Last Post 15 Jun 2016 06:13 AM by  Mary McCarty
Pan modification for fine gold recovery
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Benjamin Crain
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14 Jun 2016 07:43 PM

    I was at a gold show recently and one of our old timers was taking a knife and scraping his pan, I had to look twice at what he was doing. If you are new to prospecting I will tell you a little secret, the uglier your pan is the better it will hold gold.

    The riffles on most of the pans are large enough to catch nuggets but do nothing to trap the fine gold, that comes from experience and technique, but just a few simple modifications to your pan can make a huge difference in the gold you catch, especially the fine stuff.

    In the first picture I am using a paring knife on a pan provided when I renewed my membership to slowly carve out a small gap at the corner of the pan, you don't need to do this too deep, maybe just a 1/32nd of an inch, but it creates a gap for the really fine material to get trapped in. If you notice this pan has a wide bottom which is extremely important with fine gold.

    The second image I am showing a shallow bowl with large riffles and even though the pan is large and has a gravity drop it will work with large chunky gold but you will be in hell trying to get out the fine stuff.

    Make sure you always treat your water with the soap of your choice, and ABSOLUTELY make sure you scrub your new pan in until it looks like it is ruined.

    One other thing, that old timer cuts the sides of his pans down just enough so they fit perfectly in his bucket so he doesn't have to carry them, and this is a patent waiting to happen!

    Benjamin Crain
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    14 Jun 2016 07:45 PM
    Second Pan
    Benjamin Crain
    Basic Member
    Basic Member
    Posts:351



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    14 Jun 2016 07:57 PM
    If you are a panner that likes to walk your gold up the side you know how important that smooth bank can be, that is why I only carve out the side with the riffles and use the back side of the pan to walk what I can.
    Benjamin Crain
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    Basic Member
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    14 Jun 2016 08:14 PM
    One last thing, when you modify the pan do it by scraping the corner, not trying to cut into it. The knife blade needs to be straight up and down as you move it back and forth, if you try to cut the groove you will either cut a hole in the pan or create a gash.
    Mary McCarty
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    15 Jun 2016 06:13 AM
    Posted By Benjamin Crain on 14 Jun 2016 08:14 PM

    One last thing, when you modify the pan do it by scraping the corner, not trying to cut into it. The knife blade needs to be straight up and down as you move it back and forth, if you try to cut the groove you will either cut a hole in the pan or create a gash.

    Looks like a sensible plan. I have those pans in both full size and 10".

    I fired up the miller table for the first time yesterday.

    Much to my very pleasant surprise, I only found maybe a dozen flecks of fine gold from the 4 lbs. of dirt I'd already panned. Looks like I have not forgotten the panning technique that mom taught me.

     I cleaned up my magnetic black sands by passaging them about 6 times with the supermagnet in a pill bottle. Cut the volume in half doing that, harvesting off the dry blond sands then ran _that_ over the miller table. That sand had not been panned so I got one good flake out of that (about 3 oz. of sand) along with a good  2 or 3 dozen flecks of finer gold.

    Now I need to pan the gravels that I sifted off thru the screen colander. I'm going to classify that first thru 1/4", 1/8" and 1/16 inch screens and pan it in three batches on the off chance there are any small nuggets in it. It's about 1 lb.



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