How To
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?
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Designing my own dredge...
How to Stake Your Own Mining Claims—Part II
I’d like to offer some practical comments about staking and maintaining mining claims. Owning your own claim is the dream of many prospectors. I’ve made good money off my mining claims, both from the minerals I have found on them as well as from leasing out some of my claims to larger mining and exploration companies.
Ask The Experts: Equipment to break up heavy clay
Q: I am looking for a “trommel machine” that doesn’t separate anything but clay slurry from rock hard clay.
Fine Gold Panning Without Using Mercury
The technique I will describe is a much safer alternative and it works. It’s a fine-gold panning technique that eliminates the need for mercury amalgamation of most placer samples.
Proper Assaying of Placer Samples
The whole purpose of sampling mineralized ground is to measure the values in a small volume of material that would be representative of a much larger volume of similar material. The key word is representative. Chemical and fire assaying will not accurately represent placer deposits by themselves.
Small-Scale Concentrating and Recovery Methods
The first step in my recovery process after milling the ore to the desired size is to table it. On this particular ore, I get good results milling it to minus 100 mesh.
Iron Minerals, Your Detector and Gold
It’s worthwhile for the prospector using a metal detector to know a little bit more about the association of iron and gold as well as how iron minerals affect your metal detector.
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