At what point do I stop washing black sand out of my pan?

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geolover

Full Member
Dec 5, 2015
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Temecula
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White's GMZ twin D-Gold Master (shrapnel & casing finder) Garrett pin pointer at
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Prospecting
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russau said:
Myself being a F.O.G., when I went out id always screen the big stuff off and try to pan off most of the blonds at the creek side. I did this at the end of every day to keep from possibly leaveing anything in my sluice. this keeps anyone from takeing /dumping my days work! And I don't end up with a big load to carry back to my truck when done. I used to go out for 2 weeks at a time...... Maybe this Summer ill be able to get back with it!
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Well, I hope this is the summer you make it !!
 

I stop right around here
 

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Being a FOG is bad, but being a FFOG is really bad. I pan down to black sand then beat the side of my pan into submission until the gold is on one side and most black sand is somewhere else. X3 equals a processed pan.
 

I'm pretty confident in my panning skills now but when I was starting, I would pan my concentrates into a safety pan until I got all the black sands (usually 3-4 times through) and dump into a small bucket creating super concentrates to run through my blue bowl later. That's a thing of the past now. As you develop your technique, you'll gain confidence. after a good day, I end up with about a quart of material to classify and run through the Blue Bowl.
 

QNCrazy said:
I'm pretty confident in my panning skills now but when I was starting, I would pan my concentrates into a safety pan until I got all the black sands (usually 3-4 times through) and dump into a small bucket creating super concentrates to run through my blue bowl later. That's a thing of the past now. As you develop your technique, you'll gain confidence. after a good day, I end up with about a quart of material to classify and run through the Blue Bowl.
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They recommend a 750 GPH pump for the blue bowl, Is that what you are using?
 

A couple of other things. Careful with magnets as they can trap gold with the magnetic black sand, especially where there is quite a bit of black sand and really fine gold. Also, some guys roast their black sands to release additional trapped gold.
 

placergold said:
A couple of other things. Careful with magnets as they can trap gold with the magnetic black sand, especially where there is quite a bit of black sand and really fine gold. Also, some guys roast their black sands to release additional trapped gold.
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That's why I draw the magnetic sand up through the water. I "tease" the magnetic sand out without actually touching them with the magnet It helps to allow any trapped gold to drop out. Then I will run the magnetic sands through my rod mill to crush them. Shake and Bake (aka roast and quench) the crushed magnetics and then run everything over a miller table to get that micron gold out.
 

Exactly.
 

I don't like washing any black sand out of my pan when working with sluice concentrates. Therefore I use a catch pan. It's easy to get rusty and lose some surprisingly large flakes if you don't do it every day.
When running sluice cons or production panning I prefer to put them all in a gatoraid bottle with a funnel and pan down when I get home.
I suggest never panning more than a quarter cup at a time when panning cons.

That's how I do it, can't speak for anyone else.
 

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