Ask the Experts

February 2015 by Chris Ralph

How to Refine Silver—Pt II

October 2019

Silver recovery from low-level solutions is frequently done in a cell that has a cathode with 2 to 5 or more times the surface area as the anode.

Hard Rock Milling: A Matter of Scale

April 2013
Most prospectors understand placer mining a lot better than hard rock mining and don’t realize the amount of work that goes into processing different types of hard rock ore.

What To Look For—And Look Out For—In A Placer Mineral Report

May 2015
Buying a placer claim or investing in a placer mining property comes with plenty of financial risks. You need as much information as possible about the mineral deposit in order to minimize those risks.

How to Upgrade Your Pocket Plunger

November 2016
These three simple upgrades, when taken together, will considerably increase a pocket plunger’s magnetic pull and make it less susceptible to breakage.

Small-Scale Hard Rock Production

December 2015
So far this year we have recovered over three pounds of gold and the hard rock veins seem to go on forever. We now have three claims that can produce good enough gold to set up a productive operation.

Where Should I Start?

October 2015
Digging in the right spots will produce excellent results, like this group of nuggets taken by the author while metal detecting during the last few months. The biggest nugget is over an ounce.

Extracting & Smelting Your Gold

February 2013
Unfortunately, not all the gold that we prospectors find is pretty, or appealing to the eyes. They are not all nice, bright, shiny nuggets with lots of character that carry high collector value.

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