Michael Wendt on thu 16 aug 12
Do it yourself Junkies!
I just got the lab results from the last batch of MC Spar I milled. I want
to share an important discovery anyone with a ball mill can use to refine
mixed quartz-feldspar like we have up at Moose Creek.
The old tradition was called hand cobbing where the ore is sorted by hand t=
o
remove the quartz. This works fine for big stuff but the spar up there is
3/4" and smaller, too small to hand cob.
In the modern era, froth flotation became the standard.
Recently, optical sorting equipment has made sorting down to 1/4" practical
but it is very expensive equipment.
My new method is autologous milling where the quartz, which is much harder
that the feldspar, is used as the grinding media. The trial you see below
was produced by ball milling mixed quartz and feldspar ranging from 3/4"
down to 1/4 for one hour and then screening to 60 mesh.
The 60 mesh output can then be ball milled to any degree desired. Anyone ca=
n
do this! It is very cheap to do! If you have feldspar in your area, try it
and send the samples in to ALS Chemex for analysis.
SiO2 ..... 67.19
Al2O3..... 17.35
Fe2O3....0.14
CaO........0.06
MgO.......0.02
Na2O......0.96
K2O........12.67
Cr2O3.....trace
TiO2........trace
MnO.......trace
P2O5.....0.017
SrO..........0.06
BaO..........0.75
LOI...........0.7
TOT.........99.92
the sum reflects the missing values for trace amounts.
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