Panning a critical part of wet water prospecting.

Panning is above all the most critical part of wet water prospecting. It is the end process and as a wet water prospector you must know how to finish up your clean up pans. Over the years I have shown so many people the art of finishing most picked it up very well but then there were others no matter how hard they tried just could not master the art. Some prospectors are under the impression that a panner must be fast and the clean up must be done in a flash, not so. It really dose not matter how long it takes you to pan a dish or do your clean up what dose matter is that you do it right, after panning for a time speed will come naturally. A lot has been posted on this subject RE: https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t3959-separating-gold-from-black-sands#36104 cheers
James 101
© JB 2011

I forgot to add any plastic pan will lose gold until you rough them up a bit. A good way to do this is to rub sand around them a few times that should take the shine off them. After which you will need to wash the pan out with any type of dish washing detergent. this gets rid of any oils which may be present in the pan. cheers

© JB 2011

James 101 wrote:Panning is above all the most critical part of wet water prospecting. It is the end process and as a wet water prospector you must know how to finish up your clean up pans. Over the years I have shown so many people the art of finishing most picked it up very well but then there were others no matter how hard they tried just could not master the art. Some prospectors are under the impression that a panner must be fast and the clean up must be done in a flash, not so. It really dose not matter how long it takes you to pan a dish or do your clean up what dose matter is that you do it right, after panning for a time speed will come naturally. A lot has been posted on this subject RE: https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t3959-separating-gold-from-black-sands#36104 cheers
James 101
© JB 2011

Hi James,

Newb question mate. Do you need to have "running" water to pan? I looked at a semi dry creek on a mountain the other day right near some old gold claims, the sand is semi wet and most parts are dry, there are however some area's with stagnate water in them, could one use this to pan or should the water be running? I have never panned before so have no clue.

Thanks.

slugsbrother wrote:

James 101 wrote:Panning is above all the most critical part of wet water prospecting. It is the end process and as a wet water prospector you must know how to finish up your clean up pans. Over the years I have shown so many people the art of finishing most picked it up very well but then there were others no matter how hard they tried just could not master the art. Some prospectors are under the impression that a panner must be fast and the clean up must be done in a flash, not so. It really dose not matter how long it takes you to pan a dish or do your clean up what dose matter is that you do it right, after panning for a time speed will come naturally. A lot has been posted on this subject RE: https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t3959-separating-gold-from-black-sands#36104 cheers
James 101
© JB 2011

Hi James,

Newb question mate. Do you need to have "running" water to pan? I looked at a semi dry creek on a mountain the other day right near some old gold claims, the sand is semi wet and most parts are dry, there are however some area's with stagnate water in them, could one use this to pan or should the water be running? I have never panned before so have no clue.

Thanks.

Mate we were all new once grin, that would be fine to pan in. You would not believe the places, spots and containers i have washed a pan in. as long as you got water ya cant go wrong. To dry blow out of a pan the dirt has to be bone dry. cheers mate.

Thanks James,

I think I will watch a few youtube vids and see how it is done. Any recommendations on a decent website to buy a pan and roughly how much I should pay?

buy a Garrett super sluice pan or the Garrett 16'' drop pan either is good and I've had mine nearly 30 yrs and are now only starting to wear out --you should get either of them for under $60

Garrett 15" Super Sluice pan is my weapon of choice.
Miners Den have them for $40
HOWEVER....Nuggets From Down Under in Mudgee looks like they've got them on sale for $32 - good price!

Robbo wrote:Garrett 15" Super Sluice pan is my weapon of choice.
Miners Den have them for $40
HOWEVER....Nuggets From Down Under in Mudgee looks like they've got them on sale for $32 - good price!

$32 - good price! Yes indeed it is. cheers

Will check them out, thanks for the advice.

I am glade we could help. cheers mate

$32 that's cheaper than Miners den I think WOW!

That's what they been saying mate. cheers

Just recently I've been looking at sluices, in my endeavor I keep seeing people panning and I ache in disbelief ! Apparently the new method is to allow the water to spill in to your pan and let it spill out, taking away some worthless dirt with every spill? If you had fine gold in your pan, you wont any more! If at the end of your panning you find 10 specs of gold, with this method you more than likely put 100 specs back in the river!
Never let water wash over a dry section of you pan, Never-Never-Never!
Cheers~Chris.

not 100% true someday , we all pan in different ways and when i get down to a small amount left i will let the water wash in and out , if you dont believe me ask james101 and murachu , they have seen me do it and not lose gold.
it is all based on how much you let come in and out and the lvl of your pan and how careful you are / it can and is done with out loss

I new there would be a come back on this one!
Over in WA I started crushing a lot of gold bearing rocks. Most of the gold retrieved was like powder. I had about 3 ounces of fines from 4 years of hobby crushing.
One day I decided to see if I could remove a couple of specs of rubbish rock, Pan after pan my gold was picked up with the surface tension of the water and down the drain it all went?
Thinking at the time This can't have been gold, then I found out that gold can float OMG.
I pulled the trap pipe of the sink which I was panning into and was lucky, retrieving 1.5 ounces of gold stuff, I took this gold stuff to a jeweler, a day later I was handed a beautiful shiny small gold ingot 1.37 ounces.
Never been bitten that way again!
Cheers~Chris.

well to stop the floating problem put 2-3 drops of dish washing liquid in the pan , problem solved.
when you get down to the nitty gritty bits in the bottom seperate it in the pan not over the edge.
you need enough water so when you roll the pan forward most of the water rolls around the out edge and meets at the top and falls back to the bottom taking the sand etc with and leaving the gold behind

I hear you Rustydog! I don't have a problem panning gold! I have never panned with pan under water, my back hated that idea straight away,
so I learn't to do all panning standing up. Panning that super fine gold from word go I would say gave me an edge!!!!
For the new guy/gal, there is a lot of learning.

Rustydog, yes mate the good old dish liquid method is the best and you're spot on with the pan and water rolling forwards and backwards with it meeting in the middle. I too was shown this method years ago and have reduced my end-of-day clean-up time enormously and increased gold retention.
What I also do is double or even triple pan my concentrates. I place another pan within the creek or tub, just below the waterline. My blacksands are then panned into the second pan. The second pan is then re-panned (triple) into another. Just to be sure, I also keep my final super concentrates, usually only a few teaspoons, and keep these in a plastic screw-top bottle. When the bottle is full (not yet!), I'll give it to a mate who'll drop a bit of merc into it and get the micron gold from it.

Someday, your 'gold in the sink pipe' story gave me a laugh. Thinking back...I hope I haven't made the same mistake. Too late now, sold that house!

could almost say we have the same teachers robbo he he he so you will know who i spent the last 4 days with

Robbo, might have made you laugh, made me feel sick at the time, 4 years of crushing down the drain! Luckily it was a twin sink with the washing machine always doing overtime in the other sink "Few".
As for the washing liquid, I never use it when I'm down to the nitty gritty bits, clear vision works to my advantage.
Like I said, At the time I had no idea gold could float, and so easily!

someday wrote:Robbo, might have made you laugh, made me feel sick at the time, 4 years of crushing down the drain! Luckily it was a twin sink with the washing machine always doing overtime in the other sink "Few".
As for the washing liquid, I never use it when I'm down to the nitty gritty bits, clear vision works to my advantage.
Like I said, At the time I had no idea gold could float, and so easily!

Sorry Someday, poor choice of words on my part. Didn't mean it as laughing at you, what I really meant was 'oh sh#t!', 'I think I may have also done the same'.
Mate, an ounce of gold down the tube would make anyone feel crook but thankfully you got it back.

Rustydog wrote:not 100% true someday , we all pan in different ways and when i get down to a small amount left i will let the water wash in and out , if you dont believe me ask james101 and murachu , they have seen me do it and not lose gold.
it is all based on how much you let come in and out and the lvl of your pan and how careful you are / it can and is done with out loss

I must admit it did work the way R/D was using his pan.

someday wrote:Robbo, might have made you laugh, made me feel sick at the time, 4 years of crushing down the drain! Luckily it was a twin sink with the washing machine always doing overtime in the other sink "Few".
As for the washing liquid, I never use it when I'm down to the nitty gritty bits, clear vision works to my advantage.
Like I said, At the time I had no idea gold could float, and so easily!

S/D mate oh how i feel for you. Been there done that getting that S bend off oh my. cheers

There was however a good 1.5 ounces that resisted the S-bend! It was the old style deep cast iron S-bend. I'm sure if it was the new style PVC all my gold would have been lost?
Robbo, all good mate.
The funny thing is I actually let the gold do it's thing and float, then actually allowed it to flow freely out the pan! Disbelief at the time, thinking all that pain staking pan work, to end up with the dullest heaviest Pyrite/Mica that ever existed Hmm! . From memory, I think gold was almost $500 an ounce.

Cheers people.

I've been crushing gold bearing rocks from a bit of a reef that I found. I'm totally new to panning, but I am learning after a few days at it. After I dolly up some rocks I put them through a sieve I made up using 2 mil screening and then into the pan. I have kept most of the dirt from the panning as it could probably be crushed to a powder to find more fine gold. Although, today I was just chucking it out as I am not getting much gold out of it now after having done all of the detectable rocks. But I should have kept it.
This method works very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrhsjVH_LO8&feature=related How I was shown, was to rotate the pan angled towards you anti-clockwise in small circles for a bit and then at the same time turn the pan clockwise in your hands. As you turn the pan, all the gold follows the crevice around the pan. Then I take out about half the dirt and repeat the process until I'm left only with the fines. Does that make sense? I may have to put it on youtube lol.

Tony

Tony mate welcome to the group, To answer your question, {Does that make sense?} yes it dose. We all have our own little style when it comes to panning.
cheers mate
James

Hi Tony. That YouTube link to me is the perfect example of how to put most, if not all of your fine gold back in the water. If people class that as fine gold, then go for it!
As for crushing rocks, crush it to a powder first time round, if there's larger gold pieces in the rock it will simply flatten out, providing your keeping a watchful eye!
Cheers Chris.

Woops!

someday wrote:Hi Tony. That YouTube link to me is the perfect example of how to put most, if not all of your fine gold back in the water. If people class that as fine gold, then go for it!
As for crushing rocks, crush it to a powder first time round, if there's larger gold pieces in the rock it will simply flatten out, providing your keeping a watchful eye!
Cheers Chris.

Hi Someday
I agree with you about the vid. It's maybe ok for creek panning, but not for dollied rocks.
Maybe I should have crushed it to a powder first time, but I guess I was keen to get most of the bigger gold out first. I got 2 very pretty 1oz pieces out of it that I would not have liked to have crushed, and another 1oz of smaller pieces. When I have time I will crush the leftovers to a powder to get the rest of the gold out.
Cheers Tony

Rusty what someday is inferring is that if you have crushed stone and fine gold and I mean fine, like the stuff I showed you last week as white sand ! which in fact was gold will be very very hard to hold in a pan without some form of retention agent such as Mercury most of us who pan are not pedantic about this ultra fine gold but I must say on my claim in the 90s we did introduce Merc into the system and improved our take by 25% so in some ways you are both right