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DRY BLOWER REBUILD; basket case
Topic Started: Sunday 2-01-2011, 09:51 (531 Views)
dustyminer
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HI ALL- i have this basket case that i came across on an old abandoned lease and have toyed with the idea of re-birthing the old girl. given the amount of rain lately and prohibitive amounts of grass the detecting locally is out of the question for a while so maybe this is the ideal time to make a start on this project. any thoughts or input from members who have experience with dry blowers would be most welcome. originally (as in the photo's) this was a bellows type but i am thinking of turning it into a blower type set-up and run by a variable speed electric motor that could be powered by a 2-5kva genset. i have included a large range of photo's so that anyone with a trade background can give me specific tips if they are inclined to share their knowledge.

The size of the blower i think would be ideally suited to be fed by a backhoe and i'm guessing it could handle 3-5t per hour.

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oh dear... what the hell am i thinking :blink: ^o) :D :D

cheer's- dusty!! :)
disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus
or as michael yon told me "roll with it"
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Nightjar
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Hi Dusty,
That's one big project you have set yourself. Whoever built that was very inovative, noting the weights on the top shaft to put it out of balance and shake the screen.
Obviously it is your choice but as soon as you bring frontend loader/ backhoe into the equation the costs rise and the mining regulations hamper progress as opposed to hand tools eg: pick & shovel.
I don't think the design would favour a blower configuration, maybe stay with the bellows and a small petrol/diesel engine.
Remove the top hopper and chutes and convert it to hand feed.
It doesn't look like the riffle screen is removable, so you may need to have a small industrial vacuum cleaner (the type that has a 20 litre drum) with you to clear the screen to check for gold.
Definitely replace the flywire to support your riffle cloth.
Looks like you need a new bottom board to attach your bellow canvas too, you will need to have one way air inlets to fill the bellows each stroke. Simply cut holes in the bottom board and then nail insertion rubber flaps on the inside to allow air to suck in on the down stroke and seal on the upstroke.
To save costs you could remove the bearings carefully prise out the seal on one side, wash out the old grease, repack and refit seal.
You may need to fit jacks to the base frame to stop the machine walking all over the paddock when you start her up?
Gypsy put a post in this section for basic dry blower design you can get ideas from.
Pity you are on the other side or I could have given you hand to get it going, however feel free to ask any questions.

http://members.westnet.com.au/dobbie/images/DryWasher.pdf

My mate Chunky turning over some dirt through my old "Falcon" Dry Blower. I used this one as a template to build a scaled down version (opening photos on other post)

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When you get yours going Dusty, how about we resurrect this one found out near Pikes Hollow, WA?

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Good luck

Peter
Good luck & safe travels
Peter


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"Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life."
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dustyminer
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HI PETER- thanks for your input and photo's.... i have been giving your points a lot of thought today and i appreciate the time and consideration.

if i am to go thru with this then it will be for the purpose of working a lease... now i have half a dozen possibility's in historically proven gold bearing ground near old workings, etc, but i will have to prove up with sampling before i make the application to make sure it will be viable. what i will be looking for is dirt in the 2-4g per ton range and that is why i would be looking for a backhoe to feed this in the larger volume than just as a very slow rate hand feed. as you point out the costs are increased significantly with fuel being the main factor and i am under no illusions that i can make a fortune out of this- if it was that easy then everyone would be doing it :D , but i think there could be a reasonable margin with the right ground.

as for your point about keeping it as a bellows type- yes that makes good sense as it will be far easier to refurbish what's already there than redesigning. things like replacing the axle, hopper screens, wire mesh, etc, are within my scope but the welding and any fabrication i will have to get someone who knows what they are doing!

that was a real handy tip about the inlet valves and something i hadn't already considered but will be very easy to set-up. you were right about the riffle screen being fixed and i had thought about removable cups but the vacuum cleaner would be easier to manage with less loss of fines i'd reckon. the bearings i wouldn't muck around with and would just get new one's. i am still swaying towards the variable speed electric motor though for a couple of reasons.... as the blower will be staying on any lease for extended periods the petrol motor would be too much of a target and i think the variable electric will give me better feed rate control then at the end of the day just throw the genny in the back of the ute and go.

nothing is set in stone peter so if you have any other points i would love to hear them.... well any besides your idea of the pikes hollow dinosaur :D :D

cheer's- dusty!! :)
disce quasi semper victurus vive quasi cras moriturus
or as michael yon told me "roll with it"
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Nightjar
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Hey Dusty!
How's the project progressing?
Good luck & safe travels
Peter


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Lucky Eddie
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I have a suggestion for you.

Many years ago - when i lived in the wheatbelt - I built myself a large firewood docking saw on 4 legs, with a circular blade about 30 inches (2 ft 6 inches) in diameter for cutting up old jamwood fence posts!

It had an 8 hp briggs and stratton engine and was very effective, and I set it up so that no fingers ever needed go near the blade. It served me well - for about 25 years before i sold it on - about 20 of those I ended up with a commercial sawmill and it docked all the scantlings into firewood.

Managed to keep all my fingers in the process too.

That said - one of the big problems was it took a few blokes to load it into and out of the trailer - which meant every time i wanted to cut firewood i had to cut about 10 tonnes - to supply all the helpers a fair share!

One day at someone elses farm i saw a similar saw setup except it was like your dry blower with a cranked axle setup with a pair of wheels at the rear, and a drawbar at the front.

This made it into a one man affair!

Due to the engine - and rubber tyre with no springs - it tended to want to bounce around a lot on the tyres.

The cranked axle as fitted with a long lever in the middle that rotated up vertical to crank the wheels down for traveling - and when you got to where you wanted to cut wood - you dropped the draw bar off the tow ball onto the ground and dropped the rear vertical bar to the ground and the wheels folded up and the whole saw sat flat on its base on the ground - rock solid!.

When finished - pull the crank rod up and put an R clip in place to secure it and the wheels cranked down on the axle and lifted the base frame off the ground - pop the draw bar back on the tow ball and it was ready to move.

You already have the cranked axle - all you need do is put in inside two pieces of round tube welded to either side of the chassis frame - at the rear where it is now located and weld on the long lever to the center of it to be able to crank it up or down at will.

You could extend the length of the cranked section of the axel on each side to achieve more lift for better ground clearance when towing between dry blowing spots.

For air - if your going to take a generator - would you not be better off just buying a cheap chinese air compressor and fitting air nozzels in say PVC retic pipe glued together, under the riffle to supply the air required?

Less to wear out that way - have a spare compressor and if one craps the bed toss it and use the next, they are cheap as chips now days - disposable items. A reasonable say 5 kva genset should run a reasonable say 12 cfm compressor non stop.

Id say your a bit ambitious with how many tonnes of dirt that machine will process.

Probably one of the small stand on dingo type bucket loaders would feed all the dirt it is going to process in one day I would think.

Others with more experience than me may know different.

I guess for remote work something you can easily fix yourself in terms of the air feed system is the obvious answer.

I guess something else maybe to think about - if your going to grade all the stone that goes thru this thing by mesh size - would it be worth storing the graded stone into separate piles and taking a load back to the big smoke with you in a truck each time - stop at a (or out on a jetty in the ocean) somewhere with a petrol suction pump and wash the load of gravel thoroughly in the back of the truck to remove any fines - and you have a load of graded washed gravel to sell for landscaping supplies - maybe ameliorate your fuel costs a little...

I have a arty sister who did something spectacular with her footpaths around the house using washed gravel in graded sizes that she bought from a landscape supplies.

When forming the concrete foot paths she cut large sections of cardboard from fridge cartons into interlocking designs / shapes and used them as templates to lay washed graded gravel in different sizes into the top of wet concrete and rolled it in, to create subtle designs into a very smooth and interesting footpath for kids to play on.

Arty people amaze me - simple material with a simple design for an outstanding result.

You can only see the pattern designs shapes when you train your eyes to see the different texture of the different grade size stones - its a bit like a magic eye puzzle.

The kids use it to play a hop scotch type game on her footpaths - she had dragons and dinosaurs etc all set in... to first glance it's just a brownish gravel path, nut when you see the different texture stones all the animals stand out specially in a early morning or late afternoon sun.

I got the fun job of mixing and laying the concrete & she picked the buckets of different sized washed gravels for each animal, and the background was in the size that we had most of.

Color the concrete a similar brown with oxide and you have the flashest paths in the neighborhood.

I guess I come from the old school, "waste not want not"!

Cheers!
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Nightjar
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Sure like the idea of artistic paving Eddie.

Cheers
Peter
Good luck & safe travels
Peter


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