John-Edmonton

Same to you!

58 minutes ago, HardPack said:

Load up the woodstove tonight, it appears the winter storm door is about to open. A slider is coming your way. “Here’s Johnny!” Still my favorite movie. 

slider: when a Central Pacific warm moist air mass moves up along the west coast of North American to combines with a frigid air mass dropping out of the Arctic via the Gulf of Alaska then moves inland depositing deep snow on top of all the known gold deposits in the western hemisphere; to eventually stall over Alberta, Illinois, Indiana and parts of Virginia.

frigid: similar to a woman’s reaction after watching the “The Shining”; history & webster have demonstrated time and again this definition applies to all hemispheres known to man.

webster: a slow learner; or men in general.

I love it! Time to do a little maintenance on my equipment for the new year.

8 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

Great job for this time of the year, and who knows if that gold that you may have lost won't still be there when it warms up.

Good luck and stay warm.

I figure any gold we lose, will eventually grow up to be nuggets.

This was the last hunt for this year. Colder weather in the forecast, and I have to weigh my gold for 2023. And.....another cold adventure today. Going to sleep well tonight.

Now that's funny! I remember once sitting on a 5 gallon bucket and it broke. No harm done, but it must have looked real silly.

I had to try out my insulated rubber boots (apparently good to -40) that wifey-santa got me for Christmas. They worked well.

I got to practice what I preach (it's never to cold, to go and dig gold). I headed out today, brought my Clafiornia Mini drop riffle highbanker. I used a closed system, common in areas with little water or too far from the gravel one is digging. Anyhow, I ran my unit a bit slower, as there was a lot of sand in the mix, and I am pretty sure that there is some gold there. It was nice to get out after working the weekend and Christmas activities.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Good goin! Silver is right next to gold for best finds. I bet that put a big smile on your face!😁

On 12/18/2023 at 10:50 AM, YumanAndy said:

Thats a pretty cool idea John. and it worked too !! Contract  half a gram is nothing to sneeze at

 

We work hard getting our gold. Might as well get as much out of our  concentrates as possible.

On 12/19/2023 at 1:14 AM, Valens Legacy said:

John, I have been watching this thread because of your work on the fines and the way you have been sluicing the rivers. I hope to someday to see you make a video of the equipment that you made to be able to sluice the way you do. Should you do that I would be very grateful for the knowledge as I am still young and want to learn as much as I can about this field. I know how to pan and some sluicing from my grandfather. I would like to know how to build the gear that you use and to be able to go out there and do what you have done.

Thank you for bringing new light to this type of gold hunting and showing us what a person can get if they try.

Caleb

Well, I should get a weight soon on my total gold. I will probably throw in some points on what worked well for me for my type of gold and location.

On 12/18/2023 at 12:15 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

What I think is it is super nice you are posting here these days John as things are pretty quiet otherwise. I am in awe of your patience with the fine gold recovery. I think a bottle of super clean fines is not only prettier than some nuggets, but usually also represents more effort. Long story short good on you, thank you, and Merry Christmas! 

Thanks Steve. I semi retired this year from a great career in healthcare in orthopedics. After seeing bodies come through our unit with too much drinking, smoking, obesity and  sedentary lifestyles, I decided prospecting was the ticket to add years  and  quality of life. Being outside a lot can be addictive!

On 12/18/2023 at 11:18 AM, Jim in Idaho said:

Looks great, Jon. That gold would be HUGE on the Snake near me...LOL

Jim

I am truly blessed. Ten minute drives from home and work get me to gold bearing gravel. Most people around here don't even know it exists.

My final felt run was completed. After running  this years concentrates 7 times, my 7th and last felt run  got 0.1 gram of gold. My purpose of this experiment was to see if felt could be used in the final cleanups of concentrations from gold prospecting. I was pleased with the results. Not only will felt bite and hold a lot of gold, but please look at how tiny some of the micro gold it caught. Could felt be used to clean up cons? Absolutely! To remove a good percentage of tiny micro gold? Absolutely!  Could it be added as an extention to your sluice?   Absolutely!  Could it test your tailing for gold loss?  Absolutely! After all my concentrates were reduced to -50 mesh, the felt managed to get one gram of gold out of the pre-run 10 gallons of original concentrates. What are your thoughts? Any other uses come to mind for your set-ups? Let me know.

Last nights final run.....it still caught gold. I guess you never really get it all.

Notice how tiny some of the micro gold is.

Here's what half my felt-concentrates looked like.

On 12/15/2023 at 11:40 AM, fogrider said:

Enjoy the weather. Looks like it's supposed to be warm for awhile.

Got to love the weather this year. No -40 temps (yet)

On 12/15/2023 at 1:59 AM, Valens Legacy said:

Thanks for the update and pictures of the gold.

Good luck and stay safe out there.

Thanks. 

Thanks. We are never too old to try something new. Got to keep that grey matter stimulated.

 I got 0.7 gram gold  running my prevoiusly twice run gold, now screened to -50 mesh down some felt material. It was worth it! I finally returned 8 gallons of 1st generation concentrates back to the river today, keeping two gallons at home for ice in my driveway and sidewalks.

A fairly, simple way of catching very, very fine gold, which you might otherwise miss.

Ice along the shore line. The best gold bearing gravel is close to the shoreline. This location is my winter go-to place as it never freezes over. The gold return has alwys been minimal, however, I got to keep this body moving so it doesn't stall.

I had to break and  flip over the ice close to the shoreline to get at the better gravel.

Along with some gold, I found a couple of nice dinasaur bones in my shovel scoops. Might have to tumble these.

Did find a little bit of shiny. A long drive, a long hike and two hours digging.

And a good nites sleep! So close to Chtistmas too........

Here's tonites gold cleanup obtained from the felt matting clean-up. I am half ways done from the 10 gallons of concentrates (previously run twice). Five gallons of concentrates have been reduced down to about 1/5 of a gallon. Hopefully, I can get the rest run through my triple clean-up sluice this week, then a final run of these super concentrates. I believe this to be a record year for me.

Ran another gallon of -50 mesh over my bucket sluice with felt material. This time I added some plastic mesh. It created some light turbulence, slowing the water down and allowing even more tiny micro gold to drop out and get caught in the felt fibers. Remember.....these concentrates have already been run through my clean-up sluice two times previously. After finishing my total of 10 gallons of concentrates, I will have recovered a substantial amount of mico gold.

I really am impressed how the felt hangs on to the very fine gold.

Here's what I got using my bucket clean-up sluice covered with felt for that -50 mesh. The rest went over two more small riffle mats. Going to clean that up when I am done running my -50 mesh. I have about 5 gallons left to finish.

I have wanted a small rock crusher for quite some time. I actually have 2 uses for it. Crushing rocks, such as quartz to a powder to search for gold. And.....

some of my rocks/fossils are too big to tumble, so I now can break them down to manageable size pieces to tumble.

Here are some fossils I was able to process and polish from my local rivers.

And some polished petrified wood.

2 hours ago, Bedrocker said:

Morning John! I just continue to be amazed at your gold recovery. You could probably make some extra money by bagging up some of the NSR gravel and selling it. Cheap of course lol.

Did you ever make a post about how you built the speed controller for the motor?

I am going to cash in my gold this year. I did make a post earlier this year about that speed controller.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160371624754476&set=pcb.564350418915544