49'r: Because you have thought your own post to be of such significance that you referenced it again in another post, I decided to read it. Here are my observations. I hope you don't mind, but for clarity I edited out all of the commentary which I believed was irrelevant. Kind of crystalizes your ideas, so to speak. (I have italicized your points)
Apr 2 1997 9:58AM EST
Reply #10715 of 10717
Assaying & refining is an artform and constantly in need of tweaking, due to the in situ material as well as the nugget effect!
Although many have said this, I assume it to be the hypothesis that you intend to prove here. I'm with you so far.
Minus 30 screening produces a fine sand consistence such as beach.
Even an occasional grain or two of salt makes it thru a -30 mesh screen. Individual grains of salt are approximate to the size of -30.
Tip of a pencil...That's about -12 size mesh: a nugget.
Ok, I have the sizeology down pat.
Now place the 2 screen-sized items on your desk blotter...the grain of salt and the tip end of your pencil.
Imagine for a second, dripping heated cyanide with an oxidant on the grain of salt, and on the "nugget" represented by your pencil tip.
Guess which one dissolves in cyanide faster?
My guess it's the grain of salt.
Now figure out how big a sample 750grams is...and why screening for "pencil point" nuggets would be critical to both dissolution time for the salt sized grains as well as the thousands of assays needing to be done at the same time. I mean c'mon, folks. Do you really think Bre-X was the only customer of that lab in Indonesia?
I have questions.
1) Your claim seems to be that screening for larger (pencil point) grains has a direct effect on the dissolution of the smaller (salt sized) grains. Can you unpack this a bit?
2) There seems to be an assertion that the accuracy of this process becomes murky because there are "thousands of assays needing to be done at the same time." As presented, this is heresay. Can you substantiate this? I have to discount this statement at this point of the appraisal. It is, without facts to support it, quite meaningless.
I seem to remember that FCX uses them, also from previous press releases.
Making this kind of relationship/connection between what one company and another does in practice, without factual information to back it up, contributes to the investor mindset that sells FCX primarily because BRE-X's results are called into question. Not a very intelligent way to set up a comparative point.
What if some lab employee mislabelled which batch pencil point "nuggets" go with the dissolved and fired results?
Now, you've got an idea of the difficulty of cyanide leaching modus operandae.
Latin! (You go girl!) This is an assertion of either intentional or unintentional incompetence. Again, this is surmised, not backed up. Have you any real evidence, or is it just an intelligent observation on your part? Thus far you have not said anything authoritative about the practices of the lab/lab procedures that you are investigating here.
At this point you seem to have reached a conclusion in your argument. Unfortunately you have'nt proved anything. I would like to take another look at the hypothesis;
Assaying & refining is an artform and constantly in need of tweaking, due to the in situ material as well as the nugget effect!
Well, you seemed to have shown us that you believe this to be true. But that was evident from the start. Perhaps you could expand on the relationship between assaying and refining as an artform and the seemingly unavoidable incompetence that you attribute to this Indonesian lab. Are these lab people artists, near artists, or non-artists? How would you imagine they go about tweaking? What kind of tweaking? Do you tweak like they tweak?
And then there is the problem of killing/neutralizing the cyanide so that you can drop out the gold, gravity or vacuum filter to retrieve it, dry that zinced precipitate so that it doesn't create excess moisture problems in your flux "recipe," thereby aglomerating that mixture in your crucible...(I usually mix mine in a butter tub before pouring all into a crucible, personally) and use a new paintbrush to make sure I get it all into the crucible.
The use of "you" and "your" makes me feel like I am right in on the action here. Very exciting! I think I am becoming an expert at something. What I see here are your personal experiences with this process. This has little or nothing to do with the Indonesian lab. It might be better if you put this as; "in my experience, when I try to do this and that etc., then this happens etc." That way we could all discern the difference between ideas and the way those ideas might apply to other circumstances. We are, however, a long way from facts with regards to the Indonesian lab.
(Usage of an existing paintbrush by a lazy lab employee can skew the sample because of how tiny particles with zinced gold can stick to individual bristles...)
Another suggestion of incompetence. Essentially useless drivel.
Now which "nuggets" went with which dissolved/zinced crucible fired resultant piece of cupelled gold shot? What if the wrong "nuggets" got weighed with the goldshot and assayed for purity in its little lead envelope in the cupel?
What next? It is starting to sound more like an sitcom than a informative lesson.
I hope you all have a better idea of some of the processes and problems encountered in the labs, re: the nugget effect, and why it is so difficult to do an assay in this business, let alone the lab person working for the "acquirer or the jv partner." Anybody see a conflict of interest here besides me? AYUP, you sharpies already spotted that as well, since it has been discussed thoroughly on this thread.
Professor your argument is inconclusive. That is all I have learned. I need to know why it is as difficult for all lab technicians around the world as it is for you to arrive at accurate results. I think I can understand why it is difficult for you, and you admirably show us that you go to the limits of your knowledge of practical, technical, and artitistic aspects to get it right as much as possible. This attempt to convince me, however, that as you have a personal struggle against incompetence, so do the lab technicians in an Indonesian lab, does not quite work. From what you have presented here, it is just as likely that they are more competent than you are. Yours is, after all, an entirely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
R. Winer |
