Ore Concentration, Cornwall

Ore Concentration, Cornwall

Various means were used to concentrate the time ore before it was moed elsewhere for smelting.

Buddle
In the mid-19th century Buddles usually took the form of a circular pit with rotating brushes; the tin from the stamps was fed into the centre or side of the pit and was graded by gravity, concentrating the heavy ore near the inlet point. These were often mechanically worked. Earlier buddles were manually operated. A variation used in tailings works to treat sands and slimes was the Round Frame, a free-standing, all wooden, mechanically-actuated buddle. A further variation was the dumb buddle or dumb pit, which were not mechanically operated.

Vanner
A mechanically-driven, laterally vibrated, inclined rotating belt on which fine tin-containing material in suspension in water was treated by relative density. A Vanning Shovel was used to test the relative concentration of ore in a sample of finely crushed ore or partially dressed ore.

Mines and Mining In Cornwall