I am new to panning

[StevenHavillJr]

Hello everyone I am Steven and I have been researching how to pan for gold, I am looking for any advice as a beginner. I have invested in a few items to start practicing panning namely a Garrett 15" Super Sluice Gold Pan and a Garrett 14" Sifter/Classifier Gold Pan. I had found these from Kellyco's website.

I am getting into this hobby with my father whom has intrigued me about finding gold, so here I am looking for some tips, I have seen some instructional videos using BB's as if it were the gold but then I find paydirt on ebay and wonder if that would be better practice? Just curious about this stuff.

Any information you give me will be greatly appreciated and thank you for reading my post.

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[OKIE]

Welcome to Tnet Steven. Try using some lead fishing weight's, the split ones and brake them into and even cut them down in smaller pieces and hammer some of them flat. Make many different sizes ( the smaller the better) and practice panning with them. The flattened lead is more like gold than BB's. As far as ebay pay dirt, I wouldn't waste ur time or money. There are some guys here that would be better to get pay dirt from. kuger is a good guy he will do u right on pay dirt. As far as the rest its just a lot of reading and then getting out there and doing it. What part of the world are you in?
I hope this helps some, good luck

[StevenHavillJr]

Hey there, thanks for the welcome and response! I am from Southern California right near the beach. There is a fish store not far from me I am sure I could pick up some of the weights and do as instructed. I will be sure to get in contact with kuger about possible pricing.

Also how would I go about treating my pan?

[OKIE]

There are 2 ways to do this, 1 is fine grit sand paper...the one i recommend is go to the beach that u are close to and make a sand pile and put your pan on it up side down and press down on it twisting it back and forth until all the shine is gone and water dosn't bead up on it, dont do it so hard as to put nicks in ur pan, that will happen for real when it gets used alot...lol . also when you are panning into a tub even if it dosnt have gold in ur material u need to use a few drops of JET DRY to get rid of the water surface tension.

[OKIE]

I just posted my 1st you tube video also this might be of use to you if u get a sluice box.... you will need to know how to pan for sure but it's not a very efficient way to move a lot of material. .easy sluice box mod - YouTube

[StevenHavillJr]

I might give the sand paper a try have some real fine 100 grit here. I don't know when I will be by the beach to do that, so as long as the shine is gone right?

Checking the video.

[OKIE]

Yep and the water don't bead up in it. I used 80 on 1 of mine, not a good idea ... 100 120 or finer...with the 100 use it lightly to see how ruff its making it before really pressing into it.

[jcazgoldchaser]

[edit] found on another forum

[OKIE]

Ummm ...thats all fine if u dont want to keep ALL of your gold....lol... I wouldn't recommend that technique, but hay what ever works for ya!

[StevenHavillJr]

Watched your video interesting setup, hope it works out. Don't those keene's go for like 150$?

[OKIE]

I really don't know what they are new, I got mine off ebay for $75.00 + 15 Shipping

[StevenHavillJr]

From most of the videos I have watched it seems in this 1 it feels like your going way too fast o.o; I thought the joy of panning was taking your time XD (Response to jcazgoldchaser)

[OKIE]

LOL... there is nothing fun about panning to me ... its a pain in the rump ... but its part of it....LOL...i wouldn't EVER do it if i didn't need to!!!!!!!

[jcazgoldchaser]

Sorry for the confusion, I changed the message to indicate the video was found elsewhere. That isn't me or my work.

You notice he still had his lead at the end of the video? What's blah blah blah times heaver than lead?

I've watched a ton,.. A TON of these panning videos (and most tell you how much gold is heaver than lead, but I forgit).

Most are painfully slow panning and let me describe why (excluding possibly sticky clay situations).

Here's what they show you:

Fill pan with dirt
Get dirt completely wet
Shake pan in a violent manner (back n forth, figure 8, different techniques)
Dump off lights
Pick out larger rocks
Get more water in pan and repeat
Get down to black sand then watch for gold at the 'dump off lights' step
At some point, do the bump to move the gold up from the black sand

Where does the gold go when you shake the pan in the 3rd step?

The bottom of the pan. Otherwise you'd be losing gold in the 4th step.

You're shaking the pan to liquify the material to alow the gold to sink to the bottom. Once you do that for a bit, tip the pan up while still shaking.

Now where is the gold?

That corner where the bottom meets the side.

This is where the videos start slowly washing the material off the black sand. They'll even 'repeat' 4 or 5 times just getting down to the black sand. Why? Just drag all that crap outta there. Guy in the video flings it and the ripples catch the gold, and notice those aren't the fancy dancy supper ripples. I'm not quite that daring, but he did still have the lead at the end.


The only question I have and something I'll be playing around with more is how many shakes does it take to get the gold to the bottom,.....

[ohiochris]

Sorry for the confusion, I changed the message to indicate the video was found elsewhere. That isn't me or my work.

You notice he still had his lead at the end of the video? What's blah blah blah times heaver than lead?

I've watched a ton,.. A TON of these panning videos (and most tell you how much gold is heaver than lead, but I forgit).

Most are painfully slow panning and let me describe why (excluding possibly sticky clay situations).

Here's what they show you:

Fill pan with dirt
Get dirt completely wet
Shake pan in a violent manner (back n forth, figure 8, different techniques)
Dump off lights
Pick out larger rocks
Get more water in pan and repeat
Get down to black sand then watch for gold at the 'dump off lights' step
At some point, do the bump to move the gold up from the black sand

Where does the gold go when you shake the pan in the 3rd step?

The bottom of the pan. Otherwise you'd be losing gold in the 4th step.

You're shaking the pan to liquify the material to alow the gold to sink to the bottom. Once you do that for a bit, tip the pan up while still shaking.

Now where is the gold?

That corner where the bottom meets the side.

This is where the videos start slowly washing the material off the black sand. They'll even 'repeat' 4 or 5 times just getting down to the black sand. Why? Just drag all that crap outta there. Guy in the video flings it and the ripples catch the gold, and notice those aren't the fancy dancy supper ripples. I'm not quite that daring, but he did still have the lead at the end.


The only question I have and something I'll be playing around with more is how many shakes does it take to get the gold to the bottom,.....

In the video , the guy had some rather large pieces of lead , which of course stayed in the pan better but it was still just luck that all the pieces were still in there. Had it been fine gold or lead pieces he would have decorated his lawn with them LOL. Panning small fine gold , especially whats called "flour" gold , takes lots of patience , lots of resetting , and a slow tedious approach. Gold that size can even float given the right circumstances. Very small thin flakes can take a while to work their way forward in the pan and down into the sweet spot where you want it to collect for one reason or another , usually because of its shape and the fact that even though gold is king of the heavies , its still just a tiny little thing , many times it gets washed right out of the pan because you think it should be on the bottom by now.

[RotGrub]

Go out and start panning you'll get the feel for it quickly. If your worried, get yourself a mason tub (its a black tub used to mix morter for brick work) fill the tub with water and pan into it. If you lose something it will be in the tub. You'll need to learn the basics for panning but most don't pan down to the fine gold; it's good to know but takes too much time. We collect all the consentrates for the season and run them through a blue bowl or miller table. In the field we take the chunks and leave the fines for winter fun... You'll recover 10x the gold with a sluice box, learn to pan, then get a sluice box. If the bug bites you be prepared to buy dredges, highbankers, metal detectors and a whole bunch more equipment to feed your illness...

[jcazgoldchaser]

Thinking back about the thread, I believe the discussion was more on prospecting, not panning. That is, is this the spot I'm going to dig for the day.

Obviously if you've been panning on your hot spot for the day, you want to recover every speck from the dirt you've run.

[RotGrub]

And that video above is a fine example of how not to pan. There are pleanty good ones out there and you'll see the difference. That video is just wrong...

[StevenHavillJr]

Yeah the videos I mainly watch is from guy his name is Jeff Williams or known as ghosttownhunter on youtube.com. He did a recent one with how he pans but didn't know about treating the pan till someone on the channel asked if he treated his pan. nice to see lots of responses here, Howdy all.

[TheNewCatfish]

Well Steve. I've only been at this three years myself and i can save you some time and money. First of all, don't buy anything else until you actually FIND some gold. I met a guy at Point Bar, Colorado who bought $9,000 thousand dollars worth of equipment and hadn't even turned one shovel of dirt yet. He had a 4" dredge, scuba gear and everything else. He didn't find ANYTHING the two weeks he was there. So research ways to SAVE money first. You can make your own "Clay-B-Gone" cheap. It's only floride toothpaste and hydrogen peroxide and water. Jet Dry is a little better, but you won't find any of it at the dollar store. At some point you'll be thinking about buying a sluice. DON'T BUY ONE NEW OFF THE INTERNET, OR OUT OF A PROSPECTING STORE. I recommend you try some 3 inch plastic flexible sewer pipe from Home Depot first. About 3 foot should do it, cost around $3.50 a foot. Buy some thin wall PVC (The same length). Cut both pipes in half. Use waterproof glue to drop the sewer pipe into the PVC and hold it, (Keeps the thing straight, so it doesn't warp). Total cost should be under $30 dollars. If you can't find color with that, you arn't gonna find it with a one hundred twenty-five dollar KEEN Sluice either. Far as hand tools go, i recommend you buy a four foot iron breaker bar for around $30 bucks (try tool resale shops for a better price). Sooner or later you'll figure out the gold is bigger and more plentiful at bedrock. I don't know of a quicker, surer and easier way to punch through hard dry ground than using a breaker bar... unless you rent a back-hoe. Don't spend alot of money on classifiers either, until after you've had a look at the kitchen-ware section at a GoodWill Store. I've got some advice on where to start looking as well. You can PM me and i can tell you about some locations you may want to visit one day and a couple you will want to avoid.