How To

Since we know that the secret to breaking rock is applying force from the inside out (putting tension on the rock), we will be looking at ways we can generate force using human and machine power.

What do you do when you’ve located a promising deposit of gold or gemstones, but it’s trapped in solid rock?

I cleared the connector by poking a small Phillips screwdriver through it. To ensure the bore was clean, I dunked the connector into some water and then blew it clean with my shop air compressor.

The first and most important thing of the sampling process is to try to be as unbiased as possible. There is a natural tendency to select rock that looks the best—even unconsciously.

If you are interested in researching mining claims for any purpose, you will first have to decipher the BLM’s LR2000, a Rube Goldberg database seemingly designed by a 1980s Soviet-era computer hacker.

If Epd is larger, then the compressor will be spinning faster than the manufacturer’s maximum specified RPM and might destroy itself. If this happens, then the compressor again might not produce enough air to support a diver. Neither is a desired outcome.

Even if you are not ready to cash in right now, it might be good to evaluate your options and make a plan of action so when that day comes you know exactly what to do.

All these decisions and more depend on the richness of a claim—something that is determined by sampling. But sampling isn’t cheap, and even collecting the samples can be more difficult than it appears on the surface.

So let’s dive in and see what I can do to convince you that this is the year you should be out staking your own claims.

It’s not easy to figure out what is best without testing, and so a certain level of confusion has developed about how small the ore ought to be crushed.

Looking at the exceptions to the basic rules is sort of an advanced prospecting discussion, but the readers of ICMJs Prospecting and Mining Journal are plenty able to handle it.

Of course, I know a bit about crevicing, but Steve seems to really have a knack for it, and I’m all about continual learning. I can always learn a few tricks from the pros.

Chris got a nice target signal on the edge of rising bedrock, but still in a low, but washed area. After breaking up the bedrock, he recovered several pieces of gold amounting to almost three pennyweight.

They tend to be big, coming in large to extremely large sizes. They can also be amazingly rich and produce huge amounts of very high-grade ore.

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.

Silver refining has been used from ancient times to change the characteristics of the metal. Early metallurgists refined silver by heating it a couple hundred degrees above its melting point and holding the metal at an elevated temperature for a period of time.

Another little gem of equipment he built was a nifty sample splitter. In order to get accurate assays, you need to have really good, representative samples for the assayer to process.

Some ask if a prospector can collect an entire ounce in a day. It is possible; I’ve done it before.

I pulled out the nuggets I had worked on previously and looked at the size of the wire basket that the items to be cleaned are placed into. It looks much like a miniature french fry deep fryer.

We’ve been busy with a plethora of projects, all aimed at gathering gold into a pile big enough to brag about. We’re not there yet, but I’ll show you some of the interesting projects we’ve completed since we talked last.