Sorry, been busy and hadn’t seen the thread. Guess I should put my two cents in….
I actually invented the HOGPAN for myself, not the public, last year.
However, once it was seen by two other people they asked if I could build one for them.
One was a large commercial op owner; the other was a prospector in a pan only remote area.
After they fell in love with it, and gave us feedback, we decided to add it to our product line.
Obviously one of the factors that kept me from adding it at first was the cost.
Per pan it’s about 6 hours of labor and over 30 tig welds, then finishing,
very heavy metal / aluminum, etc, but it is what it is.
I simply wanted ONE piece of equipment that could reduce down roughly 5 gallons
of bank material to about quart of cons in less than a minute.
Then dump that into a finishing pan and test the results.
When I’m done with it, I throw it on the bank or in the back of my truck.
We also use it HEAVILY for tailings tests.
It allows us to scoop about 25 pounds of tailings, work down in about 15 seconds, and test.
All while standing at the end of a sluice.
No, it’s not for everyone, but those that need one / wanted one, and now have them REALLY like them.
If you feel you can do the same job with a pan, classifier, or other equipment, it’s a free country, don’t buy one.
“Miners mining miners?” I guess the guy selling millions of $8 gold pans is Karl Marx?
If you don’t think you want one, fine, don’t buy one. But I do take offense to such a statement.
Our level of integrity and ethics is beyond reproach.
Doc