Dry Washers when Gold Mining

Dry washers are more common and popular in areas where there is not water available such as deserts and dry washes.

Dry washers use air, vibration and static electricity to function and separate the gold from the waste gravel.

Using the vibration to move the material with a sluice box is very much like the movement that is caused by the water speed. The dry method recovery can be very useful if there is a correct balance of air separation and adequate vibration.

The idea of air separation is also essential to adequate dry recovery, because vibration alone cannot separate it all properly. When air is placed in and induced it can create a static charge that will generate a magnetic field that will attract the heavy metals like the one you are looking for, gold. The static charge is generated when it is forced through a fibrous material that is lined on the recovery trough of the dry washer.

Dry washers can be purchased, however there are people that know how to make their own. The experienced people probably know how this can be done; however if you are like most of us, it might be convenient to buy one instead.

Dry washing is something that has been done since a long time ago in the early days when people used to work the placers. When there is not any water to separate the gold from the other materials miners have come up with different ways of using the flow of air in order to concentrate the materials. 

A long time ago, dry concentration was not very fast and was very inefficient. These days dry washers may have some difficulty recovering gold after the top layer of dry sand has been taken off and the wet sand and gravel has been reached at. Just make sure you run the material through the dry washer more than just one time.

In the past one of the most commonly known methods of dry washing was winnowing. Winnowing consisted of winnowing the course gravels that were screened out and then gotten rid of. The remaining fines were placed on a blanket and the blanket was lifted up by the corners and tossed into the air when there was strong wind. The strong wind would carry off the lighter material and the heavier materials, such as the gold, would fall back into the blanket. The weave of the blanket also used to help trap the gold flour in it.

Another way to is by dry panning the gravels, however unless you are highly experienced you could very simply let the values get out.

One other very well known way of working in dry placers is with a more simple type of bellows dry washer. This consists of shoveling the gravel on a screen and there is a hopper underneath it. Then the bigger and courser gravel will become separated from the finer material that will drop off the lower end of the screen while the smaller matter will fall into the hopper. The smaller matter is then funneled down onto the riffle tray.

The material or matter then goes down over the tray passing over the riffles where the gold is caught. The flow of the material helped by air that is pushed upwards by the bellows and these can be operated by hand. A little gasoline engine can also be used to power the dry washer.

One of the most common and most well known machines in the market these days is a battery powered dry washer. This dry washer can be operated by a little battery that does not weight very much and can process around a cubic yard per hour. These new lightweight mini dry washers are perfect because they do not need fueling and can be recharged very quickly.