Help ! Is panning the best for flour gold ?

[GoldMine21]

I am completely new to this and I live in a state with flour gold. I bought a Garrett pan which is on the way. I am wondering if the pan was the way to go ? I also looked at a sluice and a blue pan. It would be for stream. Any help on what works best for flour gold would be greatly appreciated. Thank you !

 

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[arizau]

A pan is essential so you have done the first step. Next is learning how to use it. There are tons of videos that show you how on youtube and there are many threads on this forum that are helpful too. It would help us to help you if we knew your general location since someone nearby might be willing to offer places to try and may even be willing to go on an outing with you to show you the ropes.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

[KevinInColorado]

For flour gold, get a classifier to set on top of your pan. Set it on top of the pan, dump a shovel of paydirt in it, add water and swirl the gravel with your hand so the fine stuff all falls thru. A 4 mesh (4 holes per inch) or even an 8 mesh will make the panning much easier!

 

[GoldMine21]

This is great advice. Thank you !

 

[GoldMine21]

I have these choices. Which one should I get for flour gold ? Is an 8 mesh 1/8" ? I am not sure how to read it.
1/100”, 1/70”, 1/50”, 1/30”, 1/20”, 1/12”, 1/8”, 1/4", 1/2“

 

[brianc053]

Hi GoldMine21, you're probably looking at something like this from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Sifting-Classifier-Panning-Screens-Various/dp/B01N94HK75

Kevin is right that for basic panning, separating out the stuff that's larger than 1/8" (8-mesh) from the stuff that's smaller will help a lot. The idea with classifying is that you want to get similarly sized material in the pan together, so that as you do the panning action ("stratifying") the heavier gold will go deeper in the pan and the lighter material will be higher in the pan.

A kit like that one from Amazon helps to further classify out the different sized materials. When I sit down to "seriously" pan, I use most of those classifiers and then pan each individual size separately.
Also, if you're going to use stacking classifiers like those, it's not super easy to stack them all up, pour the material in the top and run water through it. The stuff doesn't move down the stack very well. I find it's better to use one classifier at a time, working material through it into a pan, setting the stuff in the classifier aside (to be panned later), and then taking the material left over in pan and putting it in the next smaller classifier. Then repeat. You'll want at least 2 pans to do this, because there should be a pan under the next classifier when you pour material into it. It's slow, but it's precise - and that's important for flour gold.
If you're working with dry material the process may be different; I'm a wet guy.

- Brian

 

[Kenmitch]

Unless your blessed and the creek is down the street and around the corner you'll have much more free time at home. Like others have stated pick up some classifiers to help in your panning adventures.

Pick up a 5 gallon bucket or two from Lowe's or Home Depot if you don't already have them. When in the field it's probably more beneficial to just test pan and when gold is found lean more towards just getting the concentrates for later. Once found just start filling up the buckets. It's a good idea to do multiple test pans during this phase to make sure your still on the gold.

I bought the 1/2" and 1/20" classifiers to stack in the field. Figure the 1/2" will get rid of most of the undesirables from the getgo. Doesn't hurt to look before dumping them out just in case. I'll just dump the 1/20" plus into another bucket once in a while when needed.

I picked up a couple finer classifiers in the 5.5" size for later processing down the material if needed.

Panning for gold is fun, relaxing, and somewhat peaceful in the end....Unless your diving into it for the money which makes it seem job like.

Keep your concentrates until your sure there is no gold left. The little fly poop gold is small and hard to see depending on ones vision.

Sluice....Would speed up the process once you get the hang of it as far as angles, flow, etc. Cost effectiveness? Would I guess depend on how much gold you find in your area. A person might actually loose more gold than they find if it's not properly setup. Might even take too many trips to the creek to pay for itself in the end if the area doesn't have sufficient gold bearing ground.

Good luck on your adventures! Remember the adventures are the true riches! The gold is natures reward for spending time with her!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Great advice from both Brian and Ken. My only 'correction', don't buy the Orange HD buckets or the blue Lowes ones, they are made of thin plastic and will break when you dump shovelfuls of rocks in! Get your buckets from a deli or donut shop for a buck each...with "090" or "90 mil" markings on the bottom. Those buckets are TOUGH!

 

[kcm]

You can also use buckets that used to hold hydraulic or bulk motor oil - so long as you thoroughly wash them out!

We bought a lot of buckets some years back for hauling water (long story!). Buckets were ok, but lids were crap. Lids kept splitting every time we'd open one. ...And we're in an area where your only choices are cheap buckets or reused buckets. No deli's here. Not even a McDonald's!!

 

[johnedoe]

Hi goldmine21.
First and foremost to get your fine gold you have to classify......... Period. I beach mine and I deal with fine gold all the time... We're talking -100 mesh right on down to -325 and even smaller.

As to equipment for the stream you might try a cleangold sluice or a GoldCube or Goldhog sluices with a mat configuration that will capture the fines.

When it comes to cleanup.... here ya go on how to pan....... http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/panning-gold/459664-art-gold-panning.html

If you can't recover your fine gold after watching those videos..... Well all I can say is . Your hopeless..

 

[Capt Nemo]

True on those buckets Kevin mentioned! I broke the handle on one of those Lowes buckets filled with 140 lbs of black sand. Their pink translucent 3 1/2 gal buckets like to crack too.

For saving concentrates at the creek, get a few 2 gal buckets with lids. Also hit Harbor Freight for a 3 pack of 8 oz applicator bottles. They work great for washing pans into buckets, or as snuffers (with a little practice) with the tip cut off.

I use 6 gal buckets left over from buying ice melter. I get another 2 every year.

Since your hopefully getting a Garrett panning kit, you'll find the 10" pan useful for cleaning up. At the tail of a 10" pan, I just keep the black sand stratified and slowly working over the riffles with a side to side motion until I'm holding the pan at almost 90 degrees. At that point, you have just the right amount of black sand in the riffles to fan out and find the gold. While doing that, every so often wash the black sand (and maybe gold) back to the bottom of the pan, and start over. That will help keep the gold at the bottom riffle.

 

[GoldMine21]

Thank you so much for all the great advice. Ill definitely get a classifier and buckets. Thank you for all the great answers !

 

[johnedoe]

Get the 40, 60, 80, and 100 if you can... also for what you are doing you don't really need bucket size screens... get the 6" or so they will do fine for what you will be doing.
Here are some but they don't have an 80 mesh.
Gold Classifier Set | Camel Mining Products

 

[KevinInColorado]

You can skip the 80. Buy the 100 later after you've saved up enough -60 to be worth sitting down to re-process it. The kit John suggests looks smart to me too [emoji106]

 

[johnedoe]

You can skip the 80. Buy the 100 later after you've saved up enough -60 to be worth sitting down to re-process it. The kit John suggests looks smart to me too [emoji106]

Your right .... I'm the only nut case that needs the 100.... I also have 150, 200 and 325.... and failing eyesight.....

 

[wildminer]

No jd, you're not the only nut case!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Your right .... I'm the only nut case that needs the 100.... I also have 150, 200 and 325.... and failing eyesight.....

I have all four of those too!
...but I've learned it's hard to find enough ultrafine gold to even pay for those ultrafine classifiers until you have accumulated lots and lots of -60 concentrates with all the easy gold (-60 down to about -120 will separate easily from the -60 paydirt) already panned out of it.

 

[johnedoe]

Hey Keven.....
You would have those if you did beach sands....
However I don't try to pan those out, I will toss the -200 and under in a can till there is enough to actually deal with.
I will think about how to deal with them expediently later... probably run them thru the furnace and flux.
Here's what I have so far. I haven't pulled the magnetics out of them yet either. That will be done before the refining.

 

[Duckwalk]

Not sure if the new user is still watching this thread. My suggestion would be to go to firehouse subs and ask for a pickle bucket. They sell them for like $3.5 each and are insanely sturdy. As far as panning in the field and bringing home dirt, while it may be tempting to load up a bucket of unpanned dirt home, i suggest finding good pay (by test panning). Once you do that, fill up pan after pan, and pan it all down to about a cups worth of sand, dump that in the bucket and continue that until you can't lift your arms. You get way better results and its more fun to pan in a creek than a tub . You will yield more color per bucket if you try to concentrate it in the field.

 

[goldenmojo]

Ducky Sage advice about hauling worthless dirt. Good to see you back after a log absence. Hope all is well and you are on some good gold.