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Gold Diggers Home 2009 Entries: Getting Excited Trommel Time Little Smoky Creek Gold
Trommel Time
If you've spent any amount of time out digging for gold, it doesn't take long to realize how little you can accomplish with just a shovel and a gold pan.
It just simply takes too long to sort through the dirt one pan at a time. So, what do you need, then, if you really want to recover some gold?
Equipment that can move a serious amount of material, that's what.
Now, if you put in some time studying both historical and modern practices, you'll soon realize the best weapon in the gold digger's arsenal is the dredge. It simply moves more material, puts it immediately through a separation process, and recovers the most gold for your time spent.
However, there are a lot of rules and regulations regarding the use of a dredge. You can't use it all year round, nor can you use it on just any stream of water. Not to mention that it only works underwater, and there's gold up on the banks, too.
So, what comes up as another great tool, second only to the dredge in terms of moving large amounts of material?
In my opinion, it's the trommel.
The trommel uses a rotating screen to classify, or sort by size, the material you shovel into it. In other words, the small stuff falls through the screen and the big stuff goes on out the end of the rotating screen or barrel. The small stuff, where the gold is, then falls down onto your sluice to be separated. It can do this all in one process, saving time and moving more material.
So, last year I set out to build myself a trommel. There are trommels available for purchase out there, but I really didn't feel like spending hundreds of dollars for something I knew I could build myself.
Besides, I wanted a couple of features that I had not seen on any manufactured trommels.
For one, I wanted mine to be hand powered. Sure, being power driven is great at times, and I do plan on adding it to my trommel, but who wants to have to use a motor at all times when a little hand cranking can do the job just as well.
Also, I wanted my trommel to be easily dismantled and moved in pieces. I knew the areas I planned on digging were not always going to be easily accessible by truck or even 4-wheeler, but I didn't want that to stop me from putting my trommel to use.
So, even though I really have no engineering experience, I designed and built my own trommel, almost entirely with materials I had on hand, thanks to my dad. The only parts I actually purchased were the bearings for the rollers and the expanded metal that makes up the screen.
Here's how it ended up, before I painted it and worked out a few minor bugs.
Material, hopefully gold bearing, is fed into the hopper, the red part, and water from the pumps sprays onto it in the hopper and while it travels through the rotating screen. After adding material, in other words "dirt", I simply turn the hand crank to rotate the barrel and let the water do it's job. As the screened material falls through, it is directed into the sluice.
Here's another view.
This is how I had it set up while at home, with a couple of car batteries running the electric water pumps. Later, I built an adjustable frame for the sluice to sit on.
Working with a re-circulating system like this, where the same water is continually pumped back through, is a pain. It doesn't take very long before things start to get plugged up and filled up as more and more dirt is worked.
Fortunately, however, there is usually a river or creek where the gold is, offering a continual flow of fresh water. This makes it a LOT easier. Here's how the trommel looks set up in Little Smoky Creek.
With this set up, I didn't use any pumps to run water through the trommel. I simply dumped material in the hopper and followed it with some water from a bucket. I then cranked the handle to turn the barrel and poured more water over the barrel as I went. The natural flow of the creek provided plenty of water to work the sluices.
Yes, it is slower this way, but pumping water is illegal in this particular area. With two of us working together, it is nearly as fast as running pumps anyway. One would dump in the dirt and turn the crank while the other kept water flowing over the barrel and into the hopper. (see pic on top of page).
Here's another view of it.
Overall, I really like my trommel. However, as with anything there is always room for improvement. If you are really interested in building one or purchasing one for yourself contact me and I can try to answer any questions you may have about it.
In short, the barrel and hopper both need to be bigger to really increase ease and speed of use. Having said that, however, dumping too much through at a time would overwhelm the sluices anyway, so there has to be a balance there.
What I am planning on doing, though is making a bigger barrel for it. This one is 6.5 inches in diameter. I'm going to try making a 10 inch barrel, I think. Fortunately, the way I designed this beast will allow me to put a bigger barrel on it without having to rebuild anything else.
I'm also going to put a bigger hopper on it, one that I can dump an entire 5 gallon bucket of material into at one time.
I'm going to add power as well. My goal is to be able to run it by hand, electrically, or with gas power, depending on what makes the most sense at the time.
I believe I can legally pump water while operating on the Boise River if I get all the permits. In that case, a gas engine pumping water through the system while slowly turning the barrel for me will allow me to simply shovel away and get a whole lot of material run that will hopefully yield a lot of gold.
If so, I plan on working the trommel in that manner until dredging season rolls around. That way, I should have some good holes already opened up and ready to dredge on opening day.
Good plan? I hope so.
So, it's off to the shop to get the trommel worked over.
I'll let you know how that goes as soon as I can get it done.
Gold Diggers Home 2009 Entries: Getting Excited Trommel Time Little Smoky Creek Gold