Ask The Experts: Is there a safe DIY alternative to cyanide or mercury for extraction?

September 2016 by Chris Ralph

Q: With safety as a given, what can the average miner, or Joe-blow greenhorn do to identify and extract some metals or minerals with off-the-shelf products or natural ingredients?

Ask The Experts: Equipment to break up heavy clay

January 2017

Q: I am looking for a “trommel machine” that doesn’t separate anything but clay slurry from rock hard clay.

How to Melt Your Own Gold

March 2012
There are good and bad ways to melt gold. In this article, we’ll take a look at the right way to melt gold without losing any of the valuable metal.

Montana’s Rosetta Stone: Discovering Mines In The Treasure State

May 2015
This is the intelligent way to start modern prospecting. The value of literary research yields challenging outings, specimens, history and geologic research.

The PIGMI—a DIY Crevice Tool

April 2017
I’ve had great success using it to gather gold from crevices. I’d like to share the design with all of you gold miners reading this article and hope that you get as much satisfaction building and using it as I did.

Gold in Quartz

February 2016
Because quartz and gold may be deposited together across a considerable range of temperatures, not all quartz veins are the same, and there are several different types of gold-quartz deposits.

How to Evaluate Mineral Claims—What to Know Before You Buy

April 2018

Even though they have put down thousands of dollars, the buyers often stop paying on their claims part way through the process after they realize they’ve been duped, but the company just sells it again to another buyer.

Ask the Experts

August 2014
What are the tell signs of garnet deposits?

Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill   • Our Readers Say   • Ask The Experts: Should I take my claim access problems to the Desert Advisory Council?   • Ask The Experts: How do I identify gold in hard rock that may be mixed with other metals?   • Ask The Experts   • Ask The Experts   • Legislative and Regulatory Update   • Pickers and Nuggets   • Modern-Day Claim Jumping   • Oregon's Waldo and Galice Mining Districts Unite   • Attention to Detail - Part II   • The Seven Troughs Mining District   • CA Supreme Court Rules Against Rinehart - But There Is A Solution   • Summertime Gold Panning   • Melman on Gold & Silver   • Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices

Free:
MMAC & PLP Update