Thoughts on Gold Pan?

Good day James101
M8 can you explain the use of the gold pan in a sluice please.The sluices we built years ago used a perforated plate below the top hopper to slow the water and product down to allow the gold to drop out underneath onto the ripple mat I am building a new box using your plans but can't getmy head around the gold pan and skid I hope you can spare the time to explain thanking you in advance
Regards Dave

Bundy 06 sorry James is away for a few days but I will explain the tray under the top box for you .

this id the removable tray



and this is it sitting up at the top of the riffle box



so you can see it is a part of the box but can be removed and panned without upsetting the rest of the box

Just before I leave for my 5-6 month annual 'Adventure':

That removable tray seems to be the highest Gold concentration area, and with it being removable it seems that a 'mini-cleanup' could be done at any time, thus saving the total cleanup for longer intervals.

Did I understand correctly that slightly raising the back of this tray (if needed) is also used to 'tune' the last riffle to keep it "active" and working?

In my US made High Banker I have little adjustments which help me 'fine tune' my recovery down to extremely small Gold sizes, and that """micro-adjustment""" capability of the tray seems to do the same for the Banjo.

Excellent idea!

KAEOJ yes indeed it is and I use the tray to check a run of say 15-20 shovels without upsetting the sluice --i have seen the micro adjustment done but I myself find that if im getting 95% of the gold in the top tray and no gold at the last riffle I'm happy

yes the clean up period is crucial in any highbanker or Banjo and the frequency of clean up is directly regulated by ,in my case, the build up of tin which can be overpowering and if a keen eye is not kept on it a LOT of gold will be lost !! so in my case the top tray is looked at every two hour stint or if the tin is course every hour but as I have said you do need to keep a close watch on the build up.

two yrs ago I came upon a pile of tailings that had a huge amount of tin in it ,a few pan samples led me to set up my Banjo and CAREFULLY redo the pile easy work when you can get it ! at the end of this little pile a grand total of 2.5 gms of gold was got !! I do hope the original guy got as much !!
So as James has previously written "angles and flows are crucial in setting up a banjo" and also I find the amount of gold gotten at the end of the day is directly attributable to the number of shovel fulls you process !! but a good rhythm of digging is all important to ensure that the stratification of the slurry is regular down the slick plate ! so it is so much more than just banging dirt into a sluice, it is a science

I have worked ground where test panning gives zip, yet run the sluice for an hour ,check the tray and there is about half a gram. As we know gold can be very patchy and found in pockets as well as runs.
I also have put others tailings through for good results. My best was someones oversize pile for 1 1/2gms, this stuff didn't even make the bottom hopper

Gidday Goldologists
Thanks for those replies blokes it just proves you don't stop learning till you are worm fodder
Cheers Dave

very true bundy!!

Do you carpet the last riffle section? Going by the metal cross plate's your using, I could only imagine the quantity of how much Fine Fine gold you could recover!
I've kept my 3 12X12 inch pieces of carpet from my now deceased sluice box, Cleaned probably 10 times and I can still get gold dust out of them!

Keeping only the visible fines -- yes I know there is a chit load of ultra fine but I dont want to get in to chemical extraction

wow nice colour

Where's the famous five centa now??

Dave .. The removable gold trays job is to retain as much gold as possible before the gold enters the main riffle section of the sluice. The top hopper of the sluice floor is in fact a classifier once the wash material passes through this classifier it falls onto a skid plat. Then passes along it and hit’s a deflection plat at the rear of the bottom hopper then drops down into the tray. The deflection plate dose two jobs first it reduces vigorously the violently of the wash which in turn settles the gold into the removable tray. The idea of the gold tray came about quite by accident by an old mate of mine, and a great deal of development went into it by myself and two others. The end result was the tray retaining ¾ of the amount of gold that is processed through the sluice and can be removed at any stage during operation to check the values you are working. Without the need to do a full cleanup. And there in is the trays secret.
If you read the PDF File Analysis of Sluicebox Riffle Performance in regards to matting you will note that it states in section H page 7. A section of slick plate should be in front of riffle sections to allow gold segregation in the slurry. What they are saying there is do not take your matting the full length of your box but to leave a space for the gold to settle through the slurry before it enters the riffle section. We have found around 4 to 5 inches is a good spacing from in front of the gold tray to the first Riffle.




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Cheers mate.

Gidday James101
M8 good explanation of the pan and thanks for diagram definately helps to understand the workings. Some times I think I need a sluice box attached to my head to catch brain matter I am sure I am losing as I get older?
Cheers Dave

P.S. Does the tray need riffles and matting or can it operate correctly without them?

Guest wrote: P.S. Does the tray need riffles and matting or can it operate correctly without them?

Yep they do mate check out the photos Murachu has posted which shows the tray and Riffles. cheers