Pan, Blue bowl, or spiral wheel, what works best?

[Beachnut]

Hello All

I am totally new around here, and new to prospecting! I live in Central Coastal California, and have expanded my beach metal detecting into inland gold prospecting. I found a place in the national forest and spent the day digging along an old stream bed / bedrock layer. My friend and I classified to 1/2" into buckets, then ran the buckets over to a sluice box in the creek. Had a fantastic first time out prospecting in Gods great creation, and even found a tiny bit of that Gold He has hid out there for us to find!

My question is this. How do I get the fine gold out of all that heavy stuff coming out of the sluice box? I took all of the sluice box material home, and panned it out in a plaster tub with a smaller finishing pan, catching everything out of the finishing pan in a larger gold pan below it, in the tub, for MANY HOURS!!! I ran everything through a kitchen collander screen, and then a frying pan lid / flat splatter stopper- screen that was even finer. I was able to get everything I could SEE out of it, but I know there is even more fine gold in there! My sluice box has a "Heavy Hitter Sluice Magnet" that caught most all the magnetic black sand before it went into the sluice box. I saved all of the magnetic sand as there might be some gold hiding in it also, but there is no way I could pan all that, after I spent near 4 hours just to get the "easy" gold out of my concentrates! (There was only like a full large coffee can of sluice box concentrates). It just took so long to tweezer out all those small flecks of gold, and get rid of all that non magnetic black sand.

Would a Blue Bowl, or one of the Spiral wheels, (like the Desert Fox), save me some time and all that back breaking stooping over that plaster panning tub? Or are they mostly hype?

I watched the video on the prospecting channel about the blue bowl. It Seemed like quite a bit of work just classifying it all down to 100 mesh / and still panning a lot in between! Would a spiral wheel skip all that panning? Or would you still end up doing a bunch of panning anyway.

We did end up with .04 dwt of Gold! Its better than being skunked the first time out, but amounts to like $15.00. I might have had too much downward slope, or water flow, through my sluice box... We still had a TON of FUN!

Thank you all for your help and any wisdom!

Beachnut

[russau]

when your working cons that are smaller than nuggets that you can pickup with your fingers, screening your cons is the only way to go and then pan each batch seperatly. almost every peice of cleanup equipment makes it easier. i have or had all of them at one time or the other. i still prefer to pan each batch myself. yep it takes awhile todo, but i can pan faster than my ole wheel did. the smaller the gold fines, the less material i put into the pan to work. i guess it would be different if i had my equipment permantly setup but i dont. when i do use cleanup equipment, i always use a autofeeder to feed my cons to keep everything consistant, and that equals a better cleanup for me!using a autofeeder lets me run my cons while im off doing something else, so speed isnt a concern if its doing its own thing for me while im off doing something else.

[Flourchild]

First and foremost learn how to pan experience experience experience once you feel you have the panning thing down go with the other devices. I use all three but after 20 yrs of slinging that heavy pan and wrist and arm pain I prefer to use my pan only for sampling and ocasionally a final cleanup. I accumulate my cons through the season and save them to run during the winter months to stave off the cabin fever I classify all my material and run it separate I first run it through my desert fox then through a bluebowl this I can do in my living room (drives the wife nutts ) while watching the tube. After that I keep my sand for future recovery methods as it's hard to just toss em even though the wife is always on my arse about it

[Hoser John]

Many hours for a few cons?? Sounds like some panning knowledge is needed. Mining is all about classification. Your already on a good road as you preclassified prior to sluicing to increase your finds and % of recovery. How much dirt did ya bring home. Most units work pretty good but never get a wheel ifn' it don't have a hole through the middle--it ain't worth a diddle. Wheels do need to be run twice-onece for black sands and then run steeper to get the gold outta the black sands. You get MUCH more that way. I use the old style green bowl(no wings never)for 1/8"to 25 mesh and blue from there on for talcum powder gold. tons a au 2 u 2 -John And I run them both at the same time for REAL production also

[Beachnut]

Thank You ALL for your advise!

Russau you said:

i always use a autofeeder to feed my cons to keep everything consistant,

What is an auto feeder?

Flourchild you said:

I first run it through my desert fox then through a bluebowl

So does that mean the Desert Fox can not get the real fine gold and I would need to buy a Desert Fox AND a blue bowl if I really wanted ALL that fine gold?

Hoser John you said:

Many hours for a few cons?? Sounds like some panning knowledge is needed.

Yes I think I will allways be a learning this panning stuff! I took so long due to panning each level of screened concentrate, slowly tweezering & snuffing these tiny specks of gold out, then re-doing the cast off again. Than trying to get the black sand out of the snuffed up stuff so its JUST gold! I just do not want to let any of that purty yeller mettal get buy me! Thats why I am wondering if a Desert Fox will do it better / much faster than me humped over panning, and re-panning, than wondering - did i miss some, is there some gold DUST in there? Would the Desert Fox catch the Gold Dust? Sounds more like the blue bowl is needed for that real fine stuff?

I am taking my wife out today prospecting for her first time! If she likes it too, maybe I can talk her into the Camel mini tromel AND the Desert fox wheel! That will be my next question / post if she says she "digs" this prospecting gig!

Off to the hills!

Take care all

Beachnut (Going inland!)

[russau]

man you are new to this! haha a auto feeder is a devicwe that you load your cons into and it ,with the help of a controlled water source, runs a very small stream of water over your cons to facilitate the feeding of cons into what ever cleanup device your using. this helps in a controlled feed of cons to further help you in a consistant feed. the more consistant you are with everything, the bettwer results youll have.a autofeeder can be something as simple as a 5 gallon bucket tilted on edge towards your cleanup device(gold wheel,blue bowl,green bowl,miller table etc) that has a controlled water source in it to slowly flush the screened cons out.it can be made out of anything,any shape thatll hold your cons.

[Flourchild]

In my experience Beachnut I've found that the wheel although it does get some fines it does a better job on the bigger stuff but the bluebowl will get what the wheel don't, all that super fine flour dust and yes it does take some time even with the proper equipment but like I said 4 months of winter gotta have something to do to keep from going crazy so the time and effort is not an issue with me

[TRJ]

I'm so glad you asked this becuase I, like you, am new to prospecting. I'm on the east coast in PA and almost all of our gold is tiny placer gold. From reading the internet I was zeroing in on the Blue Bowl but I wanted to make sure.

I guess it is time to order a Blue Bowl kit.

T

[WildernessAU]

Almost every piece of equipment has it's place. The blue bowl and wheel take some time to dial in to maximize recovery.
What I do is run my cons through my gold genie twice at varrying angles and then save the tailings. The gold genie will easily pluck out the bigger pieces but does have a tough time with flour and flaky gold with alot of surface area. This will get the majority of the gold out. I save my tailings and eventually feed them slowly through my LeTrap sluice. In my opinion the letrap does a good job capturing the ultra fines. I have run these cons through a blue bowl, but find that it is much quicker and easier to just carefully pan them down.