Worst prospecting equipment you have used?

[IowaRiverWalker]

What is the worst piece of equipment you have used or just didn't meet expectations? And why?

 

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[KevinInColorado]

Easy answer a Keene A-52. Quickly followed by the Goldclaw pan.

 

[HappySwede]

Falcon MD70 followed by EZ Sluice. Both waste of time.

Also all kinds of special pans that are supposed to make volume panning quicker, but only makes you tired quickly due to weight of the pan itself.

 

[sprailroad]

What is the worst piece of equipment you have used or just didn't meet expectations? And why?

Well........To be honest with ya Iowa, the answer to that would be "ME". Why? Various body parts subject to break down and failure unexpectedly.

 

[No gold in NY]

Easy answer a Keene A-52. Quickly followed by the Goldclaw pan.

I am surprised at your answer Kevin. The A-52 seems to be a very popular tool among prospectors.

 

[bobw53]

I'm going to say the "Turbo Pan"... I could never get it to work, and you need a
huge tub to use the thing.

And I bought a black magic fine gold recovery sluice, basically a miller table with bumps...
What a waste of time that was, water, battery charger, angle, flow etc... Then you still
have to classify, and once you do that its so quick and easy to pan, that there is no point.

 

[Goldwasher]

Gold hog pan

Desert fox spiral wheel

Things I've seen in use and or heard nothing good about

Gold claw

AMP

turbo pan

I wouldn't even bother trying to make them work.


Things I've used listed here with more than acceptable results.

Keene A52

EZ sluice

Falcon

 

[winners58]

a pick & shovel I've seen people use them,

every time I use one I get blisters and a sore back.

all the gold just keeps falling back into the bottom of the hole.

seen people get good results digging the hole I halfway started.

 

[gldguy1]

A gold pan, because I'm lazy and just want the rocks and dirt to wash themselves [emoji12] but seriously though probably a thing called a faucicers pan a buddy of mine gave me. The sticky sided grip tape wasn't water proof and came right off first use

 

[Bejay]

The standard, "store bought", "neck down", crevice suction hose nozzle. Simply/utterly worthless. !

 

[Medina Joe]

The EZ Sluice sucks really bad. Money not well spent

 

[N-Lionberger]

My most worthless pieces of gear are my turbo pan, it broke before I could even figure out how to use it. Jobe archer pan also broke while it still had the price tag on it lol. Proline pro pan, way too flexible, folds up like a taco with a load of dirt. Biggest hunk of junk is my AMP sluice box.

 

[Reed Lukens]

The 2005 model of the Dahlke Micro 4B gold dredge with the bent jet absolutely takes first as my worst ever experience, what a pile... The reason is here -
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/dredging-hi-banking/467261-should-you-buy-dahlke-micro-4b.html

The Keene A52? Not the worst by far, in fact for many decades it was the best, the leader in this industry. Having that on here, in this list is rediculous being it was the sluice that was the foreruner to them all and copied by so many others...
Worst sluice - Colorado's own Sidewinder Sluice takes first or last actually being it's the worst 25+ pound joke a person can play on a newbie prospector...
Sidewinder Sluice (R)

 

[Clay Diggins]

Hacking on peoples pans or sluices seems almost pointless unless you are willing to list the big three:

1. Dowsing Rods
2. Long Range Locators
3. "Treasure" maps with symbols bigger than a town on a 1:500,000 scale map

The value of every other gold getting device is way more than these three.

Heavy Pans

 

[bobw53]

For the record, I wasn't bad mouthing the Black Magic fine gold whatever... It does work, just takes
too much time and effort to setup and use...

Hacking on peoples pans or sluices seems almost pointless unless you are willing to list the big three:

1. Dowsing Rods

They're fun to play with. I bought a set to drive my better half nuts, she thinks they are just the dumbest thing ever...

I think I'm going to start pulling them out when she loses the remote in the couch cushions.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I called out the A52 partly BECAUSE of what Reed accurately says. It was important just like the Ford Mustang in 1964. Awesome for its time but not so much by today’s standards.

The Sidewinder is worse (should come with wheels!) and dowsing rods omg yes. Both worse than the A52 to be fair.

 

[Goldwasher]

Lol dowsing rods

Sidewinder is so bad that I had pushed it out of my memory....

I put about two cups of black sand through a black magic and never used it again ...it was a freebie and I still wlt like a sucker.

Also bought a sniper snuffer widget once that pretty much broke cause I looked at it wrong.

A52 still doesn't belong on the list

 

[Goldwasher]

Oh yea ...there was a guy on craigslist selling pre made welded steel gold traps to put in the creek over the winter.

Like $300 bucks he wanted

 

[Bodfish Mike]

1) My first homemade drywasher I tried to use a small child's bike crank as the bellows mover. Fun to build but a real
piece of crap. The second one was not much better.
The third one is acceptable and I used it today and got some gold.

2) green gold pans I can't see the gold just the black sand.

 

[crumbaker]

I have a recirculating highbanker, I forget the brand but it was really cheap. I think it might be ok with a different pump, but the bilge pumps that come with a lot of these really aren't powerful enough.