Ore,color of and how shipped

[John McCutcheon]

I've noted that ore can be shipped bagged and loose in gons. I take it bagged ore is a higher grade and has been milled. Low grade ore is carried in gons and box cars but what are the colors of ore if you are modeling low grade ore. Is it a yellowish color or is it different colors and what is a good material to use to replicate it's color or colors..

John McCutcheon

[salty4568]

Hi, John.   I worked in mining for quite a few years, all over the west.   Color of ore .... depends.

Raw ore generally comes up grey in color when mined. After awhile it usually seems to oxidise to a an ochre color. ---- If you look at a mine dump from a working mine, you  can usually tell the recently mined muck (grey,) and along the pile will graduate to yellow ochre. Of course it can vary somewhat by the type of ore, too.   All bets are off for ore which has been milled ..... depends on which metal is concentrated.

I only worked in a mill once ..... at Boulder, milling our fluorspar mined at Jamestown up above in the mountains. After grinding to a powder and in a slurry, it was run on to a Wilfley Table (classifier..) and seperated off into four concentrate streams. You could put your hand under the specific slurry coming off the vibrating table side and let it run through your fingers .... ..... the purple stream was fluorite, next a grey stream (silver and lead,) then gold (brass color,) while the waste went off the end and to the waste dump.

I am assuming you are thinking raw ore, however. Concentrates, especially valuable stuff, will go in boxcars, so would not be too visible.

Skip

[John McCutcheon]

Skip

Thanks for the reply. I did look up the color of ore and it varies on it's type. I have not seen anyone modeling open top gons with low grade ore and was wondering what could I use. It looks like a grey or yellow color would be ok.

John

[Darel Leedy]

John,

See the load in the current header photo at the top of the forum (which the photo itself should be a forum topic of interest). Years ago, Joe Crea and I interviewed Norm Blake who owned the Polar Star Mill in Black Hawk. At one point we asked a similar question, and he said that it was a "light grey". Back when I was modeling the Gilpin Tram, I used Woodland Scenics "Natural" Talus (muted down with an ink wash) for my ore car loads. The stuff is great for car loads in that it is also very light weight. Looked right to me.