Tips And Tricks On How To Get The Most From Your Blue Bowl Concentrator

Your Best Friend In Ultra-Fine Gold Recovery

 If you are looking for a solution to separate super fine gold from your concentrates, then the Blue Bowl is your new best friend. Gold has a much higher specific gravity than most other minerals that it is found in conjunction with. The Blue Bowl concentrator takes advantage of this and helps separate the lighter material, using rotational force under water pressure.

After using the Blue Bowl for many years, I have learnt some handy tricks that makes working them a whole lot easier and more efficient. These are a simple contraption to use, but, by no means a "plug and play" option. There is some tinkering an fine adjustments that will make the Blue Bowl a gold catching wizard.

Tip 1: The Blue Bowl will work at its best and most efficient when operated perfectly level, this brings me to my first tip. A set of Leg-Levellers are an ideal addition. Allowing you to adjust the level of the bowl when placed on top of your catch bucket. Simply use a spirit level and adjust the height on each corner. 

Tip2: Adjusting your water flow is paramount to success. There is two very handy tricks to make sure this is done properly for optimal gold recovery and to ensure that no gold is lost. The first tip is to add some tungsten powder into your blue bowl. Tungsten powder has the exact same specific gravity as gold, making it react in an identical way when used in the Blue Bowl. Once the tungsten powder has been added, simply turn the water flow up until the tungsten begins to move upwards toward the overflow cone in the centre of the Blue Bowl. Once this happens, you can then slowly adjust it down until it settles back to the bottom. This will be your optimal flow rate. The flow rate can depend slightly on the size of gold added and the material with it but it is a great way to find the best starting point for gold recovery. tungsten powder is cheap and can be purchased easily online.

Tip 3: This is a seemingly simple tip but it will save you a lot of time and tungsten powder! Once you have found the optimal flow rate from your tungsten powder, you will notice that the water on the outer edge of the blue bowl is a fair amount higher than that at the top of the overflow cone. Simply mark this height with a permanent marker. The next time you use the Blue bowl, you can easily turn the water pressure up until you reach this water line and then you are all set to start adding your material.

Tip 4: Keep it visual. When using the Blue Bowl you really want to be able to see exactly what is happening with your concentrates. To do this, make sure to run clean water into the bowl and use the bowl in a shaded area to reduce sun glare. Fine gold can be hard to see and you want to make sure your unit is catching it effectively, so reduce all visual impairments and keep an eye on that gold.

I hope these handy tips and tricks will help you with your gold recovery while using the Blue Bowl concentrator system, good luck!

Written by, Angus L.