Regrinding Gold Tailings In A Mini Ball Mill! Better Recovery & More Gold??

[@TheWolfster001]

Adding some soap helps recover extremally fine gold, you want just enough soap to break the surface tension of the water, not so much that it has suds in it.. Adding Jet dry is better yet...

[@excitedbox5705]

water softener and detergent is what you want. As you said lower surface tension so it can drop down

[@VendettaProspecting]

What a fantastic early morning coffee and MBMMLLC

[@mbmmllc]

Awesome! Thank you

[@ursamines7643]

I love how Jason/MBMM continuously looks for better ways to improve the process.

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you!

[@Slavicplayer251]

@@mbmmllc have you thought about using leaching to get the gold instead?

[@chaosir3677]

If it's in there he's going to get it! If anything was lost, Jason always knows how much.

[@jethrodigger]

Easily the best channel on KZbin for gold recovery systems explanations and practical testing, Not a sixgun or a talking skeleton in sight. Just piles of gold laden sands and machinery that actually works.

[@proaudiohd]

For real, there are some annoying personalities out there. This guy is straight facts.

[@ToddDunning]

Best gold recovery channel on KZbin

[@chrissaucier9386]

Awesome recovery for what would normally just get discarded. That's why it's a good idea to sample mine tailings. Half ozt per ton of material already to be processed. Nothing to turn your nose up too !!!

[@snoozin99]

Wow, brother, that is one amazing video! So if you get 900.00 more in gold at 60.00 a gram that's some seriously big numbers for just grinding them down to a smaller amount. I was absolutely amazed at the size of your bead at the end for just a 50lb bucket of tailings. I can see now why the major mines go after the small stuff. This was one of my favorite videos that you have done, it's just mind-blowing to me, Awesome Job! Keep up the awesome work brother, this was a homerun for you for sure. :)

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks!

[@daz41262010]

pretty significant amount of gold to produce :) good job Jason :)

[@richardoconnor7162]

Jason there is non toxic leaching formulas out there , check out Action Mining.If you take some of your cons from the panning what you just ran from the ball mill, say 100 grams, soak in Aqua Regia over night, then do a Stanis Cloride test on the fluid the color of black will tell you there is gold left for recovery.

[@xxxm981]

You will still have to do water works with Aqua Regia. First you have to neutralize it, and then you have to distill out the salts.

[@ridingwithcharley6821]

I think you are the first guy on KZbin to turn sand into clay...lol. awesome. Thanks for doing these videos. The effort is appreciated.

[@dizzious]

Wow there's more gold in those tailings than there was in the virgin riverbed that I used to pan back east.

[@74KU]

7:00 why not feed the ball mill back into the primary shaker and use baffles to classify/remove the oversize based on flow? I'm sure I have not given it as much though as you though.

[@bryanjohnson9800]

Always enjoy watching your videos from here in the UK. Happy Fathers day BTW!

[@mbmmllc]

Thank you!

[@UtahGold]

Keep em coming man. I am trying to recreate some of your results. Couldn’t do it without your videos. The books on this stuff are hard to follow.

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks! Will do!

[@paulcoover9197]

Hey Jason, Take a look at our buddy here.. Super fine recovery method . His name is Aussie Bloke Prospector. You guys are top shelf. I told my brother about MBMMLLC today. I'm trying to spank some platina here. God Bless America and the world.

[@excitedbox5705]

15g per ton is more than many mines get from their entire ore. I hope you know where you have been dumping your tailings.

[@SaltyPirate71]

So, assuming a limited budget, run the turn-key system with the hammer mill until it pays for itself. Save your tailings and invest in a ball mill and rerun your tailings to loop back through your shaker table.

[@CORNDODGER]

So like 45.000 Dollars Later you get 2 grams of Gold Kinda how our Govt works!!!!

[@mbmmllc]

Exactly. Save up your tailings and if in this example you had another $850 recoverable gold per ton once you had 100 tons saved up it would be equivalent to $85,000 worth of extra gold to recover with a ball mill. The ROI on that is great!

[@frantiseklaluch6605]

Hi Jason, 15 g/ton...nice... very nice... I am sure, some people (like me) coud pay YOU some money, so they can work on that tailings for couple of days and learn something... Unfortunately I live in Czech Rep... I hope you will come here soon again...

[@abandonbelief]

Adding jet dry to your water will break surface tension of the water for better panning .. grinding for a lot longer till it is fully silted. And when you smelted the bottom of the pour Ed crucible was still lumpy. Maybe stir it a bit and keep heating then your molten into the triangle mold. I'm autistic not trying to be critical of your methods but I felt I had to give you my 2 cents. Thanks for your contributions and sharing your experiences.

[@drfill9210]

You can use stokes law to figure out settling times. If all your particles are the same size then just dump them in a column of water and pour off the solution at the time the gold hits the bottom.

[@michaeldomansky8497]

Could you use a row of Neodymium magnets under the shaker table to slow/divert metallic gold?

[@VestigialHead]

I guess if the gold had other metals in it this might work. But would probably just attract a lot of the black sand.

[@bulwynkl]

There is a gold field here in West Central Victoria near Percidale where the gold is hosted in pyrite (Ordovician deep marine black smoker) - About half the gold is too fine to settle by density alone. In the same area there are rich reefs with much larger grain gold and nuggets to several hundred ounces - derived from hydrothermal veins (likely originating from the same sulphide source, but moved) So depending on the nature of the gold you are processing, your requirements will change. Knowledge is power.

[@josephpecoul6532]

You really are on something there!Great!

[@Woodie-xq1ew]

When you were talking about the smaller particles having issues separating properly on the shaker table I had an idea. I’m sure you have, but have you done a test to see if varying the frequency and amplitude of the vibration on the table affects separation? And whether the efficiency can be improved with a finer material by changing these parameters?

[@djblackprincecdn]

If you get some large metal pans and an oven that can maintain 110C then you can bake all your material for a few hours to remove all the water from it. There's even an ASTM standard for it.

[@brianteed7390]

Would a ball mill be good for re-processing tailings piles left by the old time dredges?

[@willgriffin3490]

Outstanding video! Thanks for the explanations and showing how to do these samples!

[@mbmmllc]

Glad it was helpful!

[@devinswanson9698]

Just awesome! Great technical video that we all can understand. Just a great video Jason. You and Dan Hurd should collaborate, he has some hard rock properties artisanal mining spots up in BC Canada.

[@snarky_user]

And, do the tailings following the ball mill have and economic value as processed material? If you could recover most of the cost of your ball mill operation by selling stone flour to industry, that would be a win.

[@sdspivey]

Try blowing some light air through the ball mill. The really fine dust could be blown out, leaving the heavier material.

[@comptegoogle511]

If the gold particle is to fine the surface tension of the water will make it float of the shaking table.

[@waltersallani6748]

I have a question how have you cleaned the steel balls or if maybe cleaning balls separately to clean them would catch more.

[@danielsestina6457]

Awesome video as always. I'm definitely curious about what to do with the spent ball mill tailings. I Have worked in the concrete industry for about 20 years, and wondered about possible applications

[@bartcalder2791]

If the ball mill was at a slight angle, wouldn't the gold settle to the low end?

[@jcadult101]

Agree with what you said about finding out up front how much can be liberated. But you also have to factor in labor and equipment cost, no? You had to gather, and load the ball mill then run it for an hour. If you liberate a lot, but not enough to pay for the electricity to run that huge motor, let alone your time/cost shoveling it in and out 5 gallons at a time and moving the material around, is it still worth it?

[@drubradley8821]

HECK YES!!!! I did not expect to see that much.. well done!!!

[@frankgaletzka8477]

Hello Sir Use a ballmill with metal bares inside . So the Balls get carried up and smash Down it is called cascademoving

[@The_Bookman]

This was really interesting. Quite a cool setup you have there and very nicely presented videos. Thanks. :)

[@drfill9210]

Back of envelope calculation gives Max water weight at 15 pounds per 100. Half that is reasonable so 7 pounds extra is in the ballpark

[@dn2817]

I was just curious about why one leaves a thumbs down? Were you expecting Jason to be wearing a massive gold chain at the end of the video or something?

[@kallakrastev769]

Hi, Jason! Couldn't you just increese the angle of the screw transporter before the ballmill. Put the same ballmill upper level also and to return the fine sand in the same shaking table? . 🤔

[@kbaan]

I'd think if you were continuous flow wet milling w that vibratory mill and wet screened with a fine mesh screener or a wet cyclone your efficiency would go way up - just like a large gold mine.

[@TrevsOutbackandGoldAdventures]

I have just gone back and reviewed your video on regrinding black sands,and by comparison it would seem the tailing sands seemed to yield a better result than the sulphides. Question One/..Could this indicate that there is more bound gold in the quartz ,and/or other rock, in the sands ,than gold bound to sulphides in your number one and two tailings? Question 2/...Would it be worth an examination under the microscope of grains in your sulphides and grains in your sands to see if bound gold can actually be seen? Question 3/...I looked to me that you got a better result in this video by grinding dry than in the previous video grinding wet material. Would you agree with that? Cheers.

[@nomana60]

I'v had to grind and ball mill my material down to about -200 because thats how small the majority of my gold is. painfully slow as i can only do #40 in 24 hrs. I'm really liking the action in the ballmill you used!

[@frankgaletzka8477]

Hello Sir Use smaller Balls in the mil and the stuff get very fine or use a turning mil with bulletcores from high caliber guns

[@tonyoliver4920]

Might need to clean the spiral classifier You might have gold trapped in the caked on mud

[@xenaguy01]

It has been cleaned. If you watch older videos, you can see there is a lot of muck left in it, but now it's pretty clean. For their purposes, it doesn't matter that much, as those are tailings, not recovery. Any 20 pounds or so of crud remaining in the spiral classifier will not hold more than about 1/10 gram of gold, which will be recovered later anyway.

[@conradlowenstein9210]

For an appropriate test everything should be very clean.

[@kramhoogness]

Have you found gold locked in the structure of the sulfides? That would be interesting to test someone.

[@stanleykongmanmathis1065]

Very educational...love the videos and keep on digging 👌

[@rauliprunnila1365]

could this ballmill itself or first hammermill and then ballmill separate metals out of electric waste? It would be interesting if you could mill for example old computer parts this small and then separate valuable metals without cemicals this way?

[@mbmmllc]

Yes, I would like to do a video grinding IC chips in it

[@FunDumb]

It would be fun to experiment with some bubblers as well in that bucket. Then test if really need to shaker the contents of the entire bucket or just the latter 10%.

[@xenaguy01]

This sounds like a great idea!

[@mbmmllc]

Good idea!

[@EddieSchirmer]

so, i find a lot of black sands here in Vermont... do you think i might be able to find out what if any value it might contain? how might i do that? i know Vermont has small amounts of gold, so its not really commercial quantities, but what about the black sands? i seem to find huge amounts of it every time i go panning, and, i can even find it right on the surface of the river banks in streaks... im super curious about it, but i dont really have the means to grind or process it to find out if it has any value. but if it did... i woudl love to recover that value, if possible...

[@billfoote8617]

Black sand is chromite and/or hematite. It has no value, but is similar, enough, in density with placer gold that it pans out last, with the gold.

[@heathstott]

Well I’m in an alluvial type area, that was top notch info, thanks Jason. Could you possibly let me know where to get good cheap cupels, I’m in Australia other than E bay there are few options,..this would be a great help and thanks for all you do on this channel. Much appreciated 🇦🇺👍

[@BESHYSBEES]

Can you rub the gold button on some super fine wet n dry and do acid test to determine purity? Seems like a lot of work but 15g a tonne could make it worth the time and effort. And as some one else mentioned some dish soap will help drop the fine gold

[@stanburton6224]

If you line the bottom of your auger trough with sheets of rubber, you'd keep from forming a layer of sand/clay between the auger and the trough.

[@xenaguy01]

You'd also create a hiding place for small material between the trough and the rubber.

[@deweydoesdaily742]

How would a ball mill fit in the turn key system would it be opened ended with a screen and how fast could the out put be could it keep up with the whole system at full throttle

[@hectororellana3397]

That was very impressing and very didactic thank you for your demonstration I learned a ton Jason.

[@MrDavePed]

Add a little soap to your water to virtually eliminate the surface tension.

[@SteveP-vm1uc]

So how much time total did it take to get to the gold ball and how much is the ball worth? I know you are all about the machinery, but I find this pretty interesting.. Someone once said they could find gold in store bought playground sand. I can't remember if they did, but it seemed like an awful lot of work for a tiny amount of gold.

[@labandonaldhock80]

This is a fabulous education

[@MegaZidzid]

That fine washed sand seems great for aquarium

[@professortrog7742]

You could loop the out-port of the ballmill directly back onto the shakertable.

[@xenaguy01]

He said (and I agree) better to run to a second shaker table, tuned for 200- mesh material.

[@saschachloriana4177]

Or better yet, a slimes table.

[@kencarbon2346]

Enjoyed watching your video nice work keep digging.🙂

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you enjoyed

[@MrD308]

Hey Jason, any new shots from the new old prospect you showed during the winter?

[@mrgreenswelding2853]

Fantastic work Jason! Always enjoy watching and learn what you have been doing. Even if it doesn't work it's always worth trying .

[@lonjohnson5161]

After pulverizing in the ball mill, you could take what is left and convert it into bricks. I don't know if it would be profitable, but it seems a shame to process the ore so much have have to dump it in a hole somewhere.

[@mbmmllc]

I have thought the same thing too

[@clydecox2108]

I really enjoy your videos Jason, and dream of getting your turnkey system. What you were saying about another screw going to a ball mill was already in my minds eye. Only from there into a leach pond and chemicals for total recovery.

[@xenaguy01]

His goal is maximum recovery sans chemicals. Gravity separation only.

[@clydecox2108]

Safety first second and last. If it's not safe and environmentally friendly then gravity it is.

[@markfryer9880]

@@clydecox2108 Definitely. Don’t need to be messing around with dangerous chemicals just for a little bit extra gold. Probably a zero sum game by the time you priced the chemicals vs the extra gold recovered.

[@Gainn]

Half-ounce extra per ton is quite a boost.

[@MrDavePed]

Why don't you use a centrifuge for the fine stuff? It is like multiplying the gravity.

[@youssefberady]

you are a master in your field. you have some nice sand at the end, you should find a use for it.

[@s.d.iprospecting4359]

What is the ideal size of crush when using these ball mills? Can u go from a jaw crusher to a ball mill say at 1/2 inch?

[@paulmace7910]

It would be interesting to see your design for a continuous ball mill.

[@mbmmllc]

Great suggestion!

[@pnwprospecting]

Is bismuth better for small amounts over lead?

[@stormrunner0029]

Your future video with the plastic on the table to keep the gold down may be an excellent option for all grinds as well as fine grind.

[@harryniedecken5321]

Thanks for the video. I find it interesting that no one seems to be trying to take advantage advantage of the value of the relatively high quality quartz or iron ore

[@ammobake]

I would be curious to know if an old style hammer mill could recover as much gold as a modern gravity operation like you have. I guess it would have to be free mill to get an apples to oranges comparison.

[@Jkauppa]

rotary centrifugal separator instead of in addition to the shaker, centrifugal "shaker", spin, can have tons of centrifugal force gravity

[@Jkauppa]

shaker ball mill, linear actuator, rotary to linear slider, ie, piston ball mill in cylinders

[@Jkauppa]

scanning electron microscope with x-ray concentration determination

[@samwood2769]

Jason, can you do a video on extracting the silver from the used cupels?

[@gingerdude94]

The perfect start to the day

[@curlydave7689]

Can you comment on the effectiveness of bismuth vs. lead as a collector metal? I noticed the older videos use lead and lately you have changed to bismuth. Is there a video where you use lead on part and bismuth on part of the same material?

[@mbmmllc]

I use bismuth now because it is much less toxic than lead. They are both effective, bismuth costs about 5 times more, but I don't ever use very much

[@placertools3529]

Excellent video. Thanks for the lesson.

[@SovereignSaurus]

Thanks for sharing! Really interesting and detailed yet the way you explain everything is easy to understand despite me not having mining or refining experience. I wonder how much gold has been retrieved from mines but remains in waste piles or tailing piles around the world

[@dean4939]

Old tailing piles are always being reworked around known mine tailing piles. As technology improved more gold became easier to process and recover, The hard part is to identify an original tailings pile which after 100 years has large trees growing thru it. Those are the better piles to rework as the original miners were going after the really rich ores and left much to waste since it was not worth the effort or because of the remoteness of the mine not worth the effort to bring it to the mill. Even back then it was down and dirty get it and get as much as you can as quick as you can and get out. Hence the reason for so many abandoned mines my guess is they were getting shut down by the government and wanted to get what they could before the workers were forced to enlist or conscripted. The government banned " non-essential " materials, like gold and silver and precious gems during world war 1. Other reasons for gold mines closing/ abandoned are the discovery of the Comstock lode, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the Pittman Act all increased silver demand making it worth more than gold. Lots of abandoned mine videos with the shovel and pick still leaning against the wall, like the miners just walked and never returned. not to mention the equipment they left behind.

[@Ross-2077]

Thats significant, looks like extra work but hopefully for you operation its worth the extra labour

[@shawnsparkman7916]

What about a centrifuge system for catching gold?

[@MP57719]

So does the batch mill have a rotating internal cylinder or does the unit just shake?

[@johncarter6688]

Great video… excellent job of explaining your processes and teaching the skills to the world… I also believe you are still marginally above the point of diminishing returns… pulling 13.5 grams a ton at today’s market price is right at $750 profit per ton… I don’t know what the cost of your operations run to conduct the extra processing per ton but I’d guess it’s below that mark… and if a test sample is done prior to first run processing then it could be even more cost effective because then it could be a modified system first time around and not two totally separate processes…. Thank you for your excellent video.

[@TrevsOutbackandGoldAdventures]

That's simply amazing the amount you got from those bland looking tailings. No doubt the tailings from that last gring could be ground finer to liberate more gold, and so on ,and so on. I really love your approach of experimenting all the time.Reminds me of me . Love all your vids and look forward always to your new ones. If you ever come down to Victoria ,Australia ,I would love to take you to some places I know in our gold fields which i'm sure you'd find fascinating. p.s.Don't forget to bring your turnkey system ,but! ..so we can do some sampling runs..lol. I do however have a portable field rock crusher and plenty of pans though.

[@peterAustralia333]

nice, so a spiral classifier is a dewatering system?

[@frankenscience3553]

so, in a continuous ball mill would the gold attached to quartz pieces stay in ball mill longer because of density possibly? Can you fire up one of your big ball mills do a test?

[@xenaguy01]

The continuously rotating ball mill keeps the heavies suspended for the most part, everything light and heavy exits the end.

[@sharkscrapper]

Fascinating - thank you

[@mbmmllc]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@shaneyork300]

It was a valuable test! Have a Great Day!!

[@mchughcb]

I wish my metallurgy classes were as practica hands onl as your videos and I would have take ln more interest in my mining course. Great content keep them coming.

[@mbmmllc]

Thanks for watching!

[@robertluckadoo5940]

Fantastic video. Do you manufacture those shaker ball mills? Would love to have one.

[@mbmmllc]

Hi Robert. Send us an email at [e-mail] The one you saw in the video I would like to sell.

[@robertluckadoo5940]

I emailed you…thank you!

[@orsud1890]

Excellent résultat

[@johnarchuleta9893]

Jason your the man!

[@CORNDODGER]

So how much for a couple of them super sacks or you dont want to sell them?

[@mbmmllc]

If you are serious send me an email at [e-mail] and we can talk. I had someone a few weeks ago ask the same thing and I sent him off a sample to test. He made me a good offer.

[@tanner2765]

Did you make the mini ball mill?

[@RalphReagan]

You mentioned float cells. Do you ever use them?

[@mbmmllc]

Not yet, but they are on my list! Thanks Ralph!

[@saschachloriana4177]

A slimes table may also be an option

[@jamessmith530]

Your back this week good luck guys

[@doncraig6864]

what do you do with tailings you cant make any money off of the gold?

[@rawdawgpendants5490]

I love how people ask such technical questions, how many pounds did you use, how much electricity was used, did you eat breakfast, and how much gold did ya get? Like any of them will ever do this. I love a good laugh.

[@johneaton4364]

as long as they are polite, who knows? They might get The Bug!!