The table below lists various Gold Mining Tools used by the modern Gold Prospector, and includes an explanation on how to use each tool:
Basic Gold Panning Kit <------> Gold Panning Kits <------> Gold Pans>
Gold Pan:
The gold pan is a good placer sampling tool. A good gold panner can process about 1 cubic yard in a day. Although you can produce a fair amount of gold with the pan, it is still a sampling and finishing tool. If you have found a pay streak or a rich deposit of gold, you would be better off using a tool that can process more material in a day. Even though it is mainly a sampling tool, a gold pan is inexpensive and still a lot of fun for the entire family. You will also need to pan out your gold concentrates from other gold separating machines, such as a suction gold dredge, sluice box, high banker, dry washer, etc. It is always a good idea to learn efficient gold panning techniques. If you already know how to use a gold pan
, just skip to the next section below. If you want to learn how to use a gold pan, then read on!
For more on Gold Pans and Gold Panning see DoradoVista's Gold Panning page!
Jobe Classifiers <------> Classifiers
Classifier Sieve:
This tool is a big sieve used to sift out panning material for further concentration. It is a good idea to classify panning material with a #4 or 1/4 in mesh classifier. These come in a variety of sizes from #2 = 1/2" down to #100 = 1/100" mesh. By sifting the material you reduce the possibility that a pebble or rock will cause a smaller fleck of gold to be bumped out of the pan. The classifier type shown above fits a handy 5 gallon plastic bucket.
Proline 30 in. Sluice Box
Sluice Box:
This is a popular prospecting tool and can process up to a cubic yard of dirt an hour. Quite a bit more than a pan can produce. It is good for small scale prospecting operations. It is compact and easy to haul around, making it good for remote locations. The way the sluice works is that water runs over pieces of flat, vertical angled L shaped things called riffles. When the water flows over the riffles, it creates turbulence under the L shaped bar and in turn makes a dead water zone where all the gold drops out. Just shovel dirt from the spot where the gold is into buckets and haul them over to the stream/river where you have set up the sluice. Then start running the dirt through the front of the sluice and the lighter of less dense part of it will flow out the back. The heavy dirt and Gold will be caught in the riffles. Make sure not to overload the sluice or gold can be lost out the back. You can tell if the sluice is overloaded by seeing if the dirt is filling up above the riffles and if there is a lot of dirt piling up. The price for a sluice box is usually around $90 if you get a smaller size model or up to around $200. If you get a larger model, you will be able to run a much more pay dirt through per hour.
Jobe Highbanker <------> Gold Concentrators
High Banker:
The high banker is a Gold concentration device that is based on the sluice box in combination with a water source, usually a pump. The water is forced into a hopper where the dirt and gravel are shoveled in. The water jets wash and break up any clay or soil lumps that may contain gold particles. This in turn drops though a mesh called a grizzly to the sluice box below and the process mentioned previously in the sluice box description finishes the concentrating of valuables and black sands. It is also possible to pump the water from a suction dredge nozzle into the hopper thus creating a small portable dredge unit. These systems are great for small sampling efforts and small production if a higher concentration of gold is found.
PEEK-AU Underwater Viewer
Gold Sniping Scope:
This underwater viewer provides a method of seeing through the reflections on the water's surface to the creek bottom or bedrock below. You look for small to medium bedrock cracks that run perpendicular to the high water stream flow. These cracks form a natural riffle or Gold trap. By using a crevice tool you can pull out the material and any Gold hidden from view. This was a very productive method in common use during the gold rush of the depression era. Yes, some 80% of the Gold that was present during the 1849 Gold rush is still present in the stream beds and hills where it was in the Gold Rush of 1849. It is not as obvious as stumbling on a rock in the creek bed only to find it is a 150 lb piece of Gold bearing Quartz*. Keep in mind that Gold is still out there and our current prospecting tools are much better at finding it and concentrating it.
*This event actually happened early in the 1849 Gold rush in California!
Crevice Tool <------> Gold Snuffer Bottle <------> Gold Prospecting Picks
Crevice Tools, Gold Snuffer Bottles and Geo-Palieo Picks:
These crevicing tools are any bent and hardened tools used to dig or pry deep in cracks or crevices and pull out material that may contain Gold that is concentrated there. You see when a creek or river is running at flood stage the energy in any given 10 foot section is similar to a locomotive rolling for hours on end. This vibration and the mud rock mix flowing downstream naturally concentrates gold and also causes it to settle deeper and deeper beneath the rocks on the creek bed and into any small pocket or cracks in the bedrock. These cracks are the target for gold sniping. During the 1930's era depression these were often exploited during that gold rush. There is still more nuggets to crevice in the rocks today. Perhaps as much as 80% of the surface gold present in the 1800's still remains within reach. Look low in the creek area on the bedrock and within the S-curve path of the gold pay streak. These are areas for prying cracks to open up to discover pockets of gold nuggets. Even heavy rocks and minerals like quartz will be displaced by this vibration settling the gold beneath. That's where a good prospecting pick comes in handy to split the cracks open enough to use the crevice tool and get those little nuggets and gold flakes out where they can be concentrated easily. In every gold prospector's equipment cache goes the "Gold Snuffer" bottle. This little suction dredge gets the fine gold and black sands out of your goldpan quickly for later concentration using a blue bowl. The black sands may require special heat treatment to crack or fracture the black sands and release any microfine gold that is attached to the iron or hematite minerals that make up the black sands. I just take the snuffer bottle and dump it into a plastic peanut butter jar for safe keeping. That way the Gold mining operations can continue at full speed following any gold pay streak or pay lead until it's too dark to continue. Back at the base camp the peanut butter jar gets dumped into a "Blue bowl" for further concentration of the fine gold contained in it. These blue bowls make quick work of the task of concentrating fine gold from black sands.
Dry Washer:
The dry washer is like a land version of the sluice box. The dry washer works by having the prospector shovel dry placer gold laden material into the top, which has a built in screen to sift out any rocks too big to go down the next section. When the dirt goes through the screen it falls into the lower part of the machine. A fan blows the lighter dirt up and over the riffles and down to finally make a pile of dirt on the ground. The gold stays up at the top few riffles because the fan is not powerful enough to blow the gold into the air and then fall down into the next riffle. Some versions have a gadget that creates an electrostatic charge that makes the gold and other metals stick to the dry washer making for better gold recovery. Another dry washing gadget is a thing that vibrates and makes all the gold settle to the bottom of the riffles. You can get one that does all of the above and a bit more too.
Ace 250 Metal Detector
Metal Detector:
This is a new tool in the prospector's tool kit. It's purpose is as the name says, to detect metallic Gold (Or Platinum will do fine thank you.) The way a metal detector works is to produce a stimulus of electro-magnetic energy or radio wave. This in turn spreads out through space and earth until it strikes a conductor. At that time a tiny electric eddy current loop is induced in any conductor. Think of a nugget or Gold crystal as a conducting antenna. Then something interesting happens, the collapsing eddy current causes the Gold to re-transmit an even smaller signal back out into space. This is where the different detectors are usually specialized. The Detector has a very sensitive receiver to pick up, process, filter and amplify this signal into some sort of human readable response. The response of the best detectors is usually an audible signal that represents properties of what is called a "target" or nugget. Targets can be tiny nuggets or grains of gold or they can be Pop-top pull tabs and miscellaneous "trash." Dig them all and please fill the holes after you finish, this is stewardship in action. Good detectors help distinguish these two categories. The soil and rocks in the area being hunted can also influence the ability to detect gold nuggets. Soils and rocks with various conductive salts and moisture also have eddy currents. This makes those areas hard to hear the smaller nuggets among all the noise. The best electronic detectors have proprietary circuits to filter this "ground noise." Using a detector is a bit of an art in itself. You must develop a discipline and methodical order to your search pattern. You will also need to develop an "ear" for the sound of what are called "values" vs. "trash" like pull tabs and nails, my favorites.
Suction Gold Dredge:
These are the best machines to use when processing larger amounts of stream or river gravel for a small scale production operation. If you have enough flowing water and regulations allow this is a great option for sampling and mining. When I refer to the intake size, it is the diameter of the inside of the nozzle, which feeds into the hose. Interestingly, some states (e.g. California) consider the dredge size to be the diameter of the restricting ring on the nozzle tip, hence a manufacturers 5 inch Gold dredge is considered a 4 inch Gold dredge by DFG (Department of Fish and Game) regulations (2008). This fact is handy to know, so it pays to read the regulations carefully and know your equipment. The suction hose is attached to the jet tube. An engine powered pressure jet nozzle on this tube creates a suction in the larger dredge hose. This sucks the dirt, gravel and smaller rocks from the operator's suction nozzle through the hose to a sluice box fixed to the pontoons on both sides to float the dredge.
For more on Gold Suction Dredging go to DoradoVista's Gold Dredging page.
To help you get started; Here are a few more Gold Prospecting Tools & Books from our affiliate tool supplier at
www.BlackCatMining.com
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