The Banjo How It Works.

The Banjo How It Works.

In photo one. This is the angle I run my top hopper at, Flat. I place 3 or 4 good shovel loads of wash in the hopper then rake the wash out with my shovel. No back bending or hand wetting involved.



In photo two. You can see the in built classifier. This eliminates the need of classifying your wash into a bucket . The idea is to only handle the wash once and once only.



In photo three. {3} The wash comes down the slick plate and {4} drops onto a deflection plat then {5} into the gold tray. From which the wash travels through the tray then onto a settling area before it enters the riffle section.




© JB 2011

Great looking unit, and a very informative post. One day ill get round to making myself one. My i ask is that expanded metal uner the rubber mat or some other matting/carpet?

The 'old' miracal matting under fine mesh.
Geez, I wish you could still get that stuff. Wore out quick but. 2009 was a good season hey.

prospekta wrote: 2009 was a good season hey.

Sure was mate, 2011 is going to be almost as good. The above unit was the one where I wore out the top hopper in one season. The aluminium hoppers were just not good enough hence the need to switch to .97 Zink/alum steel. Aluminium is fine if you only use your unit once in a while or every odd weekend but it is to soft for continual use. The gold tray I only use when I am working pepper gold. Gold of any size I will run the unit without the tray. In the above post where I stated I run my hopper level, well the reason for this is I can fit more wash into the unit before the hopper needs cleaning with the shovel. The added benefit is to allow you to be able to work clay the angle gives the jetting time to break down the clay which may need a roll with the shovel. Below are a few points to remember.

See ya in a week cheers
James 101


1. You only get back from the amount you put through.

2. It is easer to take the water to the dirt, than the dirt to the water.

3. The angle of the bottom sluice in relation to the size gold you are working. Course gold hard and fast. Fine gold low and slow.

4. To know how much dirt you have moved. Measure the length of the your dig. For example, the trench may measure 2 meters long. Measure the width of the trench. The same trench may be 1 meter wide. Measure the depth, of the trench . In this example the depth will be 1 meter deep. Multiply the length (L) times the width (W) times the height (H). The formula looks like this: L x W x H to calculate the volume of the trench the formula would be 2 x 1 x 1 = 2 cubic meters.

© J. B 2011

You can find information out about the spray bars in this line of post. https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t6708-banjo-spray-bars#60274 cheers

How to work the Banjo's top hopper. cheers

Great work there James & good to see you delving into to the digital ‘visual’ world. As they say, picture(s) tells a 1000 words and your video speaks volumes. Not only the spray pattern, but the angle of sluice & top hopper, feed rate, advantages of a small, cost effective and easily manoeuvrable unit, (as opposed to expensive manufactured ones) etc, etc.
When set-up correctly, as yours demonstrates, it must be a stable unit. If not, your whole sluice water flow is interrupted and uneven, therefore greater potential for blow-out.
I’d encourage you (if you haven’t already done so) to produce a few more of these mini-clips in the future.
By the size of the back-tailing pile, you’d been working that spot for a while – well worth it I’m sure!
Robbo