diggin....

Man it was a hot day on the beach especially with no breeze.

Anyway Whiskey run has a pretty rich mining history both inland and on the beach.

There were a couple inland mines close by as well One of which was a chromium mine.

The beach placer that was discovered was a huge black sand lense.. The actual production is a little unclear but let it be said it was very lucrative until a south wester pacific storm hit and completely change the beach... Mining was halted after that.

While a few still hit the area it is not easy work since most are now working the Whiskey run creek.

The gold is fair with an occasional picker which is almost unheard of for beach mining ...

I haven't cleaned up the cons yet but will let you all know how I did after running about 20 gallons of sand.

Meanwhile here are some pics of the area.... Whiskey run is about 10 miles north of Bandon , Oregon.

The first image is from Google maps and in the bottom right corner you can see the coordinates if you want to look into this further.

Here's the beach gold........

Will be interesting to see how much I end up with after the borax smelt.

Did a little borax smelt with some dental gold I had laying around..... Didn't even have to dig for it...lol

Still have some beach gold I will borax in the near future as well..... Didn't have to dig very hard for it either....lol

Hey.... silver is silver... Nice finds.

All great advice.... I can not add anything that would improve on what is already here....

On 7/10/2019 at 4:27 PM, GB_Amateur said:

Are these still marketed?  I did a quick Google Search ("Joel Farmer Mining") and didn't find them, although there was quite a bit about him.

I haven't seen any ads in quite a while...

I got mine about 6 years ago.... Bought 2 of em......

Interesting gizmo........... But just more stuff to break.

Do the same with the hand tools you have to pack anyway.

Shovel, small pick, bucket, gold pan and classifier...... No fuel, No spark plugs, No gas can, No tools....wrenches etc.

The only thing different from production panning and the finish in the vid is that you would classify your material into the pan or 5 gal bucket. pan that material down to about a half cup, dump that into the bucket and repeat.... Once you have a bucket full... That quantity kinda depends on you .... then further speed pan that down.... by the end of the day you would have about a half cup of super cons to pack our for final cleanup later... it really doesn't take but a minute per pan to pan this way.........

You would be amazed at just how much material you can process this way.

Heres the vid..... Here's my gold pan of choice for production panning.

Thank you Bear....

Found a couple of useful pages ... One on the web and another that has a phone ap for your use in estimating scrap or natural gold values..Have fun.......

http://www.goldcalc.com

and....

http://www.coinflation.com

Or here for the iPhone ap........  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coinflation/id535653219?mt=8

OK.... Got the final cleanup weighed...... Gave me a total of 1.108 gram.......

I got the finish panning done and now just letting it dry so I can weigh it.... Looks like 3-4 grain which will put the total just over a gram........ Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.....

Thank's phrunt....

I sure wish I lived closer to Cape disappointment.... There is some really good gold on that beach.

There are guys up there that are pulling several grams a day ... You have to do a little testing to find the richer spots like anyplace but it can worth the effort.

I don't get up there much because it is a 5 hour drive and by the time I have done that I don't feel particularly energized to hit the beach on the same day.

Setting up you have to haul water from the ocean and when your running you have to handle the sand twice..... 1 into the sluice then 2 out of your recirculation tub.

I have been thinking of ways to improve the efficiency and certainly would if I lived closer.

I may just do that anyway because ..... Well it would make things more efficient when I do go....