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Looking to maybe buy a dry washer. What does everyone like? Power blower, electric bellows, size, brand ext.. Is one brand better than another for fine gold recovery or do they all preform the same or close to the same. I would be grateful for all information. Thanks Greg,

Whippet Dry Washer LLC Are they still in business? I have one and need parts. The phone number I have has been disconnected. There office is in either Palmdale, Ca or in Littlerock, Ca. Mark Belfield makes a great little dry washer that works great. Does anyone have any information on the company? Thanks

I got me a Gold Buddy Drywasher a few years ago from a friend. Never used it, now I have plans to use it, and can't find the insert that holds the Drywasher cloth under the riffles. If anyone has one and can shoot me a picture of it? And or any other ideas of what cloth to use? Much appreciated. I would have put this in the gold prospecting forum, but wanted to get some exposure on here first. Steve can move it or delete it after I get some help from you guys.

Does anyone have experience with this drywasher? Do they work well? I cannot find anything on the internet about it.

Hello, recently I've been given some of my Uncle's things that he used while prospecting in California from the 1970's until about 1995 in the motherlode area, I only panned as a child and observed stream dregding so this is all new to me. I received an E-Z Pickins dry vac back pack. It's missing a few things so it needs work, but it has a manual of 27 pages in fairly decent shape. If anyone wants a copy I'm willing to make them one cost of materials and a small processing fee for my time. I have a copy of Dry Washing for Gold thats 81 pages if anyone is searching for that publication. Thank you.

Primarily my time out in the desert is spent detecting on the chance I’ll find something larger, but checking different spots for fine gold I think might help with that too so I’ve been looking for a little Drywasher I can fit in my Jeep and will be portable for sampling different spots without to much hassle. Every time out I bring home 5 gallons of dirt from promising spots except my choices haven’t been very good yet and getting rid of the dirts a hassle so I’m moving the show to on location. Coincidentally starting with their mower I’m building an inventory of the EGO 56v garden tools some with batteries some bare bones and now have 2, 2.5 amp-hrs and 1, 5 amp-hr battery all interchangeable. In the collection is the leaf blower they claim out performs equivalent gas models and it seems to be true. I’m sitting here testing it now on a low medium speed with the 5 amp-hr battery I got 90 minutes and with the other two batteries on hand I should have somewhere around 3 hrs continuous run time total. They also sell a backpack contractor battery for over a $1K I think must be around 28 amp-hrs (correction) if you need long lasting power. Couple days ago I ordered a Royal Explorer Drywasher the size was right, wasn’t to expensive and seemed what I was looking for to pair with the electric blower and then will head out for a real test although I suspect this will be perfect for what I have in mind. I’ll post a video and pictures when I get a chance and have the little dry washer in hand.

Finally finished the new dry blower I have been building with 5 Keene 151 trays . Then took her out for a trial and got her dirty! Works bloody great!! I did a video but havent finished editing, will upload it a bit later.

Last night I read a very interesting (IMO) article by Chris Ralph in the June, 2019 issue of the ICMJ (https://www.icmj.com/) titled "How Long Does It Take to Find and Recover an Ounce of Gold". There are a lot of caveats Chris lists, which makes it dangerous for me to summarize what was written. Further, there is a fine line between showing results from a magazine/journal which needs money to stay afloat and requiring interested parties to simply pay for a subscription. IMO, anyone halfway serious about searching for native gold (and there's more there than just gold) should be a subscriber. Most importantly, his estimates certainly depend upon the ground you are covering -- this should be obvious to everyone and I hope simply mentioning it will squelch any attempt to quibble at his results. Basically there is a lot of uncertainty around Chris's numbers, which he is well aware of, but it's still interesting to hear from an expert who has used all of these methods countless times. I was surprised at some of his estimates. In order longest (least efficient) to shortest: Panning: 42 hrs, Metal Detecting: 40 hrs, Sluicing/Highbanking: 30 hrs, Dry Washing: 30 hrs, Dredging: 20 hrs, Hard Rock Mining: 8 hrs. I think it's worth emphasizing that this is a time efficiency, not a cost efficiency. Panning is clearly the least expensive with hard rock mining by far the most. Chris also points out that the leadup time/research/preparation & cost are vastly different -- hard rock mining being the obvious extreme.

Hello Everyone! I am new to the forum and to metal detecting/prospecting. Hoping to meet some local folks with the same interests and everyone in between! Chris Mitchell (TXAUHunter)

been thinking about purchasing a dry washer and seen the whippet dry washer on another site was curious if anyone has any experience with the Whippet Drywasher looks like it would be a pretty light little unit thanks for any and all input on it

Hi Guys, My mate has an EZ Pickens backpack style dry blower vac. Hasn't been used in a long while. Its a wild looking piece of equipment, looks like a jet pack! I have been unable to find any information, manuals, value etc for it and wanted to put the feelers out overseas to see what i can find. Google only shows up some old private sales and its mentioned in a few threads...nothing in google 'images' either. I would like to clean it up, value it and see where to from there. Any assistance much appreciated:) Giddiup

Considering buying a Keene 190 but having a difficult time finding reviews or anyone who owns one. Any experiences or input would be appreciated.....thanks!

What is the smallest mesh gold that a dry washer can realistically, consistently recover? Any feed back appreciated.

Just got back from my claims near Ridgecrest and couldn't believe how much rain and snow this area of the high desert received in the past 2 months. Looking north west to north east, the southern Sierra Nevada, Inyo, Argus and Panamint mountain ranges were just blanketed in snow down to 4000"........just beautiful. I can't remember the last time I've seen it like this. Standing puddles of water all over the claim, so much for drywashin. Even dug several holes with the slightest hope of hitting something dry enough to run but no chance. One hole that I dug 4' deep by 4' wide actually had water starting to seep in at the bottom! The only time mining the desert that I actually wished I had a power sluice back in the truck instead of my drywasher. Decided to go into town, have a beer and consider my options as I didn't feel like driving all the way back to San Diego so soon. Ran into an old timer at the bar who I've seen working his claims near by and wandered over to say hi. He said that he'd seem me around as well and was glad that I came over and introduced myself. Dennis was his name and has been drywashing the area for over 40 years and a heck of a nice fella. He said that the last time he'd seen so much winter rain around here (Randsburg) was well over 10 years ago and most areas were not even fit for drywashing til fall! So I bought him a beer and split my Subway sandwich with him while he told me a couple stories and shared some great mining tips. Even though I didn't find so much as a speck of gold this weekend meeting this old miner was a rich experience in its self. Suppose I should get serious about that power sluice idea after all.

Hey guys, Need your guidance on a drywasher. Any recommendations and sites to buy it from? Thanks Zee

Hi, I am a 5 month noob to metal detecting, past 6 weeks with my new Gold Bug (non manual gb model). When working DW tails do you guys shoot both piles? I have not been working the finer box end tails , just the coarser back end stuff. Is it a mistake ?

Hey everyone, just wanted to start a new topic on Drywashing for gold in Australia. Here's a video of me and my mate Pete out on a quick overnighter' it's still dry enough here at the moment but finding time to get out before it starts raining might stop us from more footage this season. Steve' feel free to move it to a more relevant section if needed, also if others want to add info video's etc to the same topic feel free just keep the topic on Australia. enjoy'

Going to finally get a gold trip in last week of Oct, hopefully, i heard that area got some good rains recently,just wondering what you guys that have been near winnemucca think about bringing my drywasher ,is the ground still too damp. I heard they had 2 storms that dumped 1/2 of rain each one.

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.

I have a goldbuddy stallion that I use in ore.nev. deserts wouldlike to know if anyone has this d.w.? If so do you have any suggestions that may help in recovery? I have learned a few things that work for me but looking for more ideas that may help.