greenie question

[tweeta_bear]

i was up on the creek one day and found a black gold pan. i myself have a 14" blue and green prospector pans. i notice the riffles are different, why is this? the riffles on the blue and green are way bigger. with these size riffles do i really need to turn my pan around to finish off the pan? (yes i still use the BB's in my pan. i was told if i use them and they stay in my pan that any gold thats in there will say too.

 

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[rocme44]

The black pan has been around a long time and is used by many.
I don't use it because it is not nearly effective as most newer models.

The Garret was the bible for many years and is still a very good pan.
It is expensive and heavy. also it is bigger than I like for clean up (good
for prospecting) Their small pan has a bad relationship between overall
size and bottom size. I still have one that is about 25 years old and
haven't used it in years.

Your blue one looks like the one I now use. The store where I bought it
told me not to buy it because of the angled connection between the
sides and the bottom. The garret has right angle connection. I like both
but they work different. Practice will make you good with either. Don't get
one with rounded connection.

The blue one is inexpensive, Light, small enough to fit my back pack and
it works well.

Hope this helps. If you have more questions, ask.

Where in N.CA are you? I live in AZ but prospect in N. CA doring the summer.

Luck!

 

[goldenIrishman]

A lot of people use the smaller pans as "Finishing" pans. The smaller riffles allow the blonde/black sands to move out of the pan a bit easier (or so they say). I've never had much use for the smaller pans myself as they just feel strange in my hand. When I first started out prospecting I had some black pans that had "Arrow Traps" molded into the bottom. Never caught a single arrow but they did work well on trapping fine gold.

There are some people that never get it through their heads that you have to adjust your method of panning according to what type of gold you're getting. You can be more aggressive with larger gold while with smaller flour gold the same action would send it over the edge of the pan and into the tailings. Still it never hurts to check the tailings to make sure you didn't loose anything. If you're getting mixed sizes of gold then pann as if you only had the smallest size in there and you won't loose much if any over the edge.

I've been doing this for years and still check the tailings before I toss them into the "Driveway repair materials pile". yeah.. I'm sure that I've missed a piece or two but at least I've got a driveway paved with (a little) gold!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Hey Rockme.... where in AZ are ya at?

 

[B H Prospector]

Hi tweeta,
The reason you want to turn your pan around even though you have the big riffles is it is easier to clean more of the blacksand out and have cleaner gold. Go to youtube and watch this video "gold panning made easy 40 + years experiance". He doesn't use the modern pans but you will see how he gets the gold nice and clean. It is a very good short video. I use this method with the modern pans and turn it around.

Good Luck!

BH Prospector

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

I have a green Garrett gravity trap that I use for most panning, but I do have a cheap black like you found. I bought it at big5 for like ten bucks. I like the big green one better, but I will my cons in the black pan over the big green pan. The thing I do like about those black pans is that where the sides meet the bottom there is a little bit of a lip, prob less than 1/4" but I find that when panning down cons the gold will stay put better sometimes than it does in the other pans.

 

[tweeta_bear]

lol the yellow brick driveway? oh and im in colorado. im asking because i made a sluice out of a 3 1/2" metal track with deep v ribbed matting. and i took the biggest chunk of gold i have and and put it in a spoon full of material and fead it into the track, it washed right threw into my tailing bucket. now im panning out those tailings tryn to find it. if i find it im not even gonna run the 5 5 gallons buckets full of classified material im gonna pan them all out. i dont understand why im finding pickers but very many fines unless im just doing everything wrong. i hear so many conflicting techniques that i dont know if in coming or going. like my sluice, its a keene A52 and ive been told that it should almost be full of water and ive been told just enough to cover the riffles, so who knows what its suppose to be. back to the pans. it appears that if i hold my pan up at 90deg the riffles in my pan still have a lip preventing the gold from going over. i have a small blue finish pan.

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

It could be you just don't have a lot of fines in your area? The keene sluices work well and hold very small gold. Keep at it, panning is kind of an art form, and every artist holds his brush differently. Watch the videos, practice with lead or real gold, and see what works best for you.

 

[tweeta_bear]

well here is what i have found this yr. im gonna keep at it.

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Yes! Keep at it, your doing something right! Here's what I found my first year. And the second is a one is the same vial compared to what we found in a day, ince we found a better area, and honed our skills a bit Good luck!
This is my first year too... Although I did a little prospecting in my early 20s.

 

[rocme44]

Kingman, Yuma depending the time of year.
Now, Yuma
Spring and fall, Kingman.
Summer, N, California