TUBE RETORT

Replies

Gerry Bradbury March 28, 2010 at 1:03am

I made one of these . The first time around I made the inner cup about 2 1/2 "
deep rounded in the bottom . put my amalgam in newspaper in the cup and proceeded to heat with tiger torch . All I got for my effort was a cup full of water news paper amalgam mess 3 times in a row . I watched the video again and ended up cutting the cup down to about 3/4 " and extending the mast to within 1/2" of the top of the outer cover . Then it worked fine, now just have to get enough sponge to smelt.
- andrew hall > Gerry Bradbury March 19, 2011 at 6:43pm
  
  say what ya want about my man pantys,retorts for the non pro extremely impractical.mistakes can be costly,as in life or limb. even pros give these much respect.when amalgamation called for in my ops,glad to just vaporise that crud with nitric,will use fresh hg next time.squeezing it all thru cotton in a water plunger beforehand saves majority of it anyway.retort ops for larger scale miners imho
  - James Madden > andrew hall March 26, 2011 at 3:15am
    
    A good friend of mine who is an engineer is always coming up with some interesting gadget. He took a toro tiller and converted it into a transporter to move his hydraulic winch. He always looks for the simplest way to build something. His latest device is the angeltort. Things that will be needed, an angel food cake pan. A stainless steel tumbler (must be stainless, cast iron discolors the gold). A Pyrex bowl that will fit inside the angel food pan. Propane burner for heat source. Enough course sand to fill the pan. Grind down the cone of the angel food cake pan until the tumbler fits almost all the way down into it. ( thermal past to better seal it).
    
    Working outside away from structures and stay upwind.
    
    Pour the sand in to the pan. Put mercury into center cup. Invert the Pyrex bowl and gently push it into the sand. Pour water into the sand around the bowl. Put burner under the tumbler and let it evaporate the mercury. Mercury will evaporate and condense on the inside of the Pyrex bowl then travel down into the sand. After all the mercury is evaporated turn off burner and let it cool down. You want to make sure that the bowl is cold so all the vapor is re condensed. You will be left with your sponge gold in the tumbler and you can pan the sand and recover the mercury. I have yet to build one. Tom has assembled several for friends and it seems to work very well. I had concerns about the mercury vapor that may have not condensed. Tom said after the bowl cools down he pours some cold water over the bowl. You just have to be careful and not rush it and the bowl is not hot as it will crack.
    
    Tom_Mercury_Gold_Processing_02.jpg
    
    Tom_Mercury_Gold_Processing_01.jpg
    - James Madden > James Madden May 22, 2011 at 4:54am
      
      Finally built one of these contraptions. Do not use beach sand, you need course sand. for a heat source I used a propane torch and set the retort on some bricks. You only want to heat the stainless steel tumbler.
      
      I used a 1/4 cup of mercury in the cup. After it was done and cooled the inside of the pyrex bowl looked like it had been frosted over with a 1/4 inch of silver foam. Some of the mercury pooled up on top of the sand and a lot of it sunk to the bottom. While trying to recover the mercury I found that there was a lot of very fine floured mercury. I will do a sodium Ion Exchange on some of the mercury and that will pull all the fine stuff together. This unit with very course sand works ok with a table spoon or so of mercury. I would not try it again with large quantities. I would use a retort for that. I got rid of the enamel angel food cake pan and started looking for a retort.
Steel Pan January 24, 2010 at 12:14pm

Heck, that's simple enough.
Thanks for sharin'!