The Alaska Gold Forums

Joe S (AK), Thank you for your kind words. You make a good point about the limitations of a completely uniform recovery system for extreme fine gold sluices. No single system seems to work perfectly. But because some systems are optimized for differing gold particle characteristics a mix of systems ...

In a different thread Forum member Johnedoe first posted a link to this article, and in response I posted a few of my observations concerning this New Zealand extreme fine gold beach sluice. After thinking some more about this operation I thought this topic might deserve its own thread. Here's a lin...

Johnedoe, That's a very interesting article you linked to with your last post. I've seen that New Zealand beach mining operation written up a few times over the years and am always amazed at how far these miners have pushed extreme fine gold recovery technologies. Notice the second photo in the arti...

Geowizard, Right. I've seen photos and a few videos of the Ross Box in action on tailing piles and it is an amazing thing to see. It definitely seems like one of the highest production ways to go if you're not dealing with major cobbles and boulders. But since it sounds like you've got a lot of boul...

Geowizard, Johnedoe and any other interested AG Forum users, Sawtooth Mat update Thursday, 10-Jan-2019: The ship date for my next Ohio EPDM extrusion manufacturing run of the 4-TPI, 8-TPI and 16-TPI Sawtooth mats will be in two weeks, Thursday, 24-Jan-2019 (estimated). I'll update everyone again whe...

Geowizard, Since you're adjusting your operating parameters for micron gold, i.e. down to as small as 10 to 50 microns, you're dealing with something that is perhaps quite a bit smaller than I've personally worked with. Either that or I have worked with it but was blowing it to tails while not reali...

Geowizard, You're right about the slower slurry velocities potentially being a showstopper for major mining operations. But when there is an abundance of extreme fine gold the miner has no choice but to tailor the processes in the direction of profit optimal recovery. I've seen several examples atte...

GoldMember, no, I haven't specifically tested the Sawtooth mat with heavy garnet laden sands, but I can guess you're having troubles separating flaky gold and similar mesh garnet sands. I probably won't be telling you anything you don't already know, but here again screening to increasingly narrow p...

Geowizard, Regarding screening, you've touched on one of the most important requirements necessary for extreme fine gold recovery. What a nightmare I had with my 4-TPI Sawtooth mat when I first manufactured back in 2012. The Sawtooth mat was performing extremely well for me but passing out samples t...

27-Dec-2018 update: I've completed the extrusion tooling for the 4-TPI UHMW-PE Sawtooth mat and everything looks good. However, I haven't as yet acquired the bulk UHMW-PE raw materials and I'm not sure when I'll get around to getting that on order. When I do I'll let you know and keep you informed a...