Worst prospecting equipment you have used?

[IowaRiverWalker]

What is the worst piece of equipment you have used or just didn't meet expectations? And why?

 

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[Goldwasher]

I don't think it's you. Miller tables are slower and less efficient than semi-competent panning.

slowest finishing device, requires too much babysitting.

Blue bowl is better its like an endless miller table and you don't need a paintbrush.

Classify and run in batches and its super quick.

 

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[Darth Placer]

I liked the blue bowl a lot.... it does work great but like the miller table its a slow process.... seemed to have a higher recovery rate then the miller table. (some gold will just roll right off of it)

But damn if I didn't spend the good part of a day using it to clean a days worth of dredging running each classification.

Now a days I just put a 16x36 wide drop riffle on the end of my dredge when I do a cleanup... cut the flow down to idle and pull each part and let it run through the drop riffle into a mason tub. At worst I have only found 3 specks in the tub. Nice part is I only have a small pans worth of cons to go through and it gives me a fast show of how good or not the spot is I am in.

 

[mike(swWash)]

I missed this topic 1st time around and it should be a sticky on top to help newbies avoid the mine the miner traps and get good and bad reviews before falling for the late$t/olde$t gimmick$.

That being said, my worst experience with mining equipment, excluding myself, is Docs flow pan because it works so well and I spend too much time bent over that it hurts my back to work it, and to squat stream side panning I need someone to help me stand up again.



The best equipment I've used is very subjective....For the beach black sands but is very time consuming is the Gold Cube, or my homemade sluice with vortex mats.
In the river I love my MacKirk Foreman with material classified to 1/4", for dredging, my 2.5" with my quad jet and even with the 6 pack sucks as much material as a 3"+ with a smaller high pressure pump on my sluice loaded with Doc's mats.
Nuff said

 

[oneguy]

I missed this topic 1st time around and it should be a sticky on top to help newbies avoid the mine the miner traps and get good and bad reviews before falling for the late$t/olde$t gimmick$.

That being said, my worst experience with mining equipment, excluding myself, is Docs flow pan because it works so well and I spend too much time bent over that it hurts my back to work it, and to squat stream side panning I need someone to help me stand up again.



The best equipment I've used is very subjective....For the beach black sands but is very time consuming is the Gold Cube, or my homemade sluice with vortex mats.
In the river I love my MacKirk Foreman with material classified to 1/4", for dredging, my 2.5" with my quad jet and even with the 6 pack sucks as much material as a 3"+ with a smaller high pressure pump on my sluice loaded with Doc's mats.
Nuff said

Got a chuckle from your post about the Flow Pan..... First I saw the promo video it hurt my back just watching it....lol I also have the Foreman and although I have pretty much switched over to detecting instead of sluicing I will NEVER part with my AM box!!!!!

 

[johnedoe]

These days..... Pretty much everything...LOL

 

[mytimetoshine]

Original Hog pan!. Thank God I unloaded mine on Ebay... Phew...

 

[Holyground]

Oh, without a doubt that would be my first wife. I couldn't get that hussey to dig for more than five minutes. " I'm tired, I'm thirsty, I have cramps," on and on and on.

 

[wildminer]

I never liked this piece of junk. Hated the riffles and should have reconfigured the whole thing. I was so steamed at the performance I forgot I leaned it on the pickup when I left the spot and ran over it! Best thing that ever happened! It's probably in China now as it went in the scrap pile. Good riddance!

 

[spillercanyon]

The Mckirk sluice.

The McKirk sluices work great in low water flow. Often a piece of equipment will work great in some situations and poorly in others, the trick is to have the right equipment for the situation. I have a McKirk for low flows, two BGTs, one for medium flows and one for large flows, and an old fashioned (odd make) aluminum sluice with Hungarian riffles for unpredictable and varying water flows (like in a storm) as well as extremely rough places where I would sooner or later break my plastic sluices.

 

[Darth Placer]

That was the first ill word I have ever heard about the Mckirk sluice .... after reading hundreds of thousands of posts on many forums. What sort of problems did you have with it? Kind of curious... and thinking some here can help with some tips and change your mind about it. It's one I never got around to buying... was content enough with a standard drop riffle style sluice so it just never happened.


The Falcon MD20 pin-pointer detector is the other one I never heard an ill word spoken about. I know some had a glitch but from what I understand there was an easy fix for it.

 

[Goldwasher]

That was the first ill word I have ever heard about the Mckirk sluice .... after reading hundreds of thousands of posts on many forums. What sort of problems did you have with it? Kind of curious... and thinking some here can help with some tips and change your mind about it. It's one I never got around to buying... was content enough with a standard drop riffle style sluice so it just never happened.


The Falcon MD20 pin-pointer detector is the other one I never heard an ill word spoken about. I know some had a glitch but from what I understand there was an easy fix for it.

i use the falcon to find the gold in quartz thad my minelab sees and I don't very useful/ essential for me

 

[placertogo]

Have to disagree with those who don't like the GoldHog Hog Pan. Obviously, a good stream sluice is faster but in those cases where there is not enough flow or a good area to setup for a sluice, the Hog Pan will process a lot of material fast, leaving great concentrates to work later at home. Three seasons of use have proven its worth to me.

 

[Goldwasher]

Have to disagree with those who don't like the GoldHog Hog Pan. Obviously, a good stream sluice is faster but in those cases where there is not enough flow or a good area to setup for a sluice, the Hog Pan will process a lot of material fast, leaving great concentrates to work later at home. Three seasons of use have proven its worth to me.

back breaker. was much slower for me than a super sluice pan

plus I don't have to be in the water to use a regular pan. just couldn't make it as fast and useful. Twenty plus years with a regular pan made it impossible for me to deal with.

 

[yotaboy86]

Black magic fine gold sluice is junk...once I learned to pan better I never touched it again

 

[bedrock bubba]

a pick & shovel I've seen people use them,

every time I use one I get blisters and a sore back.

all the gold just keeps falling back into the bottom of the hole.

seen people get good results digging the hole I halfway started.

Blisters and a sore back; That's means its working!It comes with the territory!
And don't dig your own holes, take over a hole that someone else had dug! Much easier!

 

[bedrock bubba]

Hacking on peoples pans or sluices seems almost pointless unless you are willing to list the big three:

1. Dowsing Rods
2. Long Range Locators
3. "Treasure" maps with symbols bigger than a town on a 1:500,000 scale map

The value of every other gold getting device is way more than these three.

Heavy Pans

Dowsing gold, etc. has always worked for me! Let me on your claim and can I keep all the gold I dowse?Just because you dont have the ability, doesn't mean others cant!

 

[bedrock bubba]

slowest finishing device, requires too much babysitting.

Blue bowl is better its like an endless miller table and you don't need a paintbrush.

Classify and run in batches and its super quick.

Blue Bowl way too slow on the feed.
Ended up using mine as a toilet!

 

[bedrock bubba]

When i was new to prospecting, I built may own WOODEN SLUICE. Real fun watching it float down the creek!