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what are your opinions on highbanker cleanout times? I like to clean it out after about 10 buckets, of course it depends on the type of material, and how the riffles are running. a friend says he does it at the end of the day, end of the day for us would be 80 to 100 buckets.

Out of boredom and while cleaning up around the garage I decided to re make my pac vac using my old blower ang an old back pack weed sprayer, hope it works out better than carrying the 5 gallon bucket...already was great for wasting a couple hours.

Anybody got a cheap way to recover fine gold from concentrates that can be used indoors and is about idiot proof? I found some Miller table setups on Ebay and from Martin Prospecting in South Carolina but I'd rather not fork over more than $100 for a home setup. I know a GoldCube is made for this also, but $500 is a bit much for those of us on a tight budget. One thing I did like about the Martin Prospecting Miller table is the small hole at the head of the table into which you can sweep the gold with a tiny paintbrush which eliminates the use of a snuffer bottle. A vial is screwed into the bottom of the hole to catch your clean gold. They want $250 plus with shipping for this unit. I saw a homemade unit like this on YouTube made with wood and parts from Hobby Lobby. Has anybody made one of them? Thanks. -Tom V.

I have a couple of these..... They are fantastic for production panning, and even work pretty darn well for cleanup though I have a special cleanup pan.

Here is a Gift for Some of us for 2017! I have No Idea what year the product was Introduced?I was watching another random year old video of detecting in Oz.. tonite. And youtuber "Matt yes thats how short his call sign is. . had a short vid on crevicing....i watched it and it had this funny miners mat in his.....Lose" your gold keene box. so I asked him about it. He commented back.....so i looked it up! get it here in Montana ! https://prospectorsdream.com/ And found a true test from another Mate' Downunder ! Watch vid below.....Excellent Product! Cheers, IG Steve-Sorry if this is in the wrong category......but the panning area didnt seem like Much action over there?In fact Tonites the first time i ever looked over there. IG

Here's a few solutions to deal with the ban on non-motorized mining near any California stream. The first is to process "select" material off site with a 12 volt pump driven recirculating high banker. The second is to process material on site with a coffee can driven recirculating rocker. The rocker requires 5 gallons of recirculating water. After getting the hang of feeding, scooping and rocking, the amount of material the rocker processed was surprising. The pay material is hammered and chiseled from an old cemented bench above Big Jackass Creek. The pay sets on a feldspar clay deposit 4 feet above bedrock (black slate). Soaking the material prior to processing helps break up the heavy clay. The third option is a battery driven metal detector. The claim sets right in the Melones Fault Zone. The workings date back to the 1850's with signs of ground sluicing, hydraulic and a few small pocket mines. The placer deposits appear to be from a contact between feldspar porphyry and diabase located upstream on a lode claim. The only cabin site discovered is of 1950/60's, found some depression era trash. Metal detecting to date has only produced recent poker change- pennies and dimes. Several exposed quartz stringers in heavy thick brush but no gold detected. Been using both the TDI Sl and Xterra 705 with 5x9 coils, both detectors handle the ground conditions. Lots of magnetite. Use the TDI Sl over the serpentine. The smaller coils are a must, just can't sweep the larger coils in the brush while unwrapping the headset cable. Been looking at the Fisher F19 and F75 ($599 Xmas version) which both seem comparable to the Xterra 705 and AT Pro. Like the option of searching for coins when hung up in the brush detecting for gold. Any opinions on either the F19 or F75 compared to the X705?

Minelab has released what has been dubbed the "lifestyle video" which leans more to being a short travel guide about Placer County than about the PRO-GOLD Panning kit specifically. I am sure a lot of people here will recognize many of the locations. It is actually quite a bit of work doing a video like this but we had fun also so I am fortunate to have taken part. Thanks Minelab! The video also has an accompanying blog post by Chris Ralph at Minelab Treasure Talk.

Klunker, On the River, Prospecting thread, you alluded to the superiority of the steel pan. Some people booed your opinion. I've used a steel pan forever because it's substantial and I hate plastic; almost every piece of plastic gear falls apart relatively quickly. But I'd like to know your reasoning for its superiority over the plastic ones. Does it retain the gold better? And I think a few other guys were curious, too. Thanks, no rush, Joel

As the title indicates this weekend I am looking to try out dry washing for the first time. My mining buddy picked one up earlier this spring and we are pumped to try it out. Coming to CA from another state means that I don't have many opportunities to mine. My question is regarding how dry does the dirt need to be? I saw that it rained a little bit in the foothills this past week and now I'm concerned that the dirt may be too wet. Any advice and tips are greatly appreciated

Hey guys! Just got my hands on the new Pro-Gold kit from Minelab. It's my first product review video, so be gentle on me ;) Anyway, hope you enjoy it. I know I did!

A bit away from the metal detecting, so I hope nobody minds if I post this. I have been working on a "mikes hand trommel" that i came across a few years ago while surfing youtube. Seems like it will be pretty nifty little unit and it is easy to build. And cheap too boot. Still need to add a hopper and figure out what I am going to do for a feed chute off of the bottom to dump into my sluice. Just felt the need to show off a bit. Here is the link to the direction to build one. http://mlaine.net/Trom/

Here's a short video from my first gold prospecting trip of 2016. This trip was to Wanlockhead, Scotland close to Leadhills, we have visited this area a number of times and my friend wanted to revisit a boulder he had previously worked so we went with a 7 day plan to get to bedrock. In this video, I was testing my new sluice I have made specifically to use in narrow streams rather than this wide river, but as it was new I had to test it out and from my very first bucket of concentrate, using my DIY narrow stream sluice for the first time, the sluice managed to stop this lovely little picker right at the top of the vortex matting. I was really pleased with how this sluice operated and I have another video to come showing material going through it so you can see just how it runs, but I couldn't help filming not just the first visible gold of the trip, but also the first picker too. This trip was one of my most successful trips to date and I have more videos to come showing the area we worked and the gold I found, so if you haven't already, why not subscribe to my channel to keep up to date with my videos.

Well, Chris Ralph and I have had a bit of fun being involved in the development of a new gold panning kit just announced by Minelab. I lent my endorsement to the project because frankly, I think this is a very good panning kit. All people that pan gold a lot have their favorite features. I learned to pan gold with an old steel gold pan and I have personally always favored pans with a similarly large open bottom area to work with. I don't like pans with a small bottom area. And while some people really love drop center pans, I do not. The drop center catch area just gets in my way when I shift from regular panning to final cleaning using the side of the pan. These pans feature the clean transition from bottom to side that I prefer. I like the dual riffle system on the large pan, one for quick panning coarse gold, and one for separating the smaller gold. This kit has pan features that check off all the boxes for me, including the dark blue color, which is the same as the color of the SDC 2300 and GPZ 7000. You even have the little hole along the edge to hang the pans on a hook. It's the details that make the difference. I also like the screen because up to now most all of them on the market are the same. They all do fine, but I want to see something different, and this sieve features two large grip handles so you can really grab and shake. The sieve will be popular with people who really use one a lot to screen out and fill five gallon buckets. It even has a carry bag included for once you take everything out of the box. The bottom line is it sounds like hype me being quoted saying this kit is vastly superior to any panning kit on the market, but you know what - that's my opinion so there you go. It is the one I would buy looking at all the other options, and that's a fact. OK, the news release at http://www.minelab.com/usa/go-minelabbing/news?article=278075 says: "The PRO-GOLD kit will be on display at the Minelab Wedderburn Detector Jamboree 2016, being held on March 12th-13th, and available for sale from our Australian dealers soon afterwards. PRO-GOLD will be available outside of Australia from April/May onwards. The two pans and classifier will also be sold separately" Product information page at http://www.minelab.com/usa/accessories-1/pro-gold You can download the Pro-Gold panning kit Getting Started Guide And the pdf of the Full Color Brochure (jpg copies below) What does it sell for you ask? I don't know yet! I assume I will know by tomorrow since I will be in Las Vegas for the GPAA Gold Show the next two days to participate in the introduction of the panning kit. Maybe I will see a couple of you there.

A short video introducing the dryblower I got to process a bit of dirt. A photo with riffle trays in. Should have her catching some gold next week.

Here's a video showing how I've redesigned and made my monster 4" manual gold pump/dredge. I have a previous build version of this 4" manual gold pump on my youtube channel but due to trial & error, I have improved upon the previous design to make my 4" manual gold pump lighter, lose less material and create a smoother suction vacuum. These pumps are great to use where you are not allowed to use any mechanical processing to remove material from rivers & streams as this is a purely manual process. One of these 4" manual gold pumps can fill a 1/4" classifier in just 3-4 draws depending on the material being worked, so they can save a lot of time compared to smaller versions of the pump which can take 5-10 minutes to fill the same classifier. The cost to make one of these pumps is really minimal, especially if you can scavenge suitable parts because it doesn't have to look pretty as long as it works as its supposed to, I think this cost me about £15 in total to make ($25). I will be taking this pump out with me when my prospecting season starts in the coming weeks and hope to make some more videos to show how it works but if anyone wanted to make one as a project, I highly recommend it as it's a fun build with impressive results.

Here's a video describing how I have made a narrow river /. stream gold sluice. This gold sluice has been made with a combination of Vortex, Hi-Low & Gold Hog Razerback & Scrubber mats. The sluice is made of 2mm Aluminium which I had made & shaped at a local steel fabricators and the mats were off-cuts from someone else's sluice build, the other person had no use for them but they were the perfect size for what I wanted to make so the materials for this sluice haven't cost a lot at all. This gold sluice has been specifically made narrower than most sluices because I already have a gold sluice for general working conditions, this gold hog matted gold sluice has been made specifically to run in narrow streams and burns, where a normal size/width sluice would not fit. I have previously made a similar rain gutter sluice using ribbed matting but that only seemed to trap the finest of material due to the matting used, so this time I figured I'd use tried and tested matting to ensure the gold sluice will stand the best chance of finding gold from the material as possible.

Found this cool magnet while looking for other stuff. Thought I would throw it out there. Cheesy plunge magnets for black sand and what not always drove me nuts. But this is well built and for its size has impressive power 60lb pull and 17lb shear. Turn the switch to release the magnetic pull. Very cool. http://www.amazon.com/Magswitch-Keychain-Magnet-Yellow/dp/B00PHKMSPS/ref=pd_sim_469_25?ie=UTF8&dpID=41Z10OaUWPL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=18GF9R9E8E5STCPV19CQ

Caught some info online today about an inventor named ..............He spoke of a patented a process that treated black sand concentrates with gamma rays. this was said to have greatly increased recoverable gold. this ties in to a hypothosis i have abt "growing" gold. does anyone know anything about this process? Thanks.

I keep running into the term Dry Land Gold Dredge as used in desert placers in Arizona from roughly 1900-1945 era. Does anybody have any info or pictures of this machine and how it worked? Thanks. -Tom,ps, can't seem to find any info online..except Chuck Lassiters Hyroforce nozzle

I got into prospecting kinda hot and heavy. I like to build all my own equipment mainly cause I can at a much lower cost and have a better product than whats being sold commercially. I know this forum is mainly geared towards the prospector swinging a metal detector, if Steve does not mind I would like to post the how to build the Viper-Vac here in these forums. I also built this trommel and many other tools I use.

Has anybody used the mini gold rocker box made by Allan Trees from Gold Dredge Builders Warehouse in Idaho? It lists for $329 on the website but no details and I can't find any YouTube videos on it. Didn't Steve buy one of their $ 599 full size rockers a couple years ago? The smaller one would be more backpackable I would think and easier on my wallet. -Tom V

I was reading on another forum about a gold miner being found dead among "toxic chemicals that could cause an explosion", which made me want to ask the question, "What are your favorite gold leach solution?". I created a poll question. Whats your favorite solution? HH Mike

Here is a little video I helped make on using a mortar and pestle to recover gold from specimen rock. Some specimens are really beautiful (like the one Steve showed here recently) but some are more pedestrian, and not really valuable as mineral specimens. These need to be crushed to recover the gold and this video shows how to do it cheaply and easily.

Hi Guys Anybody Buy a Gold Hog Hogpan?? If so I would to get the total dimensions of the Hogpan? I know it's 18" x 10 1/2" on top. What is total height & bottom dimension? Got the mini excavator and it works great. Looks like a great pan, how do you guy's like it? Happy Huntin. Don't forget too vote Throw the BUMS out. Thx Jerry, Simper Fi