Bought paydirt on ebay 5 pounds only .12 grams, is this normal ?

[GoldMine21]

I bought for the first time paydirt. It was 5 pounds of Whiskey Petes Gold on ebay. I paid $27.75 for the 5 pounds and was super excited. I expected to get at least 10 dollars worth in gold but I only had .12 grams of gold. I sluiced it and panned it about 10 times. I couldn't believe how little was in there. I know paydirt is for learning experiences, but is this normal for 5 pounds of paydirt for that price ? He has such good reviews I assumed it would be good dirt. Is .12 grams a lot for 5 pounds of paydirt bought online ? Can you recommend anyone that has better paydirt ? Like I said I know its for learning experiences, but I still expected a bit more than that, or is this normal ?

 

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[Lanny in AB]

I ordered some paydirt for my mother-in-law once. She used to go to the gold creeks with us and pan, but then her health deteriorated and she couldn't get out in the mountains with us anymore. HOWEVER, I ordered the dirt from a site where they loaded exactly the gold amount in the dirt that we ordered. We ordered a 1/2 ounce for her, and specified the size of gold to boot, as her eyesight ain't great.

She had lots of fun panning it, and we even salted it with a six-gram nugget for extra electric effect.

If I had to do it again, I'd just use some of my own gold, and some of my own dirt.

I really believe if you want to take the gamble out of dirt you order to pan, pick a site that will custom load it (as others have said), or buy your own gold and salt your own dirt; that way there's no disappointment.

Buying dirt to pan without knowing what you're getting is kind of like pulling the arm on a slot-machine; there's no guarantees whatsoever. If you want more of a sure thing than putting your money into a slot-machine, try a vending machine instead. If you want more of a sure thing on dirt, know exactly what you're paying for before you order. Dirt sellers have to make a profit, and they're not going to give their gold away . . .

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[Goodyguy]

I gather that's your pics from Oatman, GG?
at least the wild burros roaming the street is.

Yep the Burros were in Oatman AZ one of the side trips we took while scouting the area.
The other photos are from near Searchlight Nevada, Quartzite AZ, Gold Basin AZ, Rich Hill AZ, and Chloride AZ.

Those are just a small sample of areas we prospected the last couple of years.

GG~

 

[johnedoe]

Yep the Burros were in Oatman AZ one of the side trips we took while scouting the area.
The other photos are from near Searchlight Nevada, Quartzite AZ, Gold Basin AZ, Rich Hill AZ, and Chloride AZ.

Those are just a small sample of areas we prospected the last couple of years.

GG~

Hey Goodguy....
You really need to try and get out a little more..... Hate to see ya just sitting around....

 

[mikep691]

Get a Charter Membership before you start selling dirt to greenhorns.

Terry, I do not sell paydirt, and I'm no selling anything now. I do this once or twice during my mining season. I like the opinions that I get from the people that choose to pay the postage. I don't sell paydirt. There is no leading up to selling it either. There is no catch, no leader to buy more. NOTHING. If that is breaking your rules, then I'll withdraw the offer to satisfy your charter membership status.

 

[delnorter]

Too late, I'm reserving a box now Mikep691. As a matter of fact, I'll send you a box from my neck of the woods and we can compare results.

We can exchange PMs when you like.

Thanks Mike
Mike

 

[GoldMine21]

For Mikep691 to offer his dirt for only shipping is pretty generous to me. Most people would not do that. He doesn't make any guarantees and even went as far as saying there may be nothing in it. He makes nothing from it. He is doing all the work for no return. I would say that is pretty nice of him to do. Just figured I would point that out.

 

[stephen583]

Dawn dishwashing liquid is generally used as an alternative to the pricy internet products that do the same thing. If I ran out of dawn, I'd certainly use what ever else I had, like a squirt of WD-40 in a pan (and I have). The result is similar. It just lubricates and helps separate the material in the pan.

BTW. Goldwasher, I suggested the "poop tube" sluice as a PROSPECTING tool, not as a PRODUCTION sluice. Go back and re-read the post. In addition, If you are shoveling raw unclassified dirt onto a stream sized production sluice, you don't know what you are doing anyways. Only sprinkle classified concentrate on your register pad, unless you want to clog your sluice riffles up with a bunch of worthless mud, and watch all your gold just blow out the end of the sluice (which sort of defeats the purpose of having riffles in a sluice), don't you think ? Of course you should always have a catch pan at the end of your sluice, but that isn't a cure all for not knowing how to use a sluice properly.

If anyone constructs and uses a "poop tube" sluice, you'll immediately notice the water pouring over the ribs repeatedly forms a "V" pattern in the water about every six inches, or so. That gives you a "V" water pattern Five Times in a two and a half foot long "poop tube" sluice. This "V" pattern following the register pad, is crucial to correctly setting up any stream sluice. If you don't think the "poop tube" sluice is an effective, lightweight prospecting tool.. try it is all I can say. For less than ten dollars, I don't see how you could possibly go wrong.

 

[mikep691]

Too late, I'm reserving a box now Mikep691. As a matter of fact, I'll send you a box from my neck of the woods and we can compare results.

We can exchange PMs when you like.

Thanks Mike
Mike

That sounds like a good idea Mike. I'm always up for trying out other area's dirt. But I am pretty spoiled with Meat Creek dirt. I'll be opening up new bedrock this season and have a boat load of surface gravels to move. It may take a few weekends to get to the good stuff. Once I get to the the best gravels right on top of that bedrock, I'll sucker tube a bucket to bring home to package up. Shoot me a PM and we can exchange info there.

 

[stephen583]

Actually I've been building my own stream sluice boxes for years. I stopped using riffles, miners moss and gravel guards almost immediately. Throwing unclassified, unprocessed soil on a sluice is counterproductive. At first thought, that might seem like the best way to get the most gold. Just have three gorillas shoveling raw dirt onto a sluice box. LOL. Then you look at the time someone spends removing the sluice from the creek, removing all those gadgets, cleaning them, reinstalling them and resetting the sluice in the creek.. and here come the gorillas with more shovels of soil, and five minutes later it's time for another cleanout (while the gorillas stand around leaning on their shovels smoking cigarettes). Doesn't sound very efficient to me, and when you see it for yourself, it doesn't look very efficient either.

The trick is to properly classify and wash your soil BEFORE you throw it on the registry pad of your sluice (and I'm not just talking about shaking it through a screen, which doesn't remove clay, or mud). First you set up a wet five gallon bucket with a solution of my homemade "Clay-B-Gone". The biggest rocks from the digging that won't go on the screen are washed off in this mixture (because there might be some flour gold clinging to them). Wear a kitchen rubber glove, or you'll rub the skin off your hands cleaning the rocks.

The wet bucket solution is two gallons of water, a couple squirts of fluoride tooth paste (that gives you a free ion of fluoride) and some hydrogen peroxide (that gives you a free ion of hydrogen). You can make this for about $2 dollars. This is what archeologists use to liquefy clay and mud. The mixture is perfect when it turns a pretty blue. The solution in the bucket can be reused a couple of times.

After you wash off the big rocks, you return to the dry bucket and place some dirt on a 1/4 inch screen held over it. Again.. with your gloved hand vigorously work the dirt through the screen down into the bucket. Once you have a pretty good amount of gravel and small rocks on the screen, take this material over to the wet bucket and wash it as well. Afterwards, just toss it if you don't see anything interesting in it (like something gold colored). Repeat the process until you have a substantial amount of classified dirt in the dry bucket. Carry it over to the wet bucket and pour it in while you stir the solution rapidly with a stick. Pour the solution into another bucket, careful not to pour any of your clean concentrate into the bucket. All that will now be left in your wet bucket is a little water, some small heavies, white sand, black sand and of course gold.

Step over to your stream sluice and gingerly sprinkle the clean concentrate onto the registry pad. I incorporate two, or three "Razor Hog" rubber gold mats in my sluice. Nothing else. No Hungarian riffles, no miners moss, no gravel guards. They aren't necessary. The Razor Hog mats will catch every piece of gold (even the finest flour gold). The white sand and black sand mostly just floats over them. I tested them, and retested them dozens of times. They are all you need in your sluice box if you've properly classified and washed your dirt. Don't believe me ? Test them yourself. You won't ever buy a Keen sluice, or any of that other junk off the internet again.

 

[49er4ever44]

^^ prospecting lecture for the day ^^

 

[Hamfist]

What the?!?.....For all the kids out there reading this thread, DO NOT spray WD-40 on yourselves. And don't drink gasoline.


5 lbs is approx a small shovel (full or so). There are 300-350 shovel scoops in a cubic yard. That's around an ounce per yard. Not bad for "pay dirt!"

 

[Goldwasher]

Actually I've been building my own stream sluice boxes for years. I stopped using riffles, miners moss and gravel guards almost immediately. Throwing unclassified, unprocessed soil on a sluice is counterproductive. At first thought, that might seem like the best way to get the most gold. Just have three gorillas shoveling raw dirt onto a sluice box. LOL. Then you look at the time someone spends removing the sluice from the creek, removing all those gadgets, cleaning them, reinstalling them and resetting the sluice in the creek.. and here come the gorillas with more shovels of soil, and five minutes later it's time for another cleanout (while the gorillas stand around leaning on their shovels smoking cigarettes). Doesn't sound very efficient to me, and when you see it for yourself, it doesn't look very efficient either.

The trick is to properly classify and wash your soil BEFORE you throw it on the registry pad of your sluice (and I'm not just talking about shaking it through a screen, which doesn't remove clay, or mud). First you set up a wet five gallon bucket with a solution of my homemade "Clay-B-Gone". The biggest rocks from the digging that won't go on the screen are washed off in this mixture (because there might be some flour gold clinging to them). Wear a kitchen rubber glove, or you'll rub the skin off your hands cleaning the rocks.

The wet bucket solution is two gallons of water, a couple squirts of fluoride tooth paste (that gives you a free ion of fluoride) and some hydrogen peroxide (that gives you a free ion of hydrogen). You can make this for about $2 dollars. This is what archeologists use to liquefy clay and mud. The mixture is perfect when it turns a pretty blue. The solution in the bucket can be reused a couple of times.

After you wash off the big rocks, you return to the dry bucket and place some dirt on a 1/4 inch screen held over it. Again.. with your gloved hand vigorously work the dirt through the screen down into the bucket. Once you have a pretty good amount of gravel and small rocks on the screen, take this material over to the wet bucket and wash it as well. Afterwards, just toss it if you don't see anything interesting in it (like something gold colored). Repeat the process until you have a substantial amount of classified dirt in the dry bucket. Carry it over to the wet bucket and pour it in while you stir the solution rapidly with a stick. Pour the solution into another bucket, careful not to pour any of your clean concentrate into the bucket. All that will now be left in your wet bucket is a little water, some small heavies, white sand, black sand and of course gold.

Step over to your stream sluice and gingerly sprinkle the clean concentrate onto the registry pad. I incorporate two, or three "Razor Hog" rubber gold mats in my sluice. Nothing else. No Hungarian riffles, no miners moss, no gravel guards. They aren't necessary. The Razor Hog mats will catch every piece of gold (even the finest flour gold). The white sand and black sand mostly just floats over them. I tested them, and retested them dozens of times. They are all you need in your sluice box if you've properly classified and washed your dirt. Don't believe me ? Test them yourself. You won't ever buy a Keen sluice, or any of that other junk off the internet again.[/QUOT



Stephan they are called Gold Hog , one of his matt types is "Razor Back" Doc built his sluice so that you don't have to classify.

Dawn in anything makes suds you don't want suds. A surfactant is better like Jet-Dry. Put dawn in a recirc and you will not be happy. Most guys using clay be gone are using it in the desert in recirc systems. Once your panning cons you don't really need it. there is no way to use it in an open system.

A fun prank the kids to to the fountains at the malls here is to add some concentrated dish soap to the water in the middle of the night by morning the foam blob is huge. Driving through one is fun the foam blows and floats everywhere.

Mytimetoshine may have seen them do it on El Dorado Hills Blvd. and White Rock Road. Seems to be a local favorite.

I will out " prospect" a poop tube with a gold pan.

When it's time to sluice it's time to sluice. I am not blowing out my gold.

Cleaning up more than once or twice day is counter productive. Unless your changing spots.

Claeaning out a sluice or two even with riffles is not a major task or time consuming. If it takes more than ten minutes something is wrong.

Sluice boxes were invented for situations that you have water. So, that less people could run more material in less time and get more gold.

A sluice is there to use the water to break up material, allow gold to settle out and move tailings away from you.
Three foot stream sluices do get finicky at low flow and riffles are problematic, for through put
The main advantage of classifying for a sluice is to concentrate the material and be able to use less water.
If you have the water and length you can shovel like a gorrilla and get great recovery.

You are right about riffles being a hang up though large heavies can move down a sluice so having a nugget trap is key.
The high majority of all gold put into a sluice box will settle out in the first foot. The head of a sluice is the slowest water.
Fast water carries the light material away once the gold settles it is hard to get it to move again.

My feed sluice is low profile, 1/8 thick expanded over moss and carpet. major research in the Yukon and field results prove that it is an excellent set up for fine gold recovery. Everything after that is for just in case.

I have to be able to catch anything from gram plus nuggets, quartz with gold attached and fines down to flea poops in the same system. And I do. Easily down to 200 mesh.

Based on your perception of how sluices work a suction dredge would never work. Granted because of water volume and material size once your over a 3" fine recovery needs some tweaking. Hence multi stage sluices.

A lot of guys are scared to run material. They blame their recovery on their gear. Nine times out of ten it's the dirt being ran. Coupled with the fact that they aren't running enough of it.

Because they are spending too much time over a classifier and bucket and not enough time feeding their sluice.

 

[Goldwasher]

The elusive Mother Lode Gorilla pile

 

[Goldwasher]

Though the modern Mother Lode Gorilla doesn't hold a candle to the efforts of the shorter 19th century variety.

 

[Goldwasher]

Sluice boxes are where concentrates come from.. Please forgive the tangent fellas

This is for you guys that haven't seen this.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/61880538/The-Clarkson-Study-Fine-Gold-Recovery

 

[stephen583]

What the?!?.....For all the kids out there reading this thread, DO NOT spray WD-40 on yourselves. And don't drink gasoline.


5 lbs is approx a small shovel (full or so). There are 300-350 shovel scoops in a cubic yard. That's around an ounce per yard. Not bad for "pay dirt!"

WD-40 is perfectly safe to put on your skin. I've been using it to treat arthritis in my hands forever. Mechanics spray it on rags to clean their tools and it hasn't ever killed anyone. If you read the instructions on the can, it even plainly states it can be ingested orally without harm (Not Recommended).

 

[stephen583]

Here's another innovation you might want to consider when comparing stock aluminum stream sluices sold on the internet to one of your own design. Why on God's green earth would anyone in the right mind construct a stream sluice out of lightweight aluminum alloy that's just going to try to float away on you in a current The only crazier thing I can think of is a stream sluice constructed of balsa wood.

The most important consideration to properly setting up a stream sluice, is insuring it stays level and stable, You don't want your sluice to float, shift, or go out of level. You don't want your sluice to move at all. SO here come the slabs of rock to weigh down your aluminum sluice. One isn't going to do it. Now you notice you can't see the bed of the sluice and determine if it's working properly without removing the rock slabs to check it. Then what happens ? Your stream sluice shifts and you're back to square one. (Result), Lots of wasted time and effort when you could have been running material instead.

(Solution). Make your sluice box out of IRON. Most metal shops will cut you off a two and a half foot piece of sluice shaped 1/16th inch thick iron for less than $40 dollars. if you're lucky, they may even have a piece of scrap laying around that will fit your purpose they don't even have to cut. I bought one such piece for $25 dollars in Durango Colorado.

Spray the iron sluice box with marine primer (iron does rust in water), glue in your Razor Hog Gold Mats and you're done. Throw a couple of big stones on either side and a big stone at the end.. and if this thing floats off, or shifts on you. you've simply set your sluice in too strong a current. I've never seen mine float away.

The weight of a two and a half foot long 1/16th inch thick iron sluice box isn't really that extreme. I'm 60 years old, and I have no problem packing mine in on a six mile hike.

Compared to the pricey lightweight aluminum sluices sold on the internet (and that doesn't include the price of the gadgets, like Hungarian rifles, miners moss and gravel screens) I'd have to say a $40 dollar iron sluice box is a pretty good deal.

 

[deserdog]

Sluices, be they plastic, aluminum, steel or wood are not that hard to set up.

 

[Oregon Viking]

My sluice doesn't move unless I move it. Lightweight aluminum alloy is light, and it doesn't rust.
With the sluice box stand and adjustable legs it is very easy to set up. And it does not float.
I can set this sluice up extremely fast, and once the legs are set, it can be adjusted even faster.

 

[stephen583]

My sluice doesn't move much. Lightweight aluminum alloy is light, and it doesn't rust.
With the sluice box stand and adjustable legs it is very easy to set up.

A stream sluice box doesn't have to move much to effect it's efficiency a whole lot. Just a slight elevation on one side and your sluice is no longer level and all the material rushes over to one side.

As for lightweight aluminum sluice boxes being easy to properly set up in a current and manage, the newbies will learn there's no truth in that statement the first time they give it a try. It's a total nightmare. and they'll end up selling that aluminum sluice for less than 30% of what they paid for it, because aluminum stream production sluices boxes don't hold their value, because they are strictly speaking.. JUNK. You'd probably do better taking it to a metal scrap yard and selling it to them.



View attachment 1417815

A stream sluice box doesn't have to move much for it to become useless. A miniscule rise of elevation on one side is all it takes to cause all the material to rush over to one side of the box.

As for lightweight aluminum sluice boxes being easy to set up and manage in a current, the newbies will learn how erroneous that statement is the first time they try it. They'll also learn stock aluminum sluice boxes sold on the internet do not hold there value when resold. They'll be lucky to get 30% of what they paid for it, because strictly speaking.. It's JUNK !