Another issue is the gold in the oxidized pyrite - the number 2 bead you got was pretty impressive for 100 grams of #2 cons. Harry and the guys are just doing a free gold recovery only - and getting a quarter to a half ounce recovery in free gold particles. I watched a few of their videos and they pan off any sulfides and oxides and just recover the free gold. But gold locked up in pyrite does not go anywhere when the pyrite oxidizes to Limonite / Goethite. But the pyrite becomes much less dense as it is converted to limonite. As you saw, much of the oxidized pyrite goes into the No. 2 and even the No. 3 cons - because it is now so much less dense. The unoxidized pyrite fraction went mostly to the no. 1 cons. One answer of why you seem to be getting a lot more gold may be that you are smelting all the #1 cons including sulfides and oxides, and they are panning off anything that isn't gold. Have they done any actual fire assays of their rock? Have they assayed the oxidized pyrite fraction? Pyrite often carries gold and if you are rejecting the oxidized pyrite, you are rejecting the gold was in the pyrite that is now oxidized.
@Chris, I’ve been to their shop and although they haven’t shown themselves processing their sulfides and pyrites , they actually do. I’ll ask Chad or Ron if they will do a video on that for us as your right I haven’t seen one from them explaining how they do it.😎
I just bought some hard rock high grade from BC. The fellow told me I will lose most ofvthe Au if I fire smelt it! I'll be doing the entire batch in acids
Agreed Jason is going too much credit to the 2g he recovered to the nails. At most the added 15%-20%. Still making the recovery around 40-45g per ton. Sounds like a winner
*I got the two bags of crushed high grade you auctioned off a while back, finally successfully processed. From the 2297 grams of ore received, recovered a 2.015 gram gold button, slightly exceeding your rate of return when you processed your sample of the high grade.* That's some really rich ore in that mine!
Thanks for keeping me company while I drink pot of coffee always a learning experience, love how The lessons in geology from your friend help explain your work 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🤙🏼🤟🏼🖖🏼
This is primarily for Chad and Harry. I noticed he said he felt the rotary hammer drill "wasn't big enough". The major issue with that drill, is the voltage drop being caused the the excessive length of those cords, and the fact that the drill is getting the left over voltage after all the lights and voltage drop due to length and conductor size. Id be surprised if that drill was getting 95-100v after all things considered. The solution is costly- A dedicated heavier gauge cord(preferably one piece), running on its own generator.
Agree. Considering the terrain, a solar with lithium charging station might be feasible and could include charging via the generator capability they currently have. The stable temp in the mine would ensure no restriction for high/low charging temp.
there is a trick i have done using a transformer and rheostat where I boosted the voltage and set it back at 120 volts. and have run power for a electric rock drill 800 feet underground
Sulfur makes a blue flame, yellow is sodium. Something you could try to do to recover the bismuth is run those nails through your hammer mill and the table should separate the two, or even put them through your disc mill and then put them on a plate and heat it up only hot enough to melt the bismuth but not the iron. Bismuth melts at like 520F so you can easily reach that with a map gas torch or even a hot propane torch. The sad part is you've been using nails for quite a while and if the gold sticks to them all the time... how much gold have you thrown away on nails?
You sound like you know that we had to handle this ore , May I ask you one question, this all timer told me to use Portland cement , my recovery went up,why?
People choose to buy gold for various reasons, such as it’s historical role as a store of value and medium of exchange, it’s potential as a hedge against inflation or currency devaluation, and it’s relative scarcity compared to other commodities. Gold also offers diversification benefits to investment portfolio due to its low correlation with stocks and bonds. However, investing in gold carries risks and may not be suitable for everyone. Investors should carefully evaluate their objectives, risk tolerance and financial situation before deciding.
Investing in gold is a reliable choice, and I plan to keep buying more to make up for my losses. While silver, stocks and digital currencies are also good investment, my collectibles are not as similar. It's important to have clear investment goals and educate yourself on the type of investment that interests you..
Yes, gold is a great investment and a good bet against the devaluating dollar, been holding some for awhile now, I’m grateful my adviser’s moment by moment changes in the market are lightening quick, cos who know how much losses I would’ve had by now.
Annette Marie Holt is the licensed advisor I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment
In the 60 here in Poland, miners in uranium mines often put a sheet of steel right under wall that was about to be blasted. It helped with mucking as shovel didn't get stuck on jagged gravel, but could slide smoothly on the metal sheet.
Like the old timers used to say, Gold Rides an Iron Horse. So in altered rock where you see Iron, you'll see gold. As far as the nails is concerned you might have to create some Aqua regia and immerse the nails in that to get the gold free from the iron and Bismuth, Since Aqua Regia dissolves gold. But you're gonna need nitric acid to make Aqua Regia. Fun time mining in that little partially filled stope. definitely worth digging out that seam, for sure!
Jason, I bought some one gram 99.9% silver bars and use them periodically to test my smelting technique. Use an ore sample that has been proven to not have any gold or silver in it. So far I’m getting back 99% of my silver back. Since you are checking for gold contamination just use one gram gold bars instead. Testing with a known quantity is a well known scientific method. HTH! Love your channel.
He's got contamination everywhere. Not just the nails or his mill. His buckets, gold pans, smelting pots, forms, scales. I don't think he's learning any lessons from it either but it's his channel and I do enjoy it.
This is a funny idea, but think about it a bit before dismissal. Consider mounting a second headlamp on the back of your camera, so anytime your looking into the camera, we can see whats happening behind you and get a better sense of the space. Any opportunities to eliminate some of the blackness will help sell the experience more accurately to the reality. It doesn't need to be a headlamp persay, just another light source to cast backward.
Jason... I think that rooster crying in the background stole the gold! Yes, I know I'm messing but hey, all the experts have their succinct feedback while me, I'm just a BIG FAN of watching all your stuff, so thanks for being a great guy and an even greater instructor! Yep, now I walk on the beaches here in Ireland and look at each and every quartz pebble and stone... and look to see if I can spot all the bits you have taught me!! THANKS!!
Very cool. You are learning important things. It makes sense that iron will alloy with lead, bismuth, gold, etc. even though you are running the furnace below the iron melting point. I've seen this happen with other metals. The resulting alloy could be so high in iron that you can't melt it to extract the PMs. I don't think you can use iron at all knowing this unless you have a way to fully recapture the other metals. Maybe dissolving the nails in HCl (the Au and Ag should be left behind)? It probably makes more sense to find other methods to oxidize the sulfides.
I already knew gold is insoluble in HCl as aqua rega is the only acid to dissolve it .A quick check showed that silver is also insoluble in it. Disolving metals in acid is far easier than the smelting process in my opinion
Great video Jason! I live in WA as well and was drooling over the beautiful CA weather :). Have you ever just tried taking your crushed table cons and dissolving it in hydrochloric / nitric acid? Will the acid break the gold out of the crushed sulfides? I mine in Nome, Alaska and my gold (panned material) is 83% pure and the rest is about 8.5% AG, 5% FE, and 3.5% Sn. I'm typically able to produce .995 gold with just the aqua regia technique.
1:06:14 You have to tint one of those jaw crushers so it looks like Dan Hurd's face with the bolts as eyes and crusher plate as the beard😂🤣😅 Of course with, nom nom, nom in a speech baloon like a cartoon 😅😂 ..and I think your chickens 🐔 sound hilarious 😂
Great video, I love these in depth longer videos rather than the shorts. Iappreciate that they are much more work, but they are also much better to watch and very informative !
maybe use powdered iron instead of nails.might be able to be more accurate than chucking a hand full of nails in, might help with inconsistencies in the smelt? investing in a xray gun to narrow down sample composition for a more tailored smelt recipe? just some thought's stay positive and thanks for another awesome video!!
my two cents , with the nitric and the sulfur and the combination of every thing else when it come to boil your putting gold in a solution similar to AR , the nails drop the gold and silver out and it deposits on the nails because they are attracting it , quick check would be dissolve the iron with Muriatic acid with few drops of hydrogen peroxide in a beaker and get it hot to burn off iron rinse couple times then smelt it , last thought baking soda in your flux to reduce acids power that was made might be very bubbly tho . Bill
Another great video. I really appreciate that You bring us along on your learning. Your videos are refreshing exactly because You ask a lot of great questions. And, You are quick to explain what You do not currently understand and are a great example of the scientific method in real life. Never stop learning!
If you can't smelt it. I'm not so into the chemistry of Bismut, but dunk the nails a few times in Nitric acid and keep filtering what you poor of. Dunk the filtrate and left overs in Aqua Regia and percipitate the Gold with FerrousSulfate. (Or SMB)
Hey, since nails make problems just use kno3 first then wait for the slag to stop bubbling meaning all the kno3 reacted and then add bismuth. And don't use iron this way you lose some silver due to oxidation but at least you recover all the gold since it doesn't oxidise. Or you can just use charcoal powder as a reduction agent instead of iron.
To Provide XS Iron I have had very good results using Old ReBar I have been removing from a WaterWay. The Bar is definitely more than 50 years old and the metal seems to dissolve more readily in a Smelt. The ReBar was part of a Historic Mining zone nearby which is completely gone. Only a few indications remain. The ReBar is easy to put into and take out of the Smelt. There is also a Needle Point left on the ReBar. Kewl.
Maybe you can mechanically remove the bismuth from the nails by scraping or hammering. Then fire that in a cupel. If it works you could switch to more uniform rods of iron to make it easier to remove.
I enjoy watching the process, from mining to smelting. It is quite a journey. Thinking on the contamination aspect, I see you run a lot of different material through both crushers, do you clean them in-between different runs? Looking forward to more this coming season from your mine. I have enjoyed going through the two bags of muck I bought from you, I have found many pieces of free gold.
I am so jealous of that lapidary saw those things may look like n old relic but will last forever and are the best around very nice . I’m a nerd rockhound and I’m excited it’s going to be heavy rain tonight so I’ll get out early on a epidote hunt haha
I don't know about that. My "snake bite chili" is mighty good and not that hard to make out of those desert chickens. Of course it was easy for me since I got the meat already chunked and flash frozen from the round up near El Paso each year. Buddy would send me a couple pounds every time he went and overnight it to Houston area where I lived.
the 1/4 to1 ounce stuff piled just outside of the upper drift is their high grade pile. many small mines in the 1930s in the upper Calif desert have these piles and after they got a couple truck loads they would take the ore to the burton brothers tropico mill to be milled .they would take truck loads, burro loads, and even back pack loads and give the miners 95% of the gold recovered over 1/2 ounce per ton/ i have seen the old Burton brothers mill records and there were miners that would bring in burro loads that ran 20+ ounces per ton. i knew Cecil Burton as he ran a small prospect drilling project on Soledad mountain near a mine i was working that he later sold to a big mining company and they are doing a large open pit mine on the mountain at this time. back in the 1970s and 1980s i use to look for the piles of ore at the entrance of small mines in the calif desert and do fire assays and haul away any high grade piles over 1 ounce a ton and mill it at a friend's mill in randsburg calif made good extra spending money while working at the Kerr McGee chemical plant in Trona.
I was going to suggest acid and seeing if you don't get the bismuth to release from the iron. And the only way to get a precise evaluation is to clean all the equipment and do another run and perhaps instead of nails use iron filings. It would be interesting to see the difference in the results. I don't know which is more fun. Pulling the ore or pulling the AU from it. But if that's the choice there's really no downside. Except getting out. 😅
BigDStacks always talks about putting a piece of cardboard on the firebrick before putting the crucible in and it prevents the brick from sticking to the crucible.
At around 34:50 there’s a flake that looks like gold for sure right to the right of the line he’s talking about when we find this we find gold. Great video!
@35:47 something really fluoresced off by itself to the left on the rock when all the lights were out. Edit and add... I think you have become quite proficient at the oration and writing of the scripting. The videography was spot on and I just think you have become a powerhouse of how 'work related' videos should be.
You are quickly becoming my favorite you tube channel! I been hiking the east fork of the san gabriel river found a really interesting quartz out crop on a back trail… i know enough to say that it is super mineralized with copper as it has green staining throughout the rock tons of what i believe is pyrite really silvery and sparkles i wish i could have you crush it and see whats in it id go lug some more down the hill lol
Every ore sample is different, metals in ore will change the chemistry of the melt. PGM and other high temp elements will mess with your results. Every ore will have a different process, same as gold recovery from electronics, there are mechanical and chemical differences in the process. I would recommend roasting anything not clean quartz powder. If high magnetic, remove from ore and smelt separately. Magnetics treatment with HCl will do wonders in reducing iron. Nitric will do better for removing all but Au, smelt the slime then cupel. There is no " one sure way" experiment until you find the best results for the parent material. Be safe, small batch, have fun!
Interesting, isn't it comparing your Washington mine at 31 grams per ton against the California desert mine at 8 grams per ton. The work and cost of getting it out of the ground and milling it or recovering the gold is nearly the same, but the amount of gold to show for all these efforts is hugely different.
You have Iron Oxide rich ore so my guess is the heat is reducing the iron oxide back down to iron and forming sulfur dioxide with the sulfides. The nails are probably too cold going in causing the bismuth or flux to cool and attach to the nails and maybe even forming some kind of alloy or insulator layer (non metal + metal = ceramic and silicon is in many high temp ceramics) or the "iron mixture" is raising the melting point. Ideally you need to know the ph of your cons because you can not have a basic and acidic flux at the same time. The base and acid would cancel, giving you a more neutral ph. If you have both basic and acidic impurities you either need 2 melts or vastly different melting points to split the reactions into steps. Another option may be a set of fluxes with preferential reactions with certain impurities.
Bismuth Oxide and Iron Oxide form Bismuth Ferrite around 800C and doesn't melt until over 1000C according to wiki. This adds more credence to my theory of the cold nails forming a mixture that is raising the melting point of the bismuth in your highly oxygen rich flux which is one of the synthesis methods listed as well.
I'm not an expert in any way but, I think iron filings may work better than nails. It seems to me that collector metal may get entangled by the nails. Filings would let you pour even the unreacted iron into the cone mold and allow the collector metal time to break free and coalesce with the rest. Maybe? Just an idea... Love your videos. Thanks for all your hard work producing them.
You've done so many smelts over the years, been thinking if you recorded all of them systematically on excel (including grading the results) you would have such a fantastic reference tool. Particularly if you included the composition of the cons. Can you xrf your cons?
Could you take the #1 and #2 off the shaker and just roast it first to oxidize the sulfides? Then add collector metal at the bottom of the crucible, topping it with all the fluxes you need to separate the unwanted stuff into the glass. Or find another way to oxidize the sulfides, like put them through the disk mill to make them really fine grained, then pump air through them in a water column to oxidize them. You could use an aquarium air pump and a piece of 1 inch pvc pipe. I'm just thinking that if you can deal with the sulfides ahead of the smelting things would be a lot easier. Or, try to make a better estimate of the sulfide content based on the density of the #1 and #2 cons. Since the sulfides are mostly pyrite, the density is will be between quartz and pyrite. You should then be able to do some math and have a better estimate of how much iron to add, and only add clean iron. Because right now you are just chucking in a mass of iron rather than weighing it in, and it looks like too much. Also, go back to lead as a collector. You never had trouble with lead getting on your nails. Also, harry should get a professional lab assay so they really know the grade of the ore. Maybe they're losing a lot in their process and you are recovering almost the right amount.
Hey Jason, question!: why does the aluminum distribution trough, along the top edge of the shaker table, have that flared bit on the end almost like a funnel? Seems made to be able to pour/add material of some kind, other than via the crusher route, but I can't think of what something like that might be. Maybe for if you already have material that is crushed down fine enough for the table? No idea if that would be any different than just sending it through the crusher anyways though, and just letting it fall through into the usual "funnel" for the distribution trough.
@48:36 when will you run your stone saw mill, "soil" on the shaker table to collect any gold in the "concentrates"? is there not a great about of "sand" in the saw water sediment pool? after slabing so many stones?
that potassium nitrate that you are using is looking way too transparent, if you didnt say its KNO3 i would say its ammonium nitrate instead, maybe its not pure potassium nitrate? in the past when i was making pyrotechnics, i remember cleaning the agriculture potassium nitrate because there was magnesium oxides or sulfates mixed in it or something like that... maybe thats making some problems for you?
I remember you using a ball mill a decent while ago. Maybe you could throw the nails in there and grind them down as far as possible. Then mix with niter, borax and some extra bismuth to oxidize as much iron as possible and collect the gold. Just throwing an idea out there. I think would want the nails as fine as possible to oxidize them and get everything into solution during the smelt, instead of having chunks of iron and pyrite that doesn't melt until much higher temperatures.
hi jason I think that the thiny iron wire will give you more surface area and ease of melting, When you are sure that iron wire has dissolved in the magma, the stage of adding bismuth comes. all the best.
This gold/collector metal sticking to the iron issue makes me wonder if ore roasting to oxidize the sulfides, is a better way to deal with the sulfides than trying to deal with them in the smelt using iron.
@@ZacLowing I would think thst would be even worse. I don't know if cast iron is the same thing but modern cast iron pots are very near 100% pure iron.
My grandfather was a gold miner in Arizona for decades. The type who would camp out at his mine for months at a time. He used to have this saying, "He who smelt it, dealt it."
Metallurgy is often 50% black magic regardless of how much science you put into your process. Put another way, Murphy drives the bus, we're just the passengers! The great thing is that you share the failures along with the successes and the thought process that goes into correcting the failures.
Watching some of your videos I did wonder why you don't do more with chemistry... the shaker table is a good last mechanical step but after that I thought you could get all the gold out with acids
I think from the financial point of view it would be better to sell the very nice colored ore pieces to collectors that trying to get a few mg of gold out
@54:14 perhaps if you create a steel "lid" for the crucible, a bar of iron that runs across the top, and over the lip, with iron welded to the center, that point down into the molten crucible, this would allow you to lift and shake it off easy. and later weld more nails to it. before each pour.
What about black sand ? I know black sand from Lake Superior has high iron and other properties that are beneficial to smelting. Curious on other peoples perspectives that have used black sand to their mix.
@53:51 when will you sweep up the contents of your steel pouring "round table" crush it, and re smelt it? recovering any gold you may have lost on other pours and nails?
Another issue is the gold in the oxidized pyrite - the number 2 bead you got was pretty impressive for 100 grams of #2 cons. Harry and the guys are just doing a free gold recovery only - and getting a quarter to a half ounce recovery in free gold particles. I watched a few of their videos and they pan off any sulfides and oxides and just recover the free gold. But gold locked up in pyrite does not go anywhere when the pyrite oxidizes to Limonite / Goethite. But the pyrite becomes much less dense as it is converted to limonite. As you saw, much of the oxidized pyrite goes into the No. 2 and even the No. 3 cons - because it is now so much less dense. The unoxidized pyrite fraction went mostly to the no. 1 cons. One answer of why you seem to be getting a lot more gold may be that you are smelting all the #1 cons including sulfides and oxides, and they are panning off anything that isn't gold. Have they done any actual fire assays of their rock? Have they assayed the oxidized pyrite fraction? Pyrite often carries gold and if you are rejecting the oxidized pyrite, you are rejecting the gold was in the pyrite that is now oxidized.
Wow that's awesome Chris. I didn't think about that at all.
@Chris, I’ve been to their shop and although they haven’t shown themselves processing their sulfides and pyrites , they actually do. I’ll ask Chad or Ron if they will do a video on that for us as your right I haven’t seen one from them explaining how they do it.😎
I just bought some hard rock high grade from BC. The fellow told me I will lose most ofvthe Au if I fire smelt it! I'll be doing the entire batch in acids
Agreed Jason is going too much credit to the 2g he recovered to the nails. At most the added 15%-20%. Still making the recovery around 40-45g per ton. Sounds like a winner
@@ChrisRalph thankyou.
Man... I appreciate them parts where you're thinking through the failures and figuring things out so much
Harry, Jason!!…….open those mines and gimme that job!!! 😂😂😂 thanks for all you guys do! Gettin our learn on!!
*I got the two bags of crushed high grade you auctioned off a while back, finally successfully processed. From the 2297 grams of ore received, recovered a 2.015 gram gold button, slightly exceeding your rate of return when you processed your sample of the high grade.*
That's some really rich ore in that mine!
Thanks for keeping me company while I drink pot of coffee always a learning experience, love how The lessons in geology from your friend help explain your work
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🤙🏼🤟🏼🖖🏼
The way I see it you are giving all of us a self sacrificing video of the entire process! I , for one love all of your videos my friend!
This is primarily for Chad and Harry.
I noticed he said he felt the rotary hammer drill "wasn't big enough". The major issue with that drill, is the voltage drop being caused the the excessive length of those cords, and the fact that the drill is getting the left over voltage after all the lights and voltage drop due to length and conductor size. Id be surprised if that drill was getting 95-100v after all things considered. The solution is costly- A dedicated heavier gauge cord(preferably one piece), running on its own generator.
I was thinking the same thing. Better to get a cordless and pack a bunch of 12 Ah battery packs. It only hurts when you initially purchase them.
Agree. Considering the terrain, a solar with lithium charging station might be feasible and could include charging via the generator capability they currently have. The stable temp in the mine would ensure no restriction for high/low charging temp.
there is a trick i have done using a transformer and rheostat where I boosted the voltage and set it back at 120 volts. and have run power for a electric rock drill 800 feet underground
Honestly, it's better to invest in a pneumatic water fed hammer drill...Anything to keep that crap out of your lungs...
if there is room to run the generator inside the mine you could run exhaust hose, altho that could be problematic
Sulfur makes a blue flame, yellow is sodium. Something you could try to do to recover the bismuth is run those nails through your hammer mill and the table should separate the two, or even put them through your disc mill and then put them on a plate and heat it up only hot enough to melt the bismuth but not the iron. Bismuth melts at like 520F so you can easily reach that with a map gas torch or even a hot propane torch. The sad part is you've been using nails for quite a while and if the gold sticks to them all the time... how much gold have you thrown away on nails?
I hope he reads your comment. Such great info. 👍
You sound like you know that we had to handle this ore , May I ask you one question, this all timer told me to use Portland cement , my recovery went up,why?
@@NorCalNeel who knows, maybe the sand they use in it has gold in it.
I think Portland cement is almost identical to the material used in cupels
Yea I thought sulfur makes a blue hue when it’s in gas form and when it comes out into the atmosphere. I think I’d be really suspect of Chinese nails
People choose to buy gold for various reasons, such as it’s historical role as a store of value and medium of exchange, it’s potential as a hedge against inflation or currency devaluation, and it’s relative scarcity compared to other commodities. Gold also offers diversification benefits to investment portfolio due to its low correlation with stocks and bonds. However, investing in gold carries risks and may not be suitable for everyone. Investors should carefully evaluate their objectives, risk tolerance and financial situation before deciding.
Investing in gold is a reliable choice, and I plan to keep buying more to make up for my losses. While silver, stocks and digital currencies are also good investment, my collectibles are not as similar. It's important to have clear investment goals and educate yourself on the type of investment that interests you..
Yes, gold is a great investment and a good bet against the devaluating dollar, been holding some for awhile now, I’m grateful my adviser’s moment by moment changes in the market are lightening quick, cos who know how much losses I would’ve had by now.
@@hasede-lg9hj this is all new to me, where do I find a fiduciary, can you recommend any?
this is all new to me, where do I find a fiduciary, can you recommend any?
Annette Marie Holt is the licensed advisor I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment
Becoming quite the chef😅 I've learned a lot from your videos 👍
The gold buttons and "where are we getting loss / contamination?" remind me a lot of Sreetips and his quest for max gold recovery and purity.
You'll "nail" it sooner or later! Lol! Keep it happening Jason, lots of great material & a big shout out to MO..... ⛏️⚒️⚖️💪🤠
In the 60 here in Poland, miners in uranium mines often put a sheet of steel right under wall that was about to be blasted. It helped with mucking as shovel didn't get stuck on jagged gravel, but could slide smoothly on the metal sheet.
good idea
Thx for taking us along! We enjoy watching the process.
Thank you Jason this has been a very enjoyable and informative video six stars brother
Like the old timers used to say, Gold Rides an Iron Horse. So in altered rock where you see Iron, you'll see gold. As far as the nails is concerned you might have to create some Aqua regia and immerse the nails in that to get the gold free from the iron and Bismuth, Since Aqua Regia dissolves gold. But you're gonna need nitric acid to make Aqua Regia. Fun time mining in that little partially filled stope. definitely worth digging out that seam, for sure!
Love your collaboration with Harry and MO!
Jason, I bought some one gram 99.9% silver bars and use them periodically to test my smelting technique. Use an ore sample that has been proven to not have any gold or silver in it. So far I’m getting back 99% of my silver back. Since you are checking for gold contamination just use one gram gold bars instead. Testing with a known quantity is a well known scientific method. HTH! Love your channel.
He's got contamination everywhere. Not just the nails or his mill. His buckets, gold pans, smelting pots, forms, scales. I don't think he's learning any lessons from it either but it's his channel and I do enjoy it.
This is a funny idea, but think about it a bit before dismissal. Consider mounting a second headlamp on the back of your camera, so anytime your looking into the camera, we can see whats happening behind you and get a better sense of the space. Any opportunities to eliminate some of the blackness will help sell the experience more accurately to the reality. It doesn't need to be a headlamp persay, just another light source to cast backward.
Fun way to make a living! Keep up the good work!
Jason... I think that rooster crying in the background stole the gold!
Yes, I know I'm messing but hey, all the experts have their succinct feedback while me, I'm just a BIG FAN of watching all your stuff, so thanks for being a great guy and an even greater instructor! Yep, now I walk on the beaches here in Ireland and look at each and every quartz pebble and stone... and look to see if I can spot all the bits you have taught me!! THANKS!!
Very cool. You are learning important things. It makes sense that iron will alloy with lead, bismuth, gold, etc. even though you are running the furnace below the iron melting point. I've seen this happen with other metals. The resulting alloy could be so high in iron that you can't melt it to extract the PMs. I don't think you can use iron at all knowing this unless you have a way to fully recapture the other metals. Maybe dissolving the nails in HCl (the Au and Ag should be left behind)? It probably makes more sense to find other methods to oxidize the sulfides.
I already knew gold is insoluble in HCl as aqua rega is the only acid to dissolve it .A quick check showed that silver is also insoluble in it. Disolving metals in acid is far easier than the smelting process in my opinion
Thank you I feel that I’ve learned something today. I appreciate you sharing.
Great video Jason! I live in WA as well and was drooling over the beautiful CA weather :). Have you ever just tried taking your crushed table cons and dissolving it in hydrochloric / nitric acid? Will the acid break the gold out of the crushed sulfides? I mine in Nome, Alaska and my gold (panned material) is 83% pure and the rest is about 8.5% AG, 5% FE, and 3.5% Sn. I'm typically able to produce .995 gold with just the aqua regia technique.
1:06:14 You have to tint one of those jaw crushers so it looks like Dan Hurd's face with the bolts as eyes and crusher plate as the beard😂🤣😅
Of course with, nom nom, nom in a speech baloon like a cartoon 😅😂
..and I think your chickens 🐔 sound hilarious 😂
Every time I see it I think nom nom nom as its face happily munches away anything in its path.
I heard chickens in the background at Jason’s house. He’s more based that I realized! 😂
Lol my chicken are out with me watching the video lmfao 🤣 😂
@@jamisontaylor878 I was with mine too! When I sit in the yard they all gather round hoping I magically produce some snacks! 😂
Yes he grew up with humble country side begginings 😊😊
@@semoneg2826 like him more and more. Now if he’d just hire me to work with him…..
Great video, I love these in depth longer videos rather than the shorts. Iappreciate that they are much more work, but they are also much better to watch and very informative !
Shorts is just to tease you for what's coming....most of the times shorts is cut from the longer video
maybe use powdered iron instead of nails.might be able to be more accurate than chucking a hand full of nails in, might help with inconsistencies in the smelt? investing in a xray gun to narrow down sample composition for a more tailored smelt recipe? just some thought's stay positive and thanks for another awesome video!!
my two cents , with the nitric and the sulfur and the combination of every thing else when it come to boil your putting gold in a solution similar to AR , the nails drop the gold and silver out and it deposits on the nails because they are attracting it , quick check would be dissolve the iron with Muriatic acid with few drops of hydrogen peroxide in a beaker and get it hot to burn off iron rinse couple times then smelt it , last thought baking soda in your flux to reduce acids power that was made might be very bubbly tho . Bill
Another great video. I really appreciate that You bring us along on your learning. Your videos are refreshing exactly because You ask a lot of great questions. And, You are quick to explain what You do not currently understand and are a great example of the scientific method in real life. Never stop learning!
If you can't smelt it. I'm not so into the chemistry of Bismut, but dunk the nails a few times in Nitric acid and keep filtering what you poor of. Dunk the filtrate and left overs in Aqua Regia and percipitate the Gold with FerrousSulfate. (Or SMB)
Hey, since nails make problems just use kno3 first then wait for the slag to stop bubbling meaning all the kno3 reacted and then add bismuth. And don't use iron this way you lose some silver due to oxidation but at least you recover all the gold since it doesn't oxidise. Or you can just use charcoal powder as a reduction agent instead of iron.
To Provide XS Iron I have had very good results using Old ReBar I have been removing from a WaterWay.
The Bar is definitely more than 50 years old and the metal seems to dissolve more readily in a Smelt.
The ReBar was part of a Historic Mining zone nearby which is completely gone. Only a few indications remain.
The ReBar is easy to put into and take out of the Smelt. There is also a Needle Point left on the ReBar. Kewl.
Always enjoy the content you provide jason.
Maybe you can mechanically remove the bismuth from the nails by scraping or hammering. Then fire that in a cupel. If it works you could switch to more uniform rods of iron to make it easier to remove.
Wow Jason.
What a chanel !😊
May need to send those nails to Nile Red for a chemical separation. That would be a cool collaboration.
I enjoy watching the process, from mining to smelting. It is quite a journey. Thinking on the contamination aspect, I see you run a lot of different material through both crushers, do you clean them in-between different runs? Looking forward to more this coming season from your mine. I have enjoyed going through the two bags of muck I bought from you, I have found many pieces of free gold.
I am so jealous of that lapidary saw those things may look like n old relic but will last forever and are the best around very nice . I’m a nerd rockhound and I’m excited it’s going to be heavy rain tonight so I’ll get out early on a epidote hunt haha
Love watching ya mine and Smelting is Top Notch 👌
Good to see the outcome of the MO explore Jason. But please do not feed the Geo's after midnight !🤪Let them desert chickens lie where they may, huh🐔🐍
I don't know about that. My "snake bite chili" is mighty good and not that hard to make out of those desert chickens. Of course it was easy for me since I got the meat already chunked and flash frozen from the round up near El Paso each year. Buddy would send me a couple pounds every time he went and overnight it to Houston area where I lived.
the 1/4 to1 ounce stuff piled just outside of the upper drift is their high grade pile.
many small mines in the 1930s in the upper Calif desert have these piles and after they got a couple truck loads they would take the ore to the burton brothers tropico mill to be milled
.they would take truck loads, burro loads, and even back pack loads and give the miners 95% of the gold recovered over 1/2 ounce per ton/
i have seen the old Burton brothers mill records and there were miners that would bring in burro loads that ran 20+ ounces per ton.
i knew Cecil Burton as he ran a small prospect drilling project on Soledad mountain near a mine i was working that he later sold to a big mining company
and they are doing a large open pit mine on the mountain at this time.
back in the 1970s and 1980s i use to look for the piles of ore at the entrance of small mines in the calif desert and do fire assays and haul away any high grade piles over 1 ounce a ton and mill it at a friend's mill in randsburg calif
made good extra spending money while working at the Kerr McGee chemical plant in Trona.
I was going to suggest acid and seeing if you don't get the bismuth to release from the iron. And the only way to get a precise evaluation is to clean all the equipment and do another run and perhaps instead of nails use iron filings.
It would be interesting to see the difference in the results. I don't know which is more fun.
Pulling the ore or pulling the AU from it. But if that's the choice there's really no downside. Except getting out. 😅
268 👍's up mbmllc thank you for sharing 🤗
BigDStacks always talks about putting a piece of cardboard on the firebrick before putting the crucible in and it prevents the brick from sticking to the crucible.
I imagine it creates a layer of carbon between the brick and crucible. Great idea
At around 34:50 there’s a flake that looks like gold for sure right to the right of the line he’s talking about when we find this we find gold. Great video!
@35:47 something really fluoresced off by itself to the left on the rock when all the lights were out.
Edit and add... I think you have become quite proficient at the oration and writing of the scripting. The videography was spot on and I just think you have become a powerhouse of how 'work related' videos should be.
50:26 - there was a piece in that slab. On the contaminated nails, turn them into powder and magnetically separate it?
You are quickly becoming my favorite you tube channel! I been hiking the east fork of the san gabriel river found a really interesting quartz out crop on a back trail… i know enough to say that it is super mineralized with copper as it has green staining throughout the rock tons of what i believe is pyrite really silvery and sparkles i wish i could have you crush it and see whats in it id go lug some more down the hill lol
The rock in the mine made me nervous. It looks all fractured and ready to fall.
Do locals from Washington State ever stop by at the Shop? Do you encourage fan visit. Just curious? Always thought about the Oroville Wa area.
Every ore sample is different, metals in ore will change the chemistry of the melt. PGM and other high temp elements will mess with your results.
Every ore will have a different process, same as gold recovery from electronics, there are mechanical and chemical differences in the process.
I would recommend roasting anything not clean quartz powder.
If high magnetic, remove from ore and smelt separately.
Magnetics treatment with HCl will do wonders in reducing iron.
Nitric will do better for removing all but Au, smelt the slime then cupel.
There is no " one sure way" experiment until you find the best results for the parent material.
Be safe, small batch, have fun!
Interesting, isn't it comparing your Washington mine at 31 grams per ton against the California desert mine at 8 grams per ton. The work and cost of getting it out of the ground and milling it or recovering the gold is nearly the same, but the amount of gold to show for all these efforts is hugely different.
You have Iron Oxide rich ore so my guess is the heat is reducing the iron oxide back down to iron and forming sulfur dioxide with the sulfides. The nails are probably too cold going in causing the bismuth or flux to cool and attach to the nails and maybe even forming some kind of alloy or insulator layer (non metal + metal = ceramic and silicon is in many high temp ceramics) or the "iron mixture" is raising the melting point. Ideally you need to know the ph of your cons because you can not have a basic and acidic flux at the same time. The base and acid would cancel, giving you a more neutral ph. If you have both basic and acidic impurities you either need 2 melts or vastly different melting points to split the reactions into steps. Another option may be a set of fluxes with preferential reactions with certain impurities.
Bismuth Oxide and Iron Oxide form Bismuth Ferrite around 800C and doesn't melt until over 1000C according to wiki. This adds more credence to my theory of the cold nails forming a mixture that is raising the melting point of the bismuth in your highly oxygen rich flux which is one of the synthesis methods listed as well.
Finally I get the first comment! So glad to see another great video Jason!!!
Looks like u were second. 😢 but don’t worry.
First is the worst.
Second is the best.
Third is a turd with a hairy chest.
Looks like ur still a 🏆
I'm not an expert in any way but, I think iron filings may work better than nails. It seems to me that collector metal may get entangled by the nails. Filings would let you pour even the unreacted iron into the cone mold and allow the collector metal time to break free and coalesce with the rest. Maybe? Just an idea...
Love your videos. Thanks for all your hard work producing them.
Thank you so much!
That is so beautiful, are you guys kidding. Please dont bring em up...slabbed value has to be really good on that.
So a stand holding weight of crusavial while pouring is out so holding all that weight pouring is reduced?
I've been using flat bar stock for my iron. And I scale it after each smelt to remove any possible collection areas.
I use rebar, so I can remove it before pouring. Wondering now, whether I need to see if I have anything hiding on those pieces. 🤔
😁👋👍👍👏👏💕🙏🏻
Thank you for a great video.
You've done so many smelts over the years, been thinking if you recorded all of them systematically on excel (including grading the results) you would have such a fantastic reference tool. Particularly if you included the composition of the cons. Can you xrf your cons?
iron and sulfer amoung others that form pyrite also carry gold.
Could you take the #1 and #2 off the shaker and just roast it first to oxidize the sulfides? Then add collector metal at the bottom of the crucible, topping it with all the fluxes you need to separate the unwanted stuff into the glass.
Or find another way to oxidize the sulfides, like put them through the disk mill to make them really fine grained, then pump air through them in a water column to oxidize them. You could use an aquarium air pump and a piece of 1 inch pvc pipe. I'm just thinking that if you can deal with the sulfides ahead of the smelting things would be a lot easier.
Or, try to make a better estimate of the sulfide content based on the density of the #1 and #2 cons. Since the sulfides are mostly pyrite, the density is will be between quartz and pyrite. You should then be able to do some math and have a better estimate of how much iron to add, and only add clean iron. Because right now you are just chucking in a mass of iron rather than weighing it in, and it looks like too much.
Also, go back to lead as a collector. You never had trouble with lead getting on your nails.
Also, harry should get a professional lab assay so they really know the grade of the ore. Maybe they're losing a lot in their process and you are recovering almost the right amount.
How much is shipping on that settling tank? lol
I live in SO Cal I would love to get a tour of their mine just for fun. I've watched tons of videos on abandoned mines. I find them very interesting.
Hey Jayson my gold is in pecan business,,have you ever thought about building some kind of pecan sheller/cracker? Just asking foe a friend 😊
Would a rolling mill work for you?
Hey Jason, question!: why does the aluminum distribution trough, along the top edge of the shaker table, have that flared bit on the end almost like a funnel?
Seems made to be able to pour/add material of some kind, other than via the crusher route, but I can't think of what something like that might be. Maybe for if you already have material that is crushed down fine enough for the table? No idea if that would be any different than just sending it through the crusher anyways though, and just letting it fall through into the usual "funnel" for the distribution trough.
Besides being entertaining and informative, your videography is excellent. Takes a lot of time but it’s worth it for your many viewers. Thanks.
THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH SIR'S.
@56:37 get with 'Codyslab' or 'streetips' about gold refinement, and chemistry.
You guys need to think about some ventilation in that mine !
Right on Brother thanks
how much gold do you think is in your rock saw?
love watching your videos! God bless you and your family AND your prospecting :)
Great full process video.
@48:36 when will you run your stone saw mill, "soil" on the shaker table to collect any gold in the "concentrates"? is there not a great about of "sand" in the saw water sediment pool? after slabing so many stones?
Gud vid 💯💥
that potassium nitrate that you are using is looking way too transparent, if you didnt say its KNO3 i would say its ammonium nitrate instead, maybe its not pure potassium nitrate? in the past when i was making pyrotechnics, i remember cleaning the agriculture potassium nitrate because there was magnesium oxides or sulfates mixed in it or something like that... maybe thats making some problems for you?
Find that gold, melt that gold, make that vid - repeat
Getting gold never gets old.
I remember you using a ball mill a decent while ago. Maybe you could throw the nails in there and grind them down as far as possible. Then mix with niter, borax and some extra bismuth to oxidize as much iron as possible and collect the gold. Just throwing an idea out there. I think would want the nails as fine as possible to oxidize them and get everything into solution during the smelt, instead of having chunks of iron and pyrite that doesn't melt until much higher temperatures.
Love these videos - Learn so much.
hi jason
I think that the thiny iron wire will give you more surface area and ease of melting, When you are sure that iron wire has dissolved in the magma, the stage of adding bismuth comes.
all the best.
1:06 LOL, !!
As soon as i heard?? .. That's what said!!! They made the mine plenty tall enough!! ... You guys would be GIANTS back then!!
Try and air hose to cool it off instead of water
Jason, to quote the fantastic Mr. bigstackD, add a piece of cardboard under the crucible to stop it sticking to the fire brick!
What do the hammers look like inside your final mill? Do you have a video showing inside, or is that too proprietary?
This gold/collector metal sticking to the iron issue makes me wonder if ore roasting to oxidize the sulfides, is a better way to deal with the sulfides than trying to deal with them in the smelt using iron.
Haha, your description reads like an episode of Oak Island
Are you sure the nails are 100% iron?
He should try local railroad spikes from 100 years ago
@@ZacLowing I would think thst would be even worse. I don't know if cast iron is the same thing but modern cast iron pots are very near 100% pure iron.
My grandfather was a gold miner in Arizona for decades. The type who would camp out at his mine for months at a time. He used to have this saying, "He who smelt it, dealt it."
Mate ,it Sounds like one of ya chooks just laid a golden yolked egg 😂
Metallurgy is often 50% black magic regardless of how much science you put into your process. Put another way, Murphy drives the bus, we're just the passengers! The great thing is that you share the failures along with the successes and the thought process that goes into correcting the failures.
Watching some of your videos I did wonder why you don't do more with chemistry... the shaker table is a good last mechanical step but after that I thought you could get all the gold out with acids
I think from the financial point of view it would be better to sell the very nice colored ore pieces to collectors that trying to get a few mg of gold out
@54:14 perhaps if you create a steel "lid" for the crucible, a bar of iron that runs across the top, and over the lip, with iron welded to the center, that point down into the molten crucible, this would allow you to lift and shake it off easy. and later weld more nails to it. before each pour.
What about black sand ? I know black sand from Lake Superior has high iron and other properties that are beneficial to smelting. Curious on other peoples perspectives that have used black sand to their mix.
Redder the better!!❤
@53:51 when will you sweep up the contents of your steel pouring "round table" crush it, and re smelt it? recovering any gold you may have lost on other pours and nails?
I guess you just need to put up with the smell of roasting the sulfites. I never trusted those nails hanging out around the collector metals.
How long will the chute last with the abrasive rocks flowing, especially any fittings