Catch-It II Water Table or alternative?

[badge]

Hi, I have been out and around in the local region ( within an hour and a half's drive) and all it has is very small specks of alluvial gold in the creeks. The gold itself is about 100 ft down and in quartz but the creeks do still show a very small trace of gold in them.

Extracting the gold ( very very very small ) is near on impossible but I have been watching the video of the Catch-It II Water Table. It seems to be perfect. But, it is in the USA and the cost to have one sent to Australia really blows out the budget.

However, after asking about there availability, I have been asked if I would like to be a dealer for the Catch-It II. But I would have to start up a business or whatever, I don't know, so that looks like not happening. (I'm retired)

So, does anyone know of a water table alternative available in Australia?

[donnybrook]

Badge,
Try using a small sluice. Purchase the corduroy carpet from someone like Clark Rubber. The striations run longitudinally so work out your width. I built mine out of plywood. Coated it (sides and bottom) with black Ormond to waterproof it. I then bonded the carpet with a contact adhesive to the working side. I then attached four riflings about 12 mm high. The sluice is lightweight and can be ended into a square tub for cleaning. Run the sluice at 1 inch to the foot. It will work well. You will get black sand which you can take home and pan off or use a blue bowl.
Hope this helps.
donny

[badge]

Thanks for the idea Donnybrook. I have a blue bowl but it doesn't do the job because the specks of gold are so small.
They just get blown out.

My son tells me he'll try to make a water table using some kind of printer he uses at work.(too techy for me)If that doesn't work I'll probably just pay the extra for shipping for the Catch-It II.

But thanks for the input. Cheers.

[labrador]

Hi badge,
The water table is a similiar action to the finial panning, I found the finest gold I had seen with lots of black sand, and I reverted back to the large steel gold pan, I could controll the wash a lot better and I am sure as Donny says there is gold you cant see, but I got the tinnyest specks out, it was time consuming and I thought I would go blind, but got there in the end.

I am glad the plastic pan was invented, the big old spun steel pan has its problems, but did the job, I have half a bucket of gold so fine it cant be seen with the naked eye, and I am saveing it to give to Donny,lol
Lab.

[Ric]

Feb 21, 2014 10:40:43 GMT 10 donnybrook said:

Badge,
Try using a small sluice. Purchase the corduroy carpet from someone like Clark Rubber. The striations run longitudinally so work out your width. I built mine out of plywood. Coated it (sides and bottom) with black Ormond to waterproof it. I then bonded the carpet with a contact adhesive to the working side. I then attached four riflings about 12 mm high. The sluice is lightweight and can be ended into a square tub for cleaning. Run the sluice at 1 inch to the foot. It will work well. You will get black sand which you can take home and pan off or use a blue bowl.
Hope this helps.
donny

Hey Donny. How ya been

Any chance of a pic of this little sluice if you still have it

Cheers Ric.

[badge]

Hi Lab, I only have a vial of the finest fines imaginable, and have been using a magnifying glass light to see it. It works very well but you can't use it while panning. God knows how much I've thrown out. Without soap to make it sink it just floats away so I've been doing it at home in a tub.
I've only been at it for a short while so I might wait until I have a bucket full like you before doing something about it.

All good. Just need to travel further afield in the mean time to get some real colour.
Thinking about a trip to Mount Morgan down the track for a couple of days. When the creeks start running.

[labrador]

Badge,
I was joking about the bucket of gold you cannot see, But I belive it can get that fine, I agree with you about the gold floating and how mutch dose go out the end of the sluice, In the streem while sluising it is crazy to try soap for every resion.
I was wondering if a curtin of canvase os similar would make the specks sink.
In the pan they floated so mutch I thought it would be easier to make it float then catch it, but that did not work.
The only thing was the old style steel pan.

It is eazy to see why they left it for the chinees to take home.
Hope you find big chunky bits at Mt Morgan

[donnybrook]

Ric,Badge,Lab,
Will try and put up a photo. Sluices are very simple to use. Make it out of plywood. In the old days (and literature) they Said "it can be operated by two men and a boy". I am presently working material that has tin and gold just with the sluice. A lot of people don't realize gold can be very fine, brown or black. In the same way so is silver. I do not believe we have native Silver in NSW. It seems to be an oxide. I worked the old Kanimbla Gold Field years ago. This is when I found that it was an oxide and to add flour (carbon) to the flux. It is easy to make a small furnace using fireplace tiles or fire bricks. You do need a decent burner (inspirator) to run it. When I worked the silver oxide I always received a return of 26 parts per thousand which was nearly an ounce. At the time I sold to a company called Harringtons at Chippendale. I believe the refinery there is now owned by Chemgold owned by a chap called Wyn.

Another tip. Never discount possible iron signals on your metal detector. I am also refining this sort of material at the moment. Appears to have an appreciable amount of gold in it. The old blokes did not know what to do with it when on the Tumbarumba Gold Fields but they did get some good colour in the ancient river beds under the basalt caps.

I will be furnacing/smelting next week as the weather is cooler. I still have a job to do for a mate at Broken Hill. What a lot did not know was that I was hit with two barrels of cancer. A lobectomy on the left lung to remove a B1 tumour at the RPA last July and I have been dealing with advanced Prostate Cancer which I am sure I will also beat. Just some advice to the blokes it's important for men to get a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test done on a regular basis. I ignored it but I will beat it. My test results have been good. Please have a PSA test done.
donny

[donnybrook]

Also if anyone is down the Tumbarumba way call in and have a beer and a yack. Show you what I can. Old Scotty might take me up on that?? Poor old bloke is lonely.
donny

[badge]

Hi Donnybrook, sorry to hear about your cancer scare. Hope all comes good soon.
I have a Mackirk Grubstake sluice which is very small. By all reports it works well but it will have to wait until I make the trip up to Mount Morgan. This sluice is how I came by the very fine specks I was referring to in my initial post.
Also I made an under flow sluice from perspex which catches the lead I put in to trial, but haven't yet found any gold. I'm sure it will catch gold if it catches tiny lead pieces. Again it will have to wait.

I'll try to post a pic or two, hope it works.





There's very little gold within 2 hours drive from here (Hervey Bay) except for Kilkivan, and you can only use a pan there. I'm thinking about doing a quick trip there and if I get any gold I can use it for my trials.
And my son is buying a 3D printer and he seems to think he can crank out a water table for me similar to the Catch-it.
So I'm slowly getting an arsenal of weapons for my assault on the AU. I'm still a newchum to this but the hobbie has me keen as.

Cheers
Badge

[donnybrook]

Badge interesting gear. Like it. If you go for a sluice it should catch all of the gold. Never discount the black sand as said in previous posts it could be silver or fine gold. Do a good pan and then lay on a tarp to dry. Spread your material on a flat surface with a ruler and then pass a magnet over it several times within a plastic bag. If you can get hold of one of those battery operated pocket microscopes/stereoscopes used by stamp collectors it might surprise you. Put up some more photos when you can. I'm sure you will do well. The gold sounds very fine. That's my area of interest. It was often discarded by our early prospectors as they only wanted the yellow to sell and furnaces and batteries were far and few between
donny

[labrador]

Badge,
Goggle the town of Biggenden, and its gold conections history, I think it is close to you or with in a hour or so.
If it is good and you find heeps lets know.
Lab

[slowflow]

Have a look at a miller table. You can make them using blackboard paint. Worth an internet search. there are also vibrating and reciprocating tables

[badge]

The fine gold I have been speaking of comes from out there labrador.
There's not a lot of it and it's very hard to get onto private land there. Some of the locals carry shotguns according to one landowner (might have been to scare me off, it worked).

I've tried Degilbo Crk, Paradise, and Stoney Crk. The fine gold came from Deep Crk , and it's on Nulla Crk Rd. Not worth the trip without getting onto private property.

Thanks slowflow. The blackboard paint sounds like a good idea. In the middle of selling the home at present so will look at that when we move.

[stinkypete]

Have you tried classifing 100, 50, 30 mesh then putting through bluebowl ? Eldorado can give out some very fine gold, 100 to 200 mesh, bluebowl gets it all when you clasify, sometimes cons have to be put through a couple of times, patience does pay, I swear by mesh screens and bluebowl. Use a magnet first ofcoarse.....