Dry Blowers for Gold Recovery

Keen Dry Blower - used with permission from Keene Engineering


Has anyone here used or watched a Dry Blower in action?

Dry Blowers have been used since the early days (sometimes with a bellows attached) and many people relegate them to the more arid regions such as Western Australia and even Tibooburra. The gold in Tibooburra is abundant yet fairly small so it would be an ideal application there. But realistically, a Dry Blower unit can be used anywhere as long as the gold in the region is suitably abundant. I've heard that they'll capture gold as small as 0.01 of a gram (might like some confirmation on this) and recovery percentages are even higher than with a regular sluice! For those unfamiliar, the DB devices today capture the gold by Electrostatic Charge as well as with the aid of a series of riffles and hot, dry air. The old timer versions from the last century used either a hand crank or a bellows to drive the lighter soil out and retain the heavier material.

I'm seeing a few Dry Blowers in people's equipment caches - people who don't visit the desert regions - and I'd like to know if anyone has used one in a NON-arid location. As long as the soil is perfectly dry, I imagine they'd be useful anywhere.

Cheers,

Marco

Hi Marco,
i own one just like the one pictured,
we used it out at Gibralta for 6 months or so and it found
very fine gold to nuggets, we can also use it when the soil is damp as the hot air it blows dries the soil.
when we pan of the keeps we sometimes even found mustard gold that floated on the surface of the water in the pan.
dusty work but its good fun.

[quote="nero_design"]
Keen Dry Blower - used with permission from Keene Engineering


Has anyone here used or watched a Dry Blower in action?

Dry Blowers have been used since the early days (sometimes with a bellows attached) and many people relegate them to the more arid regions such as Western Australia and even Tibooburra. The gold in Tibooburra is abundant yet fairly small so it would be an ideal application there. But realistically, a Dry Blower unit can be used anywhere as long as the gold in the region is suitably abundant. I've heard that they'll capture gold as small as 0.01 of a gram (might like some confirmation on this) and recovery percentages are even higher than with a regular sluice! For those unfamiliar, the DB devices today capture the gold by Electrostatic Charge as well as with the aid of a series of riffles and hot, dry air. The old timer versions from the last century used either a hand crank or a bellows to drive the lighter soil out and retain the heavier material.

I'm seeing a few Dry Blowers in people's equipment caches - people who don't visit the desert regions - and I'd like to know if anyone has used one in a NON-arid location. As long as the soil is perfectly dry, I imagine they'd be useful anywhere.

Cheers,

Marco

Hey Macro I know just the place for that thing, do you have one or thinking of getting one ?

And Gypsy what was the price of your setup? I would like to get one also as I was saying I stumbled onto a place in NSW some time ago when flying north, bad weather forced us down and we couldent get off the ground for two days so went walkabout and found a lot of specs over a very large area and very consentrated, largest was half the size of a match head, never been back there but with a gadget like that and retirement it's lookin good again.

Hi Nomad,
Yes, I'm just contemplating one at the moment. I think they have a very good rate of recovery although, as Gypsy pointed out earlier, it can be a grubby experience shoveling dirt into a blower!. I'd love to get one although I'm running out of room in my garage due to my habit of not throwing too many things away!

Cheers!

Marco

[quote="nero_design"]Hi Nomad,
Yes, I'm just contemplating one at the moment. I think they have a very good rate of recovery although, as Gypsy pointed out earlier, it can be a grubby experience shoveling dirt into a blower!. I'd love to get one although I'm running out of room in my garage due to my habit of not throwing too many things away!

Cheers!

Marco

You sound like a farmer, they don't through much away, I don't give a fig how dirty I get as long as it's worth it, wanna go half ? you do the shoveling though.

Hi I used a Gold Wizard with clod breaker for a couple of years north of Kal these were made in Perth worked great had a pair of wheels to make it mobile but boy it was heavy. I now have a E Z Pickins Dryvac which was brought from the US in the 70s but it has a lot of short comings which I am working to overcome as the base idea is good Regards Dave