Gold equipment D.I.Y

How to build gold prospecting equipment on the cheap! View prospecting equipment plans and books at bottom of page.
If you have tips on how to build your own prospecting equipment please email us. We'll publish them here for all to see and give you credit.

1. Panning Tub by Tom Villone, Arizona: I've found that a mortar tray from Home Depot serves many duties. It is a fairly heavy black plastic tub, approximately 24"x18"x6"deep. They have one even larger if needed. The small one described is only $5.99, so I always carry a couple with me.

2. Cool Tool by Bill Westcott, California: This tool came with a Vac-Pac I bought several years ago. It is great for scraping out crevices and cleaning bedrock. I used to live in fear of losing it until I found out what it is and where to get them. It's a hoof cleaning tool for horses. I found them at PetSmart but you can probably find them anywhere horse supplies are sold. The ones I found at PetSmart have brightly colored handles so they are harder to lose but the pick part is made of softer metal so they bend more easily.

3. Dredging with Levels by Jim Witt, California I found that judging the right angle of drop on my 2" dredge sluice box was to cumbersome and I was often wrong. I often times work alone and could not take the time to watch the pitch carefully so I attached two levels on the dredge that would visually show me when the dredge was level side-to-side, and when it had the correct drop (2" for 3 foot). I established the correct drop for the sluice box and then mounted the level so that the bubble was centered. This way I also could tell when the rate of drop was wrong. This method worked great! Editor's Note: This idea could also be used on highbankers, drywashers or any other equipment that require leveling.

4. Classifying by Roy L. Calvert,Jr., Indiana: For a terrific classifier when a lot of fine gold is present, and overlooked nuggets aren't a big problem. Most retail stores carry sifters and colanders. I found one with a handle that comes in two sizes, one fits perfectly in the solid, outside portion of the standard galvanized minnow bucket, the larger one will work in a plastic 5-gallon bucket. I saw Jake Hartwick, at one of the GPAA Gold Prospector shows, using the standard classifier made from a pan, classifying into a plastic bucket. The only thing Jake overlooked was one of the first lessons taught by the GPAA & LDMA, the hydraulic force of water. Jake was classifying dry into his 5 gal. bucket! If you keep your minnow, or 5 gal. bucket filled to the top, your material will wash through much faster and leave the larger rocks, etc. in your classifier, cleaned of any heavies that may have been clinging to them. You can classifying much more material and faster, but don't forget to check your screen before tossing that material back, you may be pitching back the largest nugget you never found!

5. Tracking gold by Mark Naylor, California: I have found that by placing a piece of conveyor belt as your top mat on your dredge you will increase your fine gold recovery. You can find different kinds of conveyor belts at industrial supply stores. You will note the fine intricate grooves and holes in the rubber that will trap almost all your fine gold. It also makes it readily visible which allows you to track were the gold is coming from.

6. Underwater Viewer by Roy Madewell, California: I use what I call a "periscope" to look under the water and check out the cracks and crevices. I made mine from a foot long piece of 3" ABS and siliconed a piece of plexiglass between the pipe and a union and cut almost all of the other half of the union off. I left about 3/8" of an inch on the union to protect the plexi from getting scratched whenever I set it down and used a round file to make several channels around this rim. These channels allow any air to escape from under the rim when you set it in the water and offer a clear view of the bottom and keep air from building up when looking in the white water around rocks. I'm going to make another one of these using 1 1/2" or 2" PVC pipe for use in real shallow cracks since I ALWAYS seem to find a crevice that is too small or shallow to use the larger one. I think that keeping the length down to 12" for the larger pipe is probably wise since the deeper you plunge it into the water the more your fighting it from trying to float away. Also if you keep the length down on the larger pipe you can use both eyes when looking into it and have much greater depth perception. I'll probably keep the smaller version down to around 18" long to prevent the feeling of looking down a garden hose and make it fit with my pry bars in the upper compartment of my pack.

7. Expanded Metal by Chuck Alldrin, California: Home Base has a diamond lathe used for plasterwork. It is very light weight and works great to recover fine gold. I use it under the riffles and over the carpet. You can get a sheet approx. 2'x 8' for $2.98. This is plenty to do several projects and give the extra away.

8. Digging Trowel by Chuck Alldrin, California: I bent the "heck" out of several cheap trowels and finally found a good CHEAP tool. Wal-Mart has a Corona # CT 3020 Red padded handle trowel for $4.97. It is made in the USA and has a LIFETIME warranty. It looks like it might be forged. It is tough and if it bends or breaks it will be replaced "free."

9. Panning Tubs by Rich Downing, California: I use the blue food grade barrels (plastic) approx. 55 gal. I cut these with a skill saw about 8 to 10 inches tall. You get two out of a barrel if you find them with the caps in place. I use them for panning out the cleaning's from my sluice at my camp site or at home. I generally pay five dollars per barrel.
---> Jack Hipp, Oregon: I also use the blue 55 gal. Food-grade plastic barrels, but instead I cut them lengthwise and have 2 very good panning troughs for several to use at once, or use one for the discharge of my "pooptube" classifier and the other for a source of clean water for the operation. Supported on 2 2x4's they are also very easy to clean out and can be drained with the 2 caps.

10. Sluice Cleanup by Rich Downing, California: I have found that the produce drawers from old refrigerators work well for getting everything out of the sluice on my dredge. Just find one that is slightly wider than the end of your sluice.

11. Riffle Material by Spyder, Oregon: In the sewing/crafts department of the local Walmart or similar department stores you can find a material I believe is called crochet canvas or something to that effect. Essentially, it is a 12 inch square piece of Plastic screen which fits nicely between the carpet and riffles of a sluice box. It greatly increases the recovery of fine gold.

12. Flood Gold by Dennis Krupnak, California: After a heavy rain, test pan the side streams that form off the main stream channel. Many are just small diversions that flow back into the main stream. They are often good sites for fine flood gold, which will be close to the surface. The best concentrations are usually at the point where the branch first leaves the main stream, but be sure to test farther down also.

13. Bedrock by Dave Peck, Nevada: I have been gold dredging the past several years, and have found myself in public areas that have been dredged many times before. I had spoken to an older couple that had been doing this for quite sometime, and they told me something interesting. They explained to me that in the late summer in the drier season, the bedrock dries and shrinks, creating pockets, cracks, and crevices. In the wetter season, the rush of water moving material down stream fills these areas, and as the clay absorbs the water, it swells, thus closing the cracks and pockets. This last summer, I was in a area that had a lot of bedrock that had been cleaned very well by others. I thought I'd give it a try, so I took a crowbar and screwdriver and pried the bedrock apart (it came apart in sheets), and there between the bedrock sheets was gold, sometimes one to two feet below the surface of the bedrock. I hadn't thought of it before I was told, so just thought I'd let others know.

14. Classifier by Brian Benn, California Another idea for a classifying screen was given to me by a guy named Henry. He is a great prospector. He goes to Alaska with the GPAA and used to pal around with the Buzzard. Anyway, all you do is get a 4-inch long piece of plastic pipe (PVC) or a section of a plastic bucket. Cut some hardware cloth of whatever mesh you want to the same diameter as your plastic pipe. Heat the bottom end of the pipe on an old hot plate or wood stove. When the plastic starts to melt, take it off and set it on the wire cloth. The plastic will solidify and "weld" the screen to the bottom of the pipe. Large diameter PVC (8 to 12 inch) works good. The thicker the pipe wall, the better. Scrap pipe can be found at construction sites and scrap bins around industrial sites.

15. Highbanker by Brian Benn, California: Henry also has a unique highbanker design in that it has no riffles, just carpet. It's like a beach box. The larger rocks that make it through the grizzly clear off the sluice really fast so he can feed it faster. He might lose some gold but I think he figures that if he loses 10% but feeds 25% more material he'll come out ahead. It seems to work too.

16. Cement Mixer by Loren Baldwin, Arizona: Here in Arizona, we have a lot of gold bearing clay & caliche that I separate using a small cement mixer, a couple of small barrels, some PVC (to connect the barrels) and a small bilge pump (500 gph). Basically all that I do is put a few shovelfulls of dirt in the mixer, fill it with water, start the mixer, and recirculate the water. All (or most) of the light material runs out of the mixer into the first barrel, the water transfers into the second barrel, and is recirculated with the pump. This method should work for moss also.


17. Classifier by Ron Watson, Washington: The simplest and cheapest classifier I've found is to take a plastic bucket and drill holes in it, the size is personal preference. You should pick a bucket that fits freely into your other buckets to make it easier to twist back and forth during the classification process.

18. Clean Up Tub by Joanne, Greg and Azu Dueck, Canada: I have found the black Rubbermaid agricultural tubs to be excellent for cleaning out a large sluice or dredge and working concentrates. I found mine at a Co-Op store but the building supply stores probably have them too. They are strong enough to drag around over uneven ground when full of material and water. They are fairly pricey but have a number of great features:
· Heavy construction with cross braces underneath · Heavy, large, curl over rim for a full grip all the way around. Strong enough to drill and put rope handles/attachments on. · For large dredges, they will hold all the cons and still float to the shore (carefully) once you empty some of the water out. Dredgers can use rope attachments to hold the unit in place while doing a clean up so that it won't sink and frees up another set of hands. · Large enough to properly shake out those 'golden' mats. · Range of sizes from (30 and 50 gallon seem to be a good medium size) · For cleaning cons it is large enough for two people to pan into and keep the overpan material in one spot. Also, large enough to comfortably screen your material. · Large and sturdy enough to set up you clean-up concentrator inside with overflow buckets etc.

I'm sure there are other brands and varieties out there, look around and pick one for your needs. These larger tubs are great for the larger operations or working the cons at home but are definitely not for everyone even though the weight really isn't bad for the size and uses.

Gold deposition

One thing all placer miners should understand is that 75%-90+% of the time the standard or general rules of stream hydraulics and the physics of gold deposition remain consistent no matter where you are. That said, it's also good to realize that Mother Nature loves to throw monkey wrenches into the works now and again.


In my 30+ years of working both wet and dry placers there have been a number of instances where I've recovered good gold values from areas or locations that should not have been productive if you followed the basic tenets of gold deposition. I've accidentally pulled small nuggets from shallow "blow" sand spots with no heavy backs sands anywhere in sight and I've also recovered consistent gold in the form of fines and flakes from high-pressure stretches that should not have contained any gold at all.


Exceptions Rather Than the Rule


An important point to remember here is that these were anomalies however, and exceptions rather than the rule. As miners and prospectors we have to go with what we know and what has worked in the past both for ourselves and those who came before us.



Most of the time this mining knowledge serves us well...sometimes it stymies us or surprises us. That's why it's good not to become too "fixated" on hard and fast rules when you are out in the field. You should always remain open to other possibilities and alternate scenarios that may even defy mining logic at certain times.


Highly Fractured versus Smooth or Rounded Bedrock


Another consideration to ponder is the fact that highly fractured or "bookshelf" type bedrock is always going to be a better gold trap (even in poor deposition stretches) than smooth or rounded surfaced bedrock. As my reader rightly pointed out, here in the Western U.S. quite a lot of the bedrock fits the description of being "smooth or rounded."

Obviously this sort of bedrock is not going to grab the gold as well as highly fractured bedrock. By the same token, I've worked many areas here in the West where highly fractured bedrock was readily available or constituted the most consistent form of bedrock in the immediate area.

In his book on underwater gold sniping Sam Radding gives a number of instances and examples of working this sort of bedrock to good effect. He also recovered excellent gold values from this sort of bedrock, especially when compared to the smooth or rounded "serpentine" or granitic bedrock found in many areas of California's Motherlode region.

"Drop Offs" and Other Factors

You should also consider the "drop off" factor when trying to determine gold deposition patterns in a given locale. I've only scraped the surface on the importance of drop offs in "Bedrock Dreams" but this aspect of gold deposition carries much more weight than most recreational or small-scale miners fully realize.

In the greatest sense what I am saying here is that there are innumerable factors that can have an impact on all aspects of gold deposition. These include (but are not limited to):

low pressure areas
drop offs
water direction and flow
availability of large obstructions
type of underlying bedrock
flooding frequency and intensity
gold replenishment amounts

Again, the factors that govern gold deposition can be very large or significant events or what I term "macro" factors like floods, flash floods, etc. Alternately these deposition factors can be minute or seemingly insignificant. I call the latter "micro" factors and they can be anything from a seeming inconsequential drop off sitting in just the "right place" to a small, periodic water "jet" that forces material into a tiny crevice.

That's it for this round. I hope this little treatise on gold deposition helped.
 

1 million in Gold

 1 million in Gold

Priceless Gold tips

Panning for gold is a fun and potentially profitable activity and not that difficult a skill to master. Have patience, gold panning is like any learned skill, one gets better with practice.
Read the creek or stream bed and find a likely spot. One of the best places is behind boulders were eddies have formed.
Fill your gold pan with gravel and/or sand.
Pour water into your gold pan or dip it in the creek to fill.
Gently move your pan in a back and forth in a sideways motion. Gold is one of the heaviest elements and it will start to migrate to the bottom of your pan.
After a few minutes of gentle motion, the materials in your pan with begin to stratify. The larger pebbles and rocks will be on the surface and the heavier materials, including any gold and black sand (magnetite), will move to the bottom of the pan.
Carefully look over the surface material in your pan and remove the larger rocks. You do not want to throw away any nuggets, so do this by looking at the material and removing the unwanted rocks by hand.
Continue to gently agitate the material in your pan. If there are any clumps of clay, break them up, as clay can trap gold and carry it out of your pan.
In calm waters of the creek, slightly tilt your pan away from you and slowly allow the muddy water and any debris to slosh out of the pan.
Continue to repeat this step by adding more water to the pan and keeping the materials in your pan stirred up until the water in the pan is fairly clear. Remember to always keep the bottom of the pan lower than the side that you are tilting so that the gold will remain in the bottom of the pan. An occasional sharp tap on the side of the pan will help the gold to work to the bottom.
When you have worked the materials down so that all that remains in your pan is fine sand, add a little water and gently swirl the materials with the pan slightly tilted. The gold will then be gathered along the edge of the bottom of your pan.
At this point if you can see any visible gold you are definitely in the right spot. You will have black sand in your pan. This remaining black sand is referred to as concentrates. Using tweezers, remove any flakes or tiny nuggets and deposit in a plastic vial. It is best not to use glass sample bottles when on the creek. If you happen to drop your container and it shatters, you have lost your gold.
The remainder of the material should be put in an unbreakable plastic container. Carefully rinse your gold pan out into your concentrate container.  Once the materials have settled, you can pour off any excess water. Because the time we have to actually spend testing is always limited, most savvy prospectors take their concentrates home and pan them out later.
If you are testing multiple areas it is helpful to put the concentrates from each test in a separate container. Sealable heavy duty plastic freezer bags work well for this purpose. Make a sketch of the area or mark on a map the location of each test and mark your samples accordingly. This procedure will help you isolate the best area to work if you wish to set up a sluice box or high banker and run a lot of material.
Always remember to fill in your test holes. Before you leave the area make sure it is clean.
“Pack It In – Pack It Out”!
Wishing you a great trip and may the bottom of your pan be golden.

Gold,GolPrice of Gold

Since prehistoric man first stumbled upon a nugget, raw gold with its radiant sun yellow coloration and metallic luster has captivated and fascinated mankind. The unique gleam of gold attracts the eye, enabling the seeker to detect the smallest of grains in an aggregate of many other materials. The tiniest flakes are easily detected.
Anthropological excavations of Stone Age burial sites indicate that gold was the first element collected and prized by man. This unique metal, gathered in the form of nuggets, seems to have been highly prized but was not used in practical applications. Rating 2.5 – 3 on Mohs scale of hardness, gold was much too pliable to be hammered into workable tools or weapons. Gold carried little value for prehistoric man except to be admired and treasured for its rare, intrinsic beauty
However, as man developed he soon discovered numerous applications for the mysterious golden metal. The earliest record of gold exploration dates to Egypt around 2000 B.C.  Ancient records tell of an enormous alluvial gold deposit in Nubia, between the Nile River and the Red Sea in southeastern Egypt. This incredible discovery encompassed over one hundred square miles. Using the most primitive of tools and working to an average depth of less than six feet, these first “miners” pried an estimated one thousand tons of gold from this rich discovery. Egyptian artisans, recognizing the extraordinary malleability of gold fashioned incredible jewelry, ornaments and idols of breathtaking beauty.
Throughout the history of man’s involvement with gold, the precious metal has been prized not only for its beauty but for gold’s ability to withstand the rigors of time. No substance that appears commonly in nature will destroy gold. Unaffected by air, moisture, heat or cold, this noble metal will not tarnish, corrode, rust or tarnish. Shimmering gold dust, golden nuggets of placer gold and brilliant vein occurrences have survived 4.5 Billion years of cataclysmic geologic and climate changes; volcanic eruption, earthquakes, upheavals and deposition. Treasures of gold jewelry, bullion and coins, buried for thousands of years beneath land and sea have been found intact; as brilliant as the day they were abandoned.
A relatively rare native metallic element, gold ranks fifty-eighth in abundance amongst the ninety two natural elements that make up the earth’s crust. Although considered a rare element, of all metals gold is, with the exception of iron, the most widely distributed over the planet. Gold has been found on 90 per cent of the earth’s surface and is mined in high mountain ranges, in the deeply weathered soil of the tropics, harsh deserts and in the permanently frozen tundra of the Arctic.
Gold is commercially mined on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. The richest gold producing area of the world is the Witwatersrand District of South Africa. This ultra rich area has yielded eighteen thousand tons of gold with no end in sight.  Additional notable gold bearing areas around the world are Siberia in the former USSR, the Porcupine District in Ontario, Canada and in the United States the Yukon District of Alaska and the famous Mother Lode District in California.
In the United States nature was extremely generous. Thirty-two states have recorded significant commercial gold production. The highest yielding areas are located within the western states, California, Colorado, Alaska, Nevada and South Dakota. Other abundant locations for prospecting include Georgia, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Washington, New Mexico, Wyoming, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Michigan, Vermont and New Hampshire. The recreational gold prospector can find gold in his pan in practically every state of the union.
Gold is an ideal media for craftsmen.  It is a metal that can be deformed by pounding without breaking or crumbling. Gold, in its pure form is the most malleable or workable of all metals. One single ounce of gold can be drawn and stretched into an ultra fine wire over 50 miles in length without breaking or pounded to the amazing thinness of one hundred thousandth of an inch without disintegrating. Gold is easily carved, readily buffs to a gleaming polish, can be heated repeatedly without discoloration and joins to itself or other metals by soldering without the need for a bonding flux.
For more than 6000 years gold has been considered symbolic of wealth, power and status.  In 1350 B.C. the Egyptian boy king, Tutankhamen, was interred in a coffin elaborately cast from 242 pounds of solid gold. Throughout history men and women have adorned their bodies with brilliant, gleaming gold. The ancient custom of exchanging gold during marriage ceremonies continues today.
The nobility of Medieval Europe liberally sprinkled gold in the form of dust, flake or leaves on their food to demonstrate the host’s great wealth. Today gold is still often used in food and has the E Number 175. However, since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, it adds no taste nor has any other nutritional effect and leaves the body unaltered.
Primitive man believed gold contained a hidden, internal fire, a gift from the Gods with mysterious healing and magical powers. Numerous cultures of sun-worshippers revered gold as the tangible essence of their God; solid sunshine. In modern day Japan believers seek gold’s medicinal magic by immersion in a bathtub designed in the form of a phoenix crafted from 400 pounds of pure gold. Health and gold have long been entwined in the wondrous belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healing and healthy.
Today modern esotericists and forms of alternative medicine embrace the healing properties of gold. Some gold salts have anti-inflammatory properties and are used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions. However, only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, as elemental or metallic gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters within the body.
Gold is a “storehouse of value”, the natural way for man to preserve capital and protect against financial uncertainty or monetary collapse. In modern times gold has served as a hedge against the threat of inflation and as a secure and safe way to secret away assets. The “hoarding” of gold occurs most frequently during times of war, adverse world conditions and international fears of economic instability. Gold has often defeated the attempts of governments to inflate the currency of their country as well as circumventing the aims of those holding political power to direct the economy of other nations.
Throughout recorded history, gold, the crowned king of metals, has been considered the ultimate monetary exchange. Gold is the only currency that isn’t someone else’s responsibility or liability; it is more that just a paper promise to pay upon demand. Gold’s worth does not rely on the economic stability of any country, political power or financial cartel. Gold has value in and of itself.
The current world price of gold is established daily by the London Gold Market which trades gold bullion and coins with other financial world centers such as Zurich, Hong Kong , Frankfurt and Paris.  The price is based on pure or “fine” gold, therefore the value of gold gleaned in its natural state may vary depending on the impurities it contains. However, raw gold sold as specimens or jewelry will always bring a considerably higher price. Gold nuggets are as distinctively different as snowflakes, although similar, no two nuggets are alike. A nugget of unique character and shape may sell for as much as five times its value by weight.
Do you have broken or discarded gold jewelry you not longer wear? Now may be the time to cash in on the current gold rush. With the price of gold exceeding the $1000 an ounce benchmark, an errant earring or broken gold chain could add up to a significant sum.
To receive the best price for gold you may wish to sell, know the karat count. Because of the softness of pure 24k gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness, color, melting point and ductility. Alloys with lower karatage, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of silver, copper or other base metals in the alloy. The higher the karat the more you should expect to be paid.
If you only have a piece or two to sell, try a local jeweler or take a vintage piece to an antique jeweler. They’ll take the artist’s craftsmanship into consideration and you will net a much higher price than for just the gold weight.

Gold Nuggets

Gold nuggets are naturally occurring pieces of native gold. Water and erosion concentrate the deposit of nuggets which are recovered by placer or lode mining methods. Nuggets are also often found in residual deposits where gold-bearing veins or lodes have decayed. Today nuggets can also be found in the tailing piles of previous mining operations, especially the tailings of old dredging operations.
Nuggets are never totally pure or 24K in composition. Most nuggets are about 20 to 22K or 83 – 92 percent pure. Nuggets are noted for their purity by their “fineness”. As an example “865 fine” means the nugget is 865 parts gold per thousand. Copper and silver are the common impurities found in gold nuggets.

Can you imagine a 2,332 ounce nugget of solid gold? Considered the largest gold nugget ever found, the Welcome Stranger Nugget was discovered buried just inches below the surface in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia on February 5th, 1869. Unbelievable!
Found near Wedderburn, Australia in October 1980, the magnificent Hand of Faith gold nugget was found using a metal detector. This incredible treasure was discovered in a vertical position, laying just six inches below the surface. The Hand of Faith nugget weighs a massive 875 troy ounces (61 pounds, 11 ounces). Kevin Hiller and his family were prospecting behind their modest trailer home when they made this incredible discovery. It is impossible to imagine their excitement and joy; what an amazing find! The Hand of Faith is presently on display at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Nuggets are usually considered to be pieces that have broken off of the original gold vein and have been carried by water or erosion to a new location. Applying this definition, the largest mass of gold ever found, the Holtermann Nugget is not really a nugget. Found in October 1872, the Holtermann Nugget is “reef gold” rather than a nugget of gold. Regardless, the Holtermann Nugget, found at Hill End, New South Wales, Australia, was an awesome discovery. Reef gold appears as a “vein” included in rock, normally quartz. This nugget was a quartz reef. By removing the rock around the vein, the gold was recovered in one giant piece that weighed 286 kilograms (about 630 pounds). The true weight of this gold mass is unknown as several pieces are believed to have been broken away in the excavation and mining process.
Throughout history several magnificent nuggets have been discovered:
In Montana, near the famous Alder Gulch, three huge nuggets were recovered, the most sizable weighing in at 42 pounds. Discovered in January 1902 by Thomas Ramon and Joseph Lefebre, the nugget was the size of a man’s fist and very pure, having only 5% impurities.
Early prospectors didn’t find all the gold in Montana. A gold nugget weighing about 2 pounds (27.5 ounces) is the largest gold nugget found in Montana during the last 80 years. The Highland Centennial Gold Nugget was recovered in September 1989 by the Stratton family while working a placer claim in the Highland Mountains south of Butte. The nugget is currently on display at the Mineral Museum at the University of Montana in Butte, Montana.
Alaska is famous for the gold found there including the Centennial Nugget found on Swift Creek near Ruby, Alaska. Reportedly the biggest nugget ever found in Alaska, this trophy find weighs 294.1 troy ounces. About the size of a softball, this impressive nugget was discovered by Barry Clay in 1998. It was sold and is currently in a private collection.
Another Alaskan nugget of note was found on Anvil Creek near Nome, Alaska on September 29th, 1901, the Anvil Nugget weighed 108 troy ounces.
California and gold go hand-in-hand. The largest nugget ever discovered in California was located in 1854 at Carson Hill above the Stanislaus River. The nugget weighed 195 pounds.

  

Gold in streams and rivers

Finding gold isn’t the easiest thing to do. Many people have spent their entire lives searching for the elusive yellow metal. Some of the best places to look for gold are in creeks, streams, rivers or water runoffs.
The rivers and creeks are not where the gold is coming from. This is where the gold collects. The water from hard rains, floods, spring run off and landslides all wash gold into the stream beds. The gold we find in streams is called "placer deposits". Placer gold is gold that's traveled from its original source.
The further the gold travels the more rounded and smaller the pieces become. Gold is 19 times heavier than water. It will collect in bends in the stream, against or behind rocks and in areas where the current slows down. Crevices in rocks and around roots are another good spot to check. Some of the older prospectors say if you see fish, this should be a good spot to look for gold. Fish tend to stay in areas with as little current as possible.
 A good trick that may help you find gold in a stream is to take a balloon, attach a piece of fishing line a few feet long with a fishing weight on the end. Send the balloon downstream and see where the weight ends up. This should be a good spot to check.
When you find a location where you are finding gold, the size, shape and how course it is can help you to zero in on where it is coming from. If you are finding very small flakes or rounded nuggets, this tells you it has traveled downstream for a distance and the abrasion from the other material in the water has made it smooth. Try moving upstream until the gold you are finding gets more and more course. If you find gold with quartz attached this is an indicator that you are very close to the source. It has to be coming from somewhere.
 With a little fine tuning you may just find a vein or an outcropping. Be sure to get permission before going on other people’s property and Remember, finding gold isn’t a one day adventure. When you do you will be hooked for life. “Gold Fever” has a tendency to set in. Whether you find a few flakes or nuggets or the “mother load” have fun and enjoy yourself

A few of the worlds biggest nuggets

Australia holds the record for not only the largest gold nugget ever found but more of the largest than anywhere else in the world. Of the top fifteen of the largest gold nuggets ever recorded, Australia has the claim of thirteen coming from their country.
The Welcome Stranger

This nugget is the largest known to date in Victoria and was found on the 5th of February 1869, approximately 9 miles to the northwest of Dunolly, near a mining town called Moliagul. The finder, John Deason, and a fellow prospector Richard Oates located the nugget about 1 ¼ inches below the surface within the roots of a stringybark tree. The nugget weighed 2316 troy ounces* (about 158.733 Lb.) and at the time of discovery was the largest known gold nugget in the world, measuring 23 ½ by 17 ¾  by 7 1/2 inches.
The Welcome

The Welcome was discovered at Bakery Hill, Ballarat by the Red Hill Mining Company on the June 15th, 1858. It was located at a depth of 180 feet and was apparently water-worn and of an irregular shape. The nugget was exhibited in Melbourne and later sold and melted down in London in November 1859. The nugget weighed 2218 troy ounces (about 157.189Lb), measured 20 ¾ by 11 by 6 ½ inches and assayed at over 99 per cent pure gold.
The Hand of Faith

This nugget was found behind the State School in Kingower, Victoria in 1980 by Kevin Hillier using a metal detector. It was only 6 inches below the surface, resting in a vertical position. It weighed 845 troy ounces (about 59.965Lb) and measured 17 ¾ by 7 ½ by 4 inches. Despite concerted efforts to keep it within Australia, the nugget was later sold for reportedly one million dollars US and is on display in the Golden Nugget Casino, Las Vegas, USA. It is still regarded as the largest modern nugget found by a metal detector, anywhere in the world. The nugget was the 2nd largest nugget found in Australia, during the 20th century.
The Pride of Australia
This attractive nugget was found at Mosquito Gully near Wedderburn in June 1981. It weighed 256 ounces and is second only in size to the Hand of Faith amongst those nuggets found by metal detector. It was purchased for $250 000 by the State Bank of Victoria as a gift to the people of Victoria for the State’s 150th anniversary in 1985. It was displayed in the State Bank, then in the Museum of Victoria, until it was stolen in a smash and grab raid on its case in August 1991. Its fate is unknown.
These are just a few of the largest nuggets found in the world and not in the largest to smallest order. Others have been found in Brazil, Russia and the USA. Nuggets of this size and weight are extremely rare, however, finding nuggets of a few grains to a few grams are found daily worldwide.

How to find gold for panning

Where To Find Gold For Successful Gold Panning
Where can you find gold? The most common answer is in a river, and for good reason.

A Quick Geology LessonGold is formed almost as a by-product of quartz, hence the connection between quartz veins and gold. Quartz requires certain minerals to be present and liquefied, heat and pressure to form crystals. This means that quartz and gold both start life as a vein inside a large mass of rock.
The gold would remain forever embedded in the rock, but fortunately for us there is erosion. As the rocks are eroded, the veins of gold are exposed to external elements and are dispersed. The most common thing to erode rocks, and hence expose gold, is water as it flows through smaller cracks.
This brings us to the first general signs of a promising spot to look for gold. It must be in a mineral rich area. You should see signs of at least quartz in the surrounding hills.
Rivers -- Dry And WetAlso there must be a river there currently or in the past.
Dry rivers can be a very exciting place to pan. Often dry beds have not been recognized -- and so all the gold is still there. However, they are elusive. Often they seem to disappear, only to reappear a mile away. Perhaps there is an even more pristine dry river bed nearby?
Now that we have located a likely area, we must find a good spot on the stream itself. To do this we need to know a little about how gold moves in a stream.
Gold is extremely dense, 10 times more so than sand. Being so heavy, it takes a lot of force to move the gold down stream. Then as soon as the water slows, the gold settles.
Another detail to keep in mind is that soil, when permeated with water, acts like thick water. Gold is heavier than sand and gravel, so when it stops moving it will push aside the lighter materials and sink all the way to bedrock. When walking on the soil, you do not sink as your weight is spread over much more area thus dispersing your weight.
This means that a gold bearing stream will be fast moving with rapids and water falls. If the stream is slow moving, then the gold will have already settled upstream if it has even moved. A dam on the river will stop the movement of gold. Anything found below a dam will have washed down from the surrounding hills.


Moss and tree roots are nature's version of a sluice box.
Often areas above the river bed, as shown here, have
more gold than the river itself.

Working The RiverThe next step is to start “working” the river. In a river, gold will settle wherever the water slows. Ideal spots include sharp bends in a river, behind large rocks (opposite the current facing side), and in tree roots.
Always follow the current. The current pushes the gold downstream, so you just follow the path it follows. If are standing downstream of a spot where the river turns right try panning on the left side just below where the current hits the bank.
When working the river, be mindful of signs of gold. You can not have gold without black sand, but you can have black sand without gold. Black sand is also very dense, so anywhere it settles gold will also settle. Search for natural benches in the stream. Gold can not pass through clay, although clay may cover gold. If there is a shelf of clay with fine dirt on top, start right there. The same is true for bedrock. The closer you are to bedrock the better your chances of finding gold.
The last thing to remember is that gold is where gold is. A spot may look perfect, but have no gold and areas that shouldn’t have any gold may have a lot. The only thing you can do is get out there and find out.
Enjoy the day and linger in the excitement of finding even a little. Many people say gold fever strikes when you find a piece that will not fit in your vial. I say gold fever strikes a week before you go out when you are planning and envisioning what the stream looks like and where you will dig.
Quick ReviewIn review, here are the basic things to look for when panning.
The area should show signs of mineralization and quartz.

The stream must be fast moving.

Gold will settle wherever the water slows slightly. Look behind obstructions, newly formed gravel bars and in moss.

Examine overflow areas such as run off channels and tops of ledges of clay or bedrock.

Gold can not pass beyond a dam.

If you are in a known area for recreational gold panning, look for signs of other people. There is a reason why there are so many holes dug into the sides of gold bearing rivers and it isn’t because it’s fun.

Wash all moss. Moss is nature’s sluice box. Put the moss back afterwards.

Don’t forget to look up. Many times the gold is coming from a point possibly much higher than the river and washes down each year in the spring.

If possible, walk the river during spring while there is still some ice and again during high water. This will really give you a good idea as to how soil washes into the river and where the water is during flood season when the creek is being refilled with gold. This will likely be an eye opening experience.

Sample quickly and often, especially on a new river. You never know where there may be gold. My rule of thumb is to work three pans from a single spot. If you find little or nothing, move on. If you want to find gold in possibly larger quantities, it is important to know how and when to sample a new spot and when to work a single place.

Most important of all, have fun and enjoy yourself. If you are having fun, you will find the gold.

Sniping for Gold nuggets

HOW TO:
Let's talk about the basic tools first. I'm not mentioning the standard stuff (water, first aid kit, lunch, etc.)
*Large Estwing rock hammer. (Go for the best - it's worth it).
*3 prong garden fork (hand size)
*4 prong garden rake (with handle cut down)
*Garden trowel (hand size) *Plastic scoop ( 1 gal ) and plastic scoop (small - cut from soda pop bottle)
*Variety of crevice wires and spoons
*At least two sizes of brushes
*Classifiers and buckets (strap on the outside/back of your pack with bungies. I carry two, 5 gal, one w/ 3/4" holes in bottom, and 1/4" and 1/8" screen sleeves to fit in top.
*Pry bar - (size depending on weight - larger the better)
*Canvas sample bags (for carrying con to water for panning, and labeling area of find).
*Backpack (note: total weight of pack with basic tools should be about 25 lbs)
*Pan, snuffer bottle, magnet, magnifying glass, and plastic straw (more about that later)
Advanced tools:
*Large pick or shovel
*Metal detector/Gold spear
*Dry Vac
*Standing screen
*Underwater suction tool
*Backpack dredge
*Drywasher

I don't usually carry any of these advanced tools except my Gold Bug on the first exploratory trip, until I've done my testing. I prefer to go light. The large size Estwing rock hammer is my pick, and a plastic scoop is my shovel. The whole idea of crevicing is not to process quantity, but rather to take the very best of the best. Take a one gallon plastic bleach bottle and cut a portion out of it, keep the handle, so that it forms a big scoop. The reasons for this are: 1. It's extremely light and surprisingly strong. 2. It's flexible and will fit into those crevices much more easily than a garden trowel or shovel. Your crevice wires should be cut out of 3/16" hard steel about 16 - 18" long and bent on both ends at 90 degrees. The end portions are 1 - 2" long and flattened and sharpened at 90 degree to each other. So you have one end for narrow cracks and the other end for slightly wider cracks. Another one I use sometimes has been hammered out and formed into a spoon at the end with a 90 degree bend. It's real handy. I carry two brushes. One is an auto parts cleaning type brush that I cut the bristle down to about one and a half inches to give it more stiffness. (It has to be new. Don't want to mix oil or grease with your gold). The other brush is a general purpose brush with very stiff bristles. Narrow handle widens out to about a 3" circle. You'll have to shop around. I don't recommend a wire brush. Mainly because I'm also a metal detector, and those little wires that fall out of those brushes will drive you crazy. But they also clog up too fast. I use several pry bars depending on where I'm going, but I usually start light and work my way up as I get to know the area. Remember your rock hammer will pry out many of those spots. My favorite was made for changing truck tires, I believe. Weighs about 7 lbs and is 1" X 30". They've got to have a good angle on the bottom edge to give leverage on the boulders. I recommend carrying 4 or 5 canvas sample bags about 1/2 gal size. Your flexible scoop will act as a funnel and fill them nicely. Often you'll want to take a sample, but you have to walk some distance to water. Each bag will weigh about 10 lbs when full of cons, so be careful not to overload yourself, but I have worked in a dry area and carried all my cons in buckets and bags to water - it's no fun. But the idea is that next time you can take in the drywasher if it's a good spot.

Let's go on to some of the advanced tools now: Remember: these are not for your first trip into an area. I have the 3" crevicing coil on my Gold Bug, and I've cut the handle down to make it easier to backpack. If you have metal detecting experience, you'll know what to do with that tool. If you don't have that experience, I suggest that you forget it and think about a dry vac instead. I have the "Vac Pac" brand and have used it for years. If I'm in an area where I can carry my 60 lb generator, I prefer to use a shop vac because it has almost twice the suction. But the Vac Pac works very well in conjunction with the Gold Bug. HERE'S HOW: when you've screened or shoveled off the overburden and you get down close to bottom of your crevice, a quick check with the Bug will tell you if there are any nuggets in the hole. The Vac Pac will then pull out the remaining "good stuff" to be panned. Recently my partner and I cleaned out a hole that someone else had left. We didn't find anything in the bottom. He looked up and said "do you think we should vacuum it?" "Can't hurt". As soon as we started scraping and vacuuming the bottom - 3 golden flashes hit us. Vacuuming is like dredging in that you will usually see the gold before it enters your hose. What a thrill. The standing screen, drywasher, or dredge will be brought in only when you find an area that requires moving quantities of material. The suction tool may be useful in areas where the crevices go down into the water, although if you find good color above the water line, it's time to bring in some kind of a dredge.

The question I get most often is "how do you read a stream?" or "how do you know where to look?" etc.
HERE'S HOW:
Step 1. Forget everything you've heard or read.
Step 2. There's only one rule (it's: there are no rules) Gold is where you find it.
Step 3. Get you mind "right". Stop looking for the short cuts. Get back to basic prospecting methods.
Step 4. Don't be afraid to get down and dirty. Work, work, work. The '98ers had a saying as they hiked the Chilcoot pass on their way to Dawson, "If you ain't Bold, you get no Gold!"

Let's talk about these steps. First make sure you do your home work and you're on a gold creek. The worst thing a beginner can do is just go off in the woods and think he is going to find a "new strike" before he knows what he's looking for or how to find it. Now, when you arrive on the creek with your backpack and basic tools mentioned before, just start walking and be prepared to walk all day. I prefer to walk upstream to start out. That means you're walking downhill coming home when you're tired. You are going to see areas where others have worked. Don't stop. There's a reason they're not still working there (or if I do stop, it's usually to just check it out with the Bug. Many people go off and leave a nugget just out of sight). TIP: There are three things that Mainly effect the location of the gold. 1. The weight of gold. 2. The amount of erosion, rain and floods in the area. and 3. Topography. Think of these things as you walk. Here in AZ we don't get many rains or floods, consequently the old rules don't even apply (like - the inside bend, etc.). Keep focused on your job of finding crevices that will hold the best of the best. TIP: look for areas of exposed bedrock that:
1. Have weathering cracks in them. The best ones are usually 1/2" or wider.
2. Some bedrock is crumbly, and gold works its way down and out of sight. These are excellent areas to metal detect.
3. Some excellent bedrock areas are only covered by a foot or two of rocks and boulders and are virgin because no one likes to do the work.

Generally I don't move boulders to work under them. Usually I use my prybar to split a boulder apart and clean out the crevice (best of the best). Under the boulder you may be dealing with 20 gallons of dirt or more. In the crack there will be a very rich gallon or two, and you can be sure it's never been worked before. One thing I want to mention here is that there is no substitute for a quick test. As you walk, don't be afraid or too lazy to test any likely spot. It's not how far you walk on the creek that counts, it's how much gold you get in the snuffer. Practice your panning until you can do a test in less than a minute. HERE HOW: Use a 1/4" classifying sleeve over your pan and in the water vigorously classify and get rid of the rocks( 10 seconds). As you agitate the pan with one hand use the other to "knead" the material and get it all into suspension (if you don't k-need the gold, you don't get any)(20 sec). At this point, 90% of your gold should be on or near the bottom of your pan. Using the back edge of one hand scrape off and inch of material off the top (I know- I know. Just do it) (2 sec). Put all material back into suspension by agitating and kneading, and repeat the scraping 2 or 3 times depending on how much is in your pan. Now slurry off the remaining lighter - brown sands until you get down to black sand(20 sec). Now backwash the black sands with a swirling motion and just a little water in your pan and take a QUICK visual check of the gold. Don't try to recover it from the black sand at this time. Using your flexible plastic scoop, just pour your black sands into a canvas sample bag to process later or take home. I'm going to close now with this thought: Don't get discouraged. Be persistent and consistently use good technique. Avoid fads, miracle tools, and "professional advice" from people who don't have a jar of nuggets to show you. Good luck, and I appreciate the Emails that I have gotten. I understand your hesitancy to respond on the ng (been there). As the "Buzzard" used to say, "May the bottom of your pan turn gold" ................

Mining for gold in gold bearing river moss

1. Focus your attention on moss that is in the high water zone of a river or stream -- larger rivers seem to produce more moss and more moss with gold. The moss appears to trap dirt as part of its survival process when water is flowing over it -- usually during spring high water.

2. Moss and small plants like to grow into crevices and cracks in bedrock -- make sure that you thoroughly clean out each crevice below the moss. Use the wire brush to loosen dirt clinging to the face of the rock underneath the moss.

4. Stringy moss which does not contain much dirt is not likely to have trapped much gold either.

5. The heavier materials, including gold, will tend to settle to the bottom of the vac's bucket due to the action of the air swirling around in the bucket.

6. My tests suggest that there is more gold in the dirt underneath the moss than in the moss itself.

7. The dirt in large amounts of moss can be worked loose by putting the moss with water in a large bucket (15 gal), squeezing the moss out as if it were a sponge and then running the moss through 4 and 8 mesh sieves -- then the dirt can be processed in a mini sluice such as the McCann Microsluice (tm) or in a small high banker -- my experiments with the McCann unit suggest that one pass through the sluice will result in 95-99% recovery -- hardly worth a second pass. Please try to dump the silty, muddy water in a settling hole and not directly in the river.

8. After you have gotten your first bucketful of material in a new area, pan it out to make sure that the moss that you are working with really does contain gold -- gold bearing moss, when present at all, is usually uniformly gold rich along a section of river -- but sometimes mother nature will pass an area by!!!

9. If you have a large amount of material, and it is convenient to do so, take the raw material home for processing -- in the long run you will gather more material (and gold) than if you stop periodically to pan out the material.

10. A large agitator such as an old washing machine may be a better and easier way to get the gold and dirt out of the moss -- but I haven't come up with a design yet -- if you do, and don't mind sharing the design of your solution, please drop me a note.

Thanx to Bill Westcott, Chuck Mitchell and Jeri Walsh in the prospecting section of the Outdoors forum of Compuserve for their assistance and critiques of this faq.



Remember, gold is where you find it!!!

Good Luck.

Cleaning the sluice box

Some miners like to clean up their sluice boxes after every hour of operation. Some prefer to do clean up at the end of the day. Others will go for days at a time before cleaning up. This is a matter of preference and seldom has much to do with the actual needs of the sluice box. Some of the large-scale operations, which ran during the early 1900's used to allow the lower two-thirds of their boxes to run for months at a stretch without cleaning them up, and without very much concern about losing gold. However, it is true that sluice boxes were longer in those days.

There is a method of determining when a sluice box needs to be cleaned up to keep it operating at its utmost efficiency. If the majority of gold is catching in the upper third section of the sluice box, then the recovery system is working well.

After a sluice box has been run for an extended period of time without being cleaned, the riffles will have concentrated a large amount of heavy materials behind them. Sometimes a lot of heavy concentrated material in a sluice box will affect the efficiency of the riffles' gold recovery. This is not always the case; it depends on a number of different factors, like the size and shape of the gold, the size and type of riffles being used and how they are set up in the box.

The true test of when a set of riffles is losing its efficiency because of being loaded down with heavy concentrates is when the gold starts being trapped further down the length of the box than where you are comfortable seeing it. When this occurs, it is definitely time to clean up your box.

Otherwise, clean them whenever you like.

Expanded metal riffles, being short, will tend to load up with heavy black sands faster than the larger types of riffles. But shorter riffles generally concentrate fine gold better than deeper riffles.

A large, visible amount of black sand being present is not necessarily a sign that you are losing gold. Gold is four times heavier than black sand. In some cases, the black sand will have little effect on gold recovery. Again, it depends on how the system is set up, the type of material being run, the purity (and therefore weight) and shape of the gold, as well as other factors.

The best way to evaluate your recovery system is by direct observation of where the gold is being trapped

Fools Gold or real Gold

Is this stuff real gold or fool's gold ?

We get asked this question quite often so we prepared some tips below. Don’t be discouraged, keep looking – finding your first few flakes will ignite your gold fever!

Is it real gold?

If what you found was glittering right on the surface without digging down it sounds like you might have mica or some other type of disappointing “fool’s gold”.

Here are some quick tests to check if you found real gold.

Sun Test: Once you have seen your first Gold you will never forget it. A quick and easy test is to note the color and brightness of the gold in your gold pan. Now shadow your Gold pan. Anything that is not Gold will become dull or fade. Gold will retain its color and luster – it will still be golden, just Gold in the shade.

All that Glitters isn't Gold: Remember that song, well the truth is simple. If it glitters it probably ain't Gold. Look at the material in the sunlight if it is all a glitter it is a 99.999 chance it is not gold.

Pin test: stick a pin in the “gold”. If it breaks or fractures or crumbles it isn’t gold. Gold is malleable and ductile meaning you can bend it and dent it. Lesser minerals will crack, break or crumble.

Pan test: One of the first things to learn about gold is it is very heavy. Gold really doesn't move around in your pan much. After panning your material down to your final cons, rock your pan back and forth with a little bit of water in the pan. You will find that the Gold will mostly stay put, while other light weight material moves away. As the light material moves away tap your pan lightly on the top edge. This will separate the heavy gold even further from the waste.

Consider the source and location. If you found your “gold” on top of other dirt it probably isn’t real gold. Gold is extremely heavy and will always seek the lowest place to rest - often on top of bedrock or other hard material such as clay or limestone.



Best of luck,

Highbanker tips

Hibanking Tip #1

Do not run your high banker water pump without an air filter. Even though it may not look dusty, microscopic dust will score the intake valve and the combustion chamber, greatly reducing the life of the engine. Change the air filter a minimum of once per year.

Tip # 2

Change the engine oil after the first 5 hours on a new motor. This is "break-in oil." After that, change the oil every 20-25 hours running time. Typical high banker engines do not have an oil filter, and the oil must be changed more often than your car. Use ONLY grades and weights of oil recommended by the manufacturer. For Briggs & Stratton engines, ONLY 30W detergent oil (do not use 10W-30 or non-detergent oil).

Tip #3

Do not leave the water pump's gas tank empty, even overnight. When done for the day, top off the tank with fuel to prevent condensation from forming in the tank.

Tip #4

To store the water pump at the end of season, hook a water supply to the pump (do not run dry). Fill the tank with fuel treated with a fuel stabilizer, such as STABIL. Run the engine for 5-10 minutes. Cover and store in an area not susceptible to gas fumes buildup.

Tip #5

Use only the amount of hose necessary to bring the water from the water source to the work site. It is better to have 2 or 3 section of 25 feet each than a single 75 foot length of hose. The longer the hose, the more the pump has to work to get the water there.

Tip #6

Keep the speed of the water in the sluice box only fast enough to get a good "bubble" over the riffles. The water needs to be fast enough to wash out the light gravels, but too fast will also wash out the fine gold.

Tip #7

Feed the high banker slowly. Packing the hopper full will only cause the fine gold to ride the gravels farther down the sluice box, and possibly out of the sluice box all together. Feed it slow to keep the fine gold.

Tip #8

Watch the tailings coming off the grizzly. Large nuggets or specimens will fall off the grizzly into the pile of rocks and be lost. When the high banker is moved, check the tailing pile with a metal detector.

Tip #9

Use ribbed carpet under miner's moss in the sluice box. This will do a better job of catching fine gold better than miner's moss or ribbed carpet by themselves.

Tip #10

Attach a garden hose with a garden sprayer nozzle at the hopper. If necessary, you may have to modify and attach a connection for it. This hose will be used to spray down those areas of the hopper that don't get enough water to properly wash the gravels shoveled into the hopper.

Remove Gold from black sand

There have been many questions about how to get gold out of black sand. I thought I would post a method that I use on cleaning up on my 3" Dredge. I clean up the top of my sluice box everyday and the rest of the sluice box when it is needed. One problem I see with a lot of new miners is they clean up too often and this takes away from the time the could be dredging and finding more gold. If you have the sluice on your dredge set up so that the gravel is not getting too full between the rifles and not running so fast that it sweeps the rifles, then once a day clean up is all you should need on most store bought dredges. The perfect set up for the sluice is so you have about one quarter inch of carpet showing between the gravel of the middle riffle of the sluice and the one below it. Now dredge all day.

After dredging all day I empty my dredge into a large wash tub. I then screen those concentrates using a 20 mesh screen into a 5 gallon bucket. I then pan the concentrates that did not go through the 20 mesh screen while down at the river (looking for nuggets of course). Any gold found in the concentrates that were to large to fit through the 20 mesh screen, I put in a vial. I then put a shovel sluice (a Keene or Le Trap sluice works well) inside the dredge sluice so that the shovel sluice is close to the header box or jet flare (Note: This only works on 5" and larger dredges). I use a modified Keene A-52 sluice. It has some NoTrax matting glued in the top to catch fine gold. I then start the engine on the dredge at idle so the water runs down the shovel sluice. I adjust the engine so that the water flow is swift enough to wash out light sand and still save all of the black sand and gold. The out put of the shovel sluice goes back into the dredge sluice and there are still several riffles in the dredge sluice that will catch any flour gold that happens to escape (this will remain until the next time I dredge). I then scoop the concentrates that I screened into the shovel sluice. When all concentrates are ran. I then empty the shovel sluice into a 5 gallon bucket. I then have <20 mesh extreme concentrate.

To do the final cleanup I use a panning wheel and a micro sluice. You can also pan down to get to the last of the impurities. These impurities usually consist of a small amount of black sand, a few iron rocks, and pieces of lead.

There are many ways to go about doing this final cleanup. Personally, in general cleanup I like to stay away from the use of mercury, as there is a faster way without it. I also like to stay away from the use of nitric acid because its usually not needed either. There are times when the use of mercury and nitric acid can help speed thing up. Usually though, I can do the final cleanup without them.

Here's one quick procedure to do the final cleanup;

(1) Dry out the gold by pouring it into a metal pan and heating it over a stove outside. Don't get it so hot that any pieces of lead which are still with the gold will melt. Heat it up just hot enough to dry it out. It is a good idea to stay upwind anytime you put gold in a pan and heat it up. Mercury attaches itself to gold in different amounts. Often it's there but you can't see it. When heating the gold to certain temperature, the mercury vaporizes off. These vapors are very dangerous. So it is good practice to heat your gold outside and downwind of you, even when heating it up just enough to dry it out. Also, the pan you use for heating up gold during cleanup should be used only to cleanup, not for cooking. I use a portable hot plate for this.

(2) Once the gold is dry, bring it inside, out of the wind, and pour it onto a piece of clean paper. You can now pick out the larger impurities from the gold with tweezers.

(3) Now a magnet can be used to extract most of the remaining black sands for you gold. I use a super magnet, but I used to use the Keene Gold Magnet. The Super Magnet is just larger.

(4) By lightly blowing over the gold, you can finish extracting the rest of the impurities. If you can locate a very fine screen you can use it to separate the smaller pieces of gold and impurities from the larger ones just after drying it out. This speeds the process up a bit.

(5) Put your gold back in the metal pan, take it outside and heat it up, hotter this time, in order to vaporize any further mercury for the gold. This will bring your gold back to the basic deep rich beauty which we love.

(6) Now you can put it in a bottle. If you want to sell it keep it dry, but if it is for show put water in the bottle to keep it beautiful. The water will also prevent the glass vial from breaking due to the weight of the gold.

Gravity Dredge

The Gravity Powered Dredge
Requiring no gasoline, pump, and very little maintenance, the gravity powered dredge functions not by magic, but by basic physics. The gravity powered dredge uses the power of water and gravity to do the same job as that of the gasoline powered dredge. With sufficient head, a gravity flow dredge can have as much or even greater lifting power as the gasoline powered version. The gravity powered dredge works on the same principle as a syphon, that is, that the weight of water in the pipe down hill (at a height below the suction end) creates a negative pressure in the pipe that pulls the water and the gold bearing sand a gravel through the nozzle, down the tube, and delivers it to the sluice. Although the available head determines the pressure available, other factors limit the dredges efficiency at any given head. These factors include the length of pipe, the occurrence and severity of bends, the relative roughness of the pipe and fittings, the type of couplings employed, and the design of the watergate and sluice box. Although the accompanying velocity charts have been generated from both calculated and experimental data, they are based on the ideal configuration consisting of a smooth pipe without couplings or bends. To better familiarize my reader with the significant criteria involved in the efficiency of the gravity dredge, I have enumerated just a few with a brief explanation of each.


Available Head
Head is a unit of measure used by the mining engineer to quantify the pressure of water under static conditions. Even though head is pressure, its units of measure are 'feet', i.e. the pressure of one foot of water is equal to one foot of head. A pipe filled with water to a given height is said to have that amount of pressure, or head, equal to the waters height in feet. The gravity dredge takes advantage of the natural gradient of a stream or river to develop the pressure necessary to move the water through the pipe and thereby deliver the gold bearing materials to the sluice. Although the feet of head will determine the pressure at the exit level of the pipe when it is full of still water, the other factors listed above should also be considered. To decide whether or not a gravity powered dredge would be practical for your particular application, a brief survey of the terrain and gradient (steepness) of the stream or river you intend to dredge must be made. You might think that your potential stream site has plenty of available head, or perhaps you merely hope that it does, but it is essential to sketch or draw your site plan so as to determine its practicality for gravity dredging before you begin. This site plan will also help you to decide which dredge size and configuration would be best, and, the plan will better help you to decide where and how to locate your sluice relative to your dredging pool so as to economically optimize the gravity dredge's performance. One such method for generated a site plan is discussed latter in this text.


Pipe Diameter and Type
Pipe diameter is, as you might guess, the most important consideration for determining the overall performance of the gravity powered dredge. Most gold dredgers select the size of their gasoline powered dredge based on investment (cost), performance, and site practicality. These same considerations similarly effect the selection process for determining the size of the gravity powered dredge. In fact, any of the common sizes of gasoline powered dredges may be converted to gravity power by using pipe of the same diameter as the dredge size. For example, a 5 inch gasoline dredge can be converted to gravity power by using 5 inch pipe.
Another important consideration is the type of pipe to be used. The choices are varied in both material and cost. I have found, from my experience, that aluminum irrigation pipe is both durable and light weight, and it is also the most rigid, but, unfortunately, it is not the least expensive, and it is susceptible to denting. If you can locate a source for inexpensive used or scrap aluminum irrigation pipe, I highly recommend it, especially for diameters of 6 inches or larger. Aluminum irrigation pipe is available in several grades or wall thicknesses. If you plan on straddling (suspending the pipe over) long distances (more than a few feet), or walking on your pipe, I recommend the heavier grades of aluminum irrigation pipe that generally run between 0.075 to 0.938 inch wall thickness for the 6 inch and between 0.0938 and 0.125 inch wall thickness for the 8 inch aluminum pipe (not quoted).
The least expensive and the most readily available is the PVC (polyvinylchloride) pipe available from your local plumbing or irrigation supply. The durability of schedule 80 is great, but its probably to expensive and heavy for most applications. Schedule 40 would be my selection where durability is necessary, and where the cost would not be a significant burden. The class 100 and 125 PVC though, when handled and used carefully, offer the most economical options. I would not recommend any of the lighter classes or grades of PVC or ABS pipes or DWV tubing, such as the class 63 sewer pipe, because of their inability to handle the rigors and loads of the typical gravity dredging application without breakage. A look through your local phone book and the yellow page directory should list several suppliers in your area that stock almost all the possible grades, classes, and materials you might need for your application.

Gasoline Dredge

The Gasoline Dredge
Today, the typical recreational gold mining surface dredge uses a gasoline engine to power a water pump that forces a high pressure jet of water through a venture and into a short section of pipe that generates a negative pressure capable of pulling water through the pipe and thereby lifting the gold bearing sands and gravels from the stream or river bottom and delivering it to a sluice at the water's surface for recovery of the gold. This system, although very effective, requires the operator's frequent attention and maintenance of a gasoline engine, and pump. Frequently, for more remote operations, there can be almost as much time spent on maintaining the equipment and transporting gasoline as there is in the actual operation of the dredge. There may be additional considerations, such as environmental or risk of fire, that severely limit the practicality of the gasoline powered dredge. For some of these dredging sites, it is both possible and practical to eliminate the gasoline engine entirely.

Small-scale or recreational placer gold mining

If you're a newcomer to the world of small-scale or recreational placer gold mining, here are a few tips that may smooth your transition from "greenhorn" to "sourdough:"

1. Educate Yourself

Take the time to learn all you can about gold and gold mining BEFORE you rush out the door gold pan in hand. As in any pursuit, there are many fine points to be considered and studied in gold mining, small-scale or otherwise. For a newcomer to placer mining these include the geology of gold, stream hydraulics, deposition physics, mining history, and a good understanding of placer gold mining equipment, tools, and recovery processes. Whew! Sounds like a lot to learn, doesn't it? In some ways it is, but not all of this is meant to be learned overnight. And if you take the time to learn something about gold and gold mining first, you'll be a much more successful miner in the long run.

2. Stick to Basic Tools and Equipment

If you're a gold mining novice, it makes absolutely no sense to spend hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars on fancy and costly mining gear like motorized dredges or highbankers. Keep it simple and learn how to walk before you run. A good gold pan, a few hand tools, and a 5-gallon bucket for carrying gold-bearing gravel are about all you need to find a bit of gold early on. Buy the fancy gear later, after you have the basics down, feel more confident about your mining knowledge and abilities, and are ready to move more material and get more gold.

3. Keep Your Expectations in Check
As a would-be gold miner, maintaining a positive outlook is an asset. But remember, this is 2008, not 1849, and the likelihood of you (or I for that matter) striking it rich gold mining is slim indeed. Unfortunately, many newcomers have visions of gold pans overflowing with flakes and nuggets and it can be quite sobering for them when the realization sinks in that gold mining is, for the most part, very hard work for very small returns. Let's do a bit of math. Even the most experienced recreational or small-scale miners these days average between 1-3 pennyweights per day. Hmmm...there a 20 pennyweights in a troy ounce of gold. Why, that's only about 1/10 of an ounce of gold per day! Get the picture? Keep your expectations in check and you'll be a happier, less frustrated miner because you understand that recreational mining is not some "get-rich-quick" scheme but a love and an avocation that can pay a bit back in return.

4. Learn How to Sample Properly

Using proper sampling techniques, methods, and approaches is the most important thing you can do to ensure your chances of successful gold recovery out in the field. Many newcomers to recreational mining fail to realize this and race around willy-nilly grabbing dirt and gravel from here and there, with no rhyme or reason to their madness and very little gold gained in the process. But you, you're different. You understand that a systematic sampling approach is your best bet to finding good gold values, perhaps even those hidden paystreaks or pockets that others have missed. Use proper sampling techniques and you'll be well on your way to becoming a miner with a reputation for getting the gold.

5. Watch, Listen, and Observe

You can learn more in a day from an experienced miner than you could in a month from a dozen prospecting or gold mining books. And, truth be told, most experienced placer miners are more than willing to help newcomers get a handle on things, if they open their ears and don't become royal pains in the proverbial rear. So put your fragile ego aside and learn to watch, listen, and observe. See how other miners work, what little "tricks of the trade" they employ, and what sorts of tools and equipment they use.

If you follow these tips conscientiously, I guarantee you'll graduate from good ol' Greenhorn University magna cum laude.

Above all, have fun out there!