Oops...1.7oz

Sorry guys for not replying sooner as we had to move camp in the morning because of the rain. It poured down all night. Where?.....around Cue,WA. I haven't had an internet signal until now.
I weighed the nugget wrong....had the scales set on av. 0z not troy. It turns out to be 1.7oz, however as I said, it has some laterite over it. Did a specific gravity test on it and it turns out to be 1.37 oz. using a specific gravity and density test calculator that I have in an excel spreadsheet....don't remember where I got it from.

You wouldn't believe it, but after griding out the whole area I couldn't find anymore except for a couple of tiny species near the main workings, so soon after we moved on to another camp where I found 4 sub grammers but then had to move on as I mentioned above. We were planning to stay there awhile but it was too wet. Ended up going back to where I found the 1.7oz nug and on the second day while detecting on a flogged area I got this deep signal that I have never heard before. Dug down until I got a piece of tin, but the signal was still there!, scraped out a bit more dirt....another piece of metal, and the signal was still there. Even though it didn't sound like metal, I may have given up on it thinking that it was metal. But.....I had hit rock. So back to camp to get the bar and gloves and away I went at it with the help of a mate. We got down to it, it was a part/piece of a reef?, and the signal by now was pretty loud. Got a big chunk of quartz with bits of gold over that screams over the coil, 3 small nuggets that broke off somewhere while digging and quite a few rocks? that sound off over the coil with bits of gold over them. All up I've got about 30 kilos of dirt and rocks to take back home to play around with. No idea how much is in it....we'll see.

What can I say...it's been a great trip so far.

Cheers
Tony
This was supposed to go in the previous topic (1.8 ouncer) but somehow ended up here

wow, that is a good dig! Will be interesting to hear what comes of that 30kg lot. Great going well done

we will be going up to cue fore a week from the 16th august can you direct us to a good search area.
ted

well done
what a great result after digging a piece of tin
cheers dave

Any photographs coming?

Hi all

Back in Perth and internet.
Below are some pics of the 1.7oz nug and a couple of the rocks that I dug out.
Didn't do the 5cent thing, so the 1.7oz is 1 1/2" long, the middle pic is 3/4" long and the last pic is the quartz rock.

TED & LYNNE wrote:we will be going up to cue fore a week from the 16th august can you direct us to a good search area.
ted

Hi Ted & Lynne
Apart from starting out at old mine sites I can't tell you where to go exactly. I have 2 patches I have found around Cue where I have got gold from, but obviously I can't tell you where they are.
My best advise is to research the area well. Tengraph is a good start. Find a few places that look interesting and if need be, and is available, get a section 20a permit for it.

All the Best

tonyde, fantastic gold finds. Those photos have me drooling.

Your second photo is worth way more than the gold in it, what a peculiarly beautiful and unusual speciman, and your first nugget is also a work of natural art and heaps special. What a find! A picture speaks a thousand words indeed. Thanks for showing us what you found.

Well.....finally got around to cleaning all the gold. Ended up getting 3+ oz's out of the 20-30kg of rock and dirt. The first pic is the 1.7 oz nug, now 1.5oz and the next 2 pics (28gr & 1.2oz) I got out of the rocks. One from the quartz rock in the photo above. Iv'e been told that they are collectors pieces. ? They sure are pretty.

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They are amazing finds Tony. Some really beautiful gold there mate cheers Pete.

ps As a matter of interest Tony, how did you clean them?

tonyde,

These are lovely Nuggets and would be worthy additions to a fine gold collection.

Cheers
A

piston broke wrote:They are amazing finds Tony. Some really beautiful gold there mate cheers Pete.

ps As a matter of interest Tony, how did you clean them?

I cleaned them up with Alibrite. The trick is to do it several times. I Soaked them for about 2 weeks then took them out and scrubed them with a stiff toothbrush. I have a dentist pick to pick out any loose stuff, and then I soaked them again in fresh Alibrite. I did this 3 times. You need to do this as many times as it takes. One of my first nuggets I found had Ironstone all over it. At the time, being new to it all, I had soaked it in Alibrite once, but it didn't come off. However, using the above method I got all the ironstone off.

Cheers
Tony

Hi Tony. Great find, photos and great work cleaning it up. Where did you get the Alibrite? Do you need to mix it around everyday or so to help clean up? Also, can you use an ice cream tub or similar plastic to hold your rock/gold and alibrite? Cheers

Hey presto wrote:Hi Tony. Great find, photos and great work cleaning it up. Where did you get the Alibrite? Do you need to mix it around everyday or so to help clean up? Also, can you use an ice cream tub or similar plastic to hold your rock/gold and alibrite? Cheers

Alibrite was from Supercheap Auto. ***Read the caution label*** and wear gloves!!, not latex ones though. I think they're PVC. I wouldn't leave alibrite in an open container. It's dangerous stuff. Don't breath in the fumes!!! There is a lot of info in the forum about it.

I keep it in a screw top plastic jar and swish it around every now and then. After 2 weeks or so I toss out the alibrite and rinse the gold out with water several times in a ice cream container and then give it a good rinse in a bit of water with a fair bit of bi-carb soda. This helps to neutralize the acid so I can work on cleaning the gold with the toothbrush and dentist pick with bare hands. I do the brushing with the gold submerged in water, that way you don't lose any loose bits of gold that may flick out while brushing.
Doesn't get rid of quartz, but I guess you can pick some of it out if you want. I like the quartz in it.
Cheers....Tony

Some beautiful finds there Tony Well done and good pics too.

Cheers Eureka Dreams

OMG your a very lucky man Tony! Amazing job with cleaning and some very good photos to boot top post.
Cheers Hoff,

Hi Tony, thanks heaps for the extra information. We have a supercheap in town. I have some gold in quartz, it was attached to a 43kg rock. Boy that was a great day, still don't know how I carried it back to the car! I had a friend cut a small section off with the gold, but will need to find a suitable container to put it in as it is still about 10cm round & 40mm thick. I will arrange to get some gloves etc. I will try to take some photos of the process. I might start on a smaller bit first.

Hey presto wrote:Hi Tony, thanks heaps for the extra information. We have a supercheap in town. I have some gold in quartz, it was attached to a 43kg rock. Boy that was a great day, still don't know how I carried it back to the car! I had a friend cut a small section off with the gold, but will need to find a suitable container to put it in as it is still about 10cm round & 40mm thick. I will arrange to get some gloves etc. I will try to take some photos of the process. I might start on a smaller bit first.

Hi Geoff.....You might want to dolly up some of the 43kg rock, cause there may be some fine gold in it. Did you dig it out of the ground, or was it on the surface. If you dug it out I would definitely dolly the rock and maybe some of the surrounding ground.
Cheers
Tony

Hi Tony, the rock was about 20m down creek from where it came from. I found the main rock source about 3 weeks later after a friend told me I just needed to find where it came from. We did dolly up some of the surrounding quartz with no gold. However I did find a few smaller bits on the rock still at the source. My profile photo is of the next rock from where my larger rock was. Maybe i should do a bit of a story on the whole thing? After reading a few other posts about using alibrite, I am not sure if I want to attemp cleaning off the other rock which may be mica.

How you clean it up and how much, is an individual thing. You can put it in alibrite for a day or even just a couple of hours at a time until your happy with what it looks like.
A "bit of a story on the whole thing" may be worthwhile.
Is the source of the gold you found "The Source" or maybe, its just another piece of it. ??

It was the source of where my gold had come from as the rock fitted perfectly with the surrounding rocks. Basically there was a band of quartz through the rock which split at the quartz, dislodged and washed down stream. The rock still at the source did have a bit more gold, but the next rock section that I was able to move didn't have a single bit of gold. Sure there is more quartz visible there, but you would need an excavator to move the rocks and I don't have access to an excavator.

Hey presto wrote:It was the source of where my gold had come from as the rock fitted perfectly with the surrounding rocks. Basically there was a band of quartz through the rock which split at the quartz, dislodged and washed down stream. The rock still at the source did have a bit more gold, but the next rock section that I was able to move didn't have a single bit of gold. Sure there is more quartz visible there, but you would need an excavator to move the rocks and I don't have access to an excavator.

hi there,just a passing thought.i would be going down ya local hire joint and gettin me hands on a battery operated jackhammer,if not that then an pneaumatic one with air comp..and if not that then one with a small generator.
Good luck with it all...........cheers...Trev