Finally made a dolly pot

G'day All, Sitting around today bored So thought I had better get off my gluteus maximus and get productive.

I had some scrap steel sitting around so dragged out the mig and got to work.



I then dollied up all of the rocks that have given me a response over the last two years and panned them off, luckily I have a spare bath tub that is not filled with water lillies and fish and from the rain was quite full

No gold was panned off then I started to doubt my ability to pan, so to the scrap lead pile and shaved off some very very fine pieces, dropped 4 pieces in each of two pans. One pan is a rusty old pan that I found and didn't get my lead back.... The other pan is a newer plastic pan that I bought and recovered 3 pieces of lead, so I then felt a little better and panned of 20litres of soil that I bought home and you guessed it....still no gold.

Oh well full points for effort and enjoyed the search for gold without leaving home.

Cheers Adrian

Well at least it wasn't a total waste of time........you got a dolly pot now, ready for when you have got some real species that need the treatment

ps: yeah the rusty metal pans are not the best for panning, the gold doesnt slide along the bottom properly and gets caught on the rusty pit marks

Interesting d'gold, I was told by an old gold miner (in his 90's) that if I bought a new pan to get a metal one and leave it in the weather until it rusts.

I'm not dishartened by the experience and definately not a waste of time.
I will be able to pan with experienced panners next time I get a chance to head out with the 'VicSeekers' again.

Gday Adrian and Davsgold
Yeh, the rusty metal dishes are no good for panning off but there are some cracker plastic ones around. I believe in the old days the prospectors used to chuck their dish on the fire to give it a bit of a clean up????
I made a stainless steel dollypot about fifteen years ago. That combined with a plastic dish gets rid of the rust problem in the pan. Rusty dolly pots are a pain for panning. In days gone by they never got a chance to go rusty as they were in daily use.
The dolly pot is still the cheapest and easiest way to deal with specimen gold. I also use it for sampling reefs in my travels. I use a piece of buck quartz or something similar to get a clean pot before I start any of the serious dollying for sampling.
cheers
Brett

good job champ.... bit wet over your way... hasn't rained much hear today but there's more on it's way for the next 2 days...
cheers
stoppsy

I know that the old timers use to "blue" their metal pans. Blue as in put them in a fire to get rid of any oil or such that may be in or on the pan, don't get it red hot though as the name sugests blue it like when you see the tempering colours coming along a piece of metal.

Also when panning farily fine gold it is a good idea to use a water surfacant, like a rince aid for the dishwasher or similar. Other wise the fine gold can and will float on top of the water and if the water is getting a bit muddy looking as can happen you wont see the fine gold going over the top.

I like the garrett 14" green plastic pan, the other black plastic ones are ok as well, but watch out for any oil from your skin getting on the pan and in the water when panning of fine stuff after dollying up species.

And your dolly pot looks great.

What I do is dolly up and then strain it through a gause strainner over the pan and then tip the stuff that won't go through the gause strainner back into the dolly pot and keep doing this till it all goes through the strainner.

Any chunky bit of gold just flatten a bit and you can pick them out of the strainner and the finner bits go through to be panned off.

cheers dave

I have been panning since 1965. I still prefer a wide base steel pan than any plastic pan. I do agree that the gold traps an some plastic ones are better but you don't need to remove all the gravel to show the gold.

GDAY G S GPX

have you tried using 40 x 20 loupe
ive found when getting a few speccies with the tector i pick up a 20 litre bucket full of rocks go home and just checkem out with a cold beer in hand you would be surprised how much colour you cant see by eye or here with tector and its relaxing
good scratchin
cheers slug

I've got a steel pan that's older than me..I find it hard to see the gold in amongst the rust.
The other week I was very impressed with Skysite's Martin Marks pan... very shallow and wokish in shape with the screw type riffles.

Seems to be brilliant on fines.. we counted four specks in amongst the tailings and after some very violent swirling the pan was completely empty but for the same four specks

I am gonna get a base only made up with a concave finish & have it machined with an interference fit that i can just pop a bit of 100mm PVC on top then remove the tube & recover all the fines.

I would be a lot lighter & having it made out of S/Steel would keep it from rusting & it would be easer to store in the vehicle. Haven't done a drawing yet for my engineer will do soon.

If any one else is interested let me know it would work out cheaper to have a few made, dunno about postage though.

Best i get to the drawing board.

Cheers
DINGO

Gday Dingo
The concept sounds interesting BUT given golds propensity to go into any crack or seam available, I'd have some reservations about that type of pot if you're dollying reef samples and just looking for the one or two specks in a dish. The whole pot in SS doesn't weigh a heap anyway and you can store stuff in it in the bus.
cheers
Brett

"Oh well full points for effort and enjoyed the search for gold without leaving home."

Hang on a minute you can't be giving yourself full points!!! What cheek!
Worse than laughing at your own jokes!
Still, it looks good, I must do something like that one of these years.
Good thinking Adrian.
Sparrowfart.

it does sound good dingo...once you do ya plans up i'll check it out
cheers
stoppsy

mulgadansa wrote:Gday Dingo
The concept sounds interesting BUT given golds propensity to go into any crack or seam available, I'd have some reservations about that type of pot if you're dollying reef samples and just looking for the one or two specks in a dish. The whole pot in SS doesn't weigh a heap anyway and you can store stuff in it in the bus.
cheers
Brett

Hi Mulga,

Thats my point there would be no nooks or crannies.

Cheers
DINGO

Gday Dingo
How do you mean? I've got this concept of a thick SS base with say a 150 pvc sleeve fitted into it or over it somehow. If that's what it is then there must be crevices for the gold to trap in??
I'm guessing you're a fitter or something with the reference to an interference fit which I know nothing about?? How about enlightening me. I love learning.
cheers
Brett

mulgadansa wrote:Gday Dingo
How do you mean? I've got this concept of a thick SS base with say a 150 pvc sleeve fitted into it or over it somehow. If that's what it is then there must be crevices for the gold to trap in??
I'm guessing you're a fitter or something with the reference to an interference fit which I know nothing about?? How about enlightening me. I love learning.
cheers
Brett

Mulga once one has smashed their material the PVC tube is removed and all the goodies are in your base plate, no gold lost in nooks & crannies.

DINGO

thats really cool GS GPX...

but may i ask, these rocks you keep to dolly up, what sort of signal does it give off? Like a real screamer or a mellow tone? Just interested to know

I dont know a lot about dolly pots, but how much effort do they take to use?

Gee, i wish i could weld. Plenty needs welding around here, lol

cheers

tspec, thanks for the info, I haven't a loupe but might get one. I've just started to bring home soil, once it is all panned I will take it back to the hole I got it from and then bring home some more. Atm I'm drinking hot rum (all the cold ones are gone )

Dingo I think I can see where you are comming from, I already have an image in my head, will be keen to see how it turns out.

Sparrowfart, I do laugh at my own jokes, but only 'cause I know how funny I am going to be.

TH, some of the rocks give a mellow tone and others are screamers, nonetheless they have all given a change in threshold=target, whether it be mineralization or not it needs to be investigated.
I could teach you to weld easy, it's not that hard.
It doesn't take that much effort to break up the rocks with the shaft I'm using, it is bloody heavy and hardened steel.
Once I dollied up the material I put it through a fine sieve, anything in the sieve went back into the pot, dolly + repeat.

If there is anyone in Vic, who is experienced in panning and would like to catch up in the field one day for a pan to teach a young bloke the ropes please feel free to contact me.

Cheers

there's a bloke in town who pans a lot i should catch up with him and see if he would be keen to teach... he's done pretty well out off it... i know if you put 2 shot gun pellets in your pan with your dirt, then just pan away as you do and if the 2 shot gun pellets are still in the pan after you are finished you are doing it right...
cheers
stoppsy

im no expert but would love to pan with you. Until recently i didnt ever see much gold but suddenly im doing something right, lol. Hey stoppsy is right about the BB pellets. I usually dont add them to my pan but the shotgun pellets from out of the creek end up in my pan along with the gold specks.

My slow point to panning was the recovery rate of the gold cos i dont have a goldsniffer bottle. Will try make one this weekend cos im heading back up monday for another go at it. MinersDen never seem to have the bottles. "out of stock"
I took a video of panning so i'll upload it (MT said i could, lol)

anyone got a spare sniffer bottle they want to sell??

that would be great to see the vid... i should do more panning as i have some spots that i think would be good, but i think a sluice would be better in these spots..
cheers
stoppsy

I was going to drop in a bb, but thought that a bb might be too large as a real test so the 3 bits that I shaved up and did recover, were just hardly visible, so maybe I was testing myself to hard, (when I said very very fine, it wasn't bs) I will try again with bb's then and see what the success rate is.
TH, We haven't even caught up for a detect yet, lol, but would love to have a panning sesssion as well.

Cheers

I know that the old timers use to "blue" their metal pans. Blue as in put them in a fire to get rid of any oil or such that may be in or on the pan, don't get it red hot though as the name sugests blue it like when you see the tempering colours coming along a piece of metal.

Have heard this as well from an old (no gone) prospector, but to darken the pan the idea is to have the fire going grab green gum leaves put them on the fire then the pan on top of the leaves.
Use to do this for every metal pan i brought and does work, however its not permenant.
Also for those who use cast iron campovens the best way to preserve them while in storage is clean them out (hungry pet dog does a good job at that ) boil water in it, remove that water then repeat but once on the boil throw in some green gum leaves and boil for 5-10 mins.
Works a treat and you can come back 6 months latter and it has no rust whatso ever. (PS never ever use detergent in a camp oven to clean them,youl regreat it the next time U use it .....believe me.)
The dolly pot looks good GPX, thks for the photo.
Regards
John

[quote="freshwater"]

Have heard this as well from an old (no gone) prospector, but to darken the pan the idea is to have the fire going grab green gum leaves put them on the fire then the pan on top of the leaves.
Use to do this for every metal pan i brought and does work, however its not permenant.Regards John

Which way up is the pan when you put it over the burning gum leaves, upside down so the smoke and heat fron the leaves is on the inside of the pan ? or on the outside of the pan ?

I've got metal panning dishes but hardly ever use them much prefer the green plastic garrett one.

cheers dave

To improve your dollypot a little more i would make the base a bit wider, so its more stable, and use an old truck axle for a drop hammer. The extra weight makes it work better, but in particular the longer hammer means you are less likely to get struck by flyrock, and its much easier on your back because you are standing up. Cheers.

G'day rivergod, she is pretty stable, made from fairly heavy steel, the drop hammer you wouldn't want it any heavier than it is, trust me. would be handy though if it was a bit longer!!

Your design looks good, but consider the longer handle. Even an axle from a hq holden or similar makes a good hammer. Not too heavy and lots more comfortable. If ya use a short hammer, make sure you have safety specs. Good luck.

Miss my old dolly pot which my wife called an over size coffee cup, It had a 10 inch base made from 1 inch steel, the outer tube was aprox 10 inch's tall, the idea of the wide base was to obtain a perfect weld on the inside so there were no nooks and cranny's for fine gold to get trapped. It also had a heavy U bolt as a handle-hence it looked like a coffee cup?
If you wanted to, you could place a much longer piece of pipe into the dolly pot and smash away. To easy.
Cheers~Chris