Switching from Good Wheel

TintedSnow

Full Member
Sep 25, 2016
143
147
Anchorage, Alaska
Detector(s) used
Equinox 800, White's Goldmaster
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hey all,
I’m thinking I want to switch up from using my gold wheel for separating out sands and whatnot. I use a good cube for all my mining, then usually my wheel, but my wheel is broken and it’s turning into more of a project than I’d like. I’m also not to keen on it. Any suggestions I should swap to? Mini Miller table or something?
 

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DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
5,833
11,574
Concrete, WA
Detector(s) used
Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
If I try and watch the gold collect in a spiraling gold wheel, I'll likely
end up with a vertigo attack. :laughing7:

Miller tables are..well, they're just fun, and you get to see your
gold right off the bat. That, and they are much easier to make
with materials at hand.

I made mine using part of an old solid wood tabletop, a couple
of 1x2's and some green chalkboard paint. There's a number
of effective surfaces you can use as a top. Make a spray bar
(or take the one out of your wheel), use a battery powered
pump and Bob's yer uncle. :occasion14:
 

russau

Gold Member
May 29, 2005
7,279
6,735
St. Louis, missouri
I also made several of these and I liked them!! Like DD said ,they are EZ to make and I've made them out of what ever and used the "Black Board" spray paint and ,my favorite , dark Slate!! the sprayed "Black Board " paint works just fine but if you use it a lot it'll get scratched up and need to be repainted ,where as the slate keeps on giving! Another neat little trick is to drill a hole in a isolated spot out of the main stream of the table and secure a glass gold vile into it so that as the fine gold starts popping up you can use a little brush to move the gold over into the vile ! This trick works great. I liked my wheel also BUT I had to much equipment to haul around !
 

arizau

Bronze Member
May 2, 2014
2,485
3,870
AZ
Detector(s) used
Beach High Banker, Sweep Jig, Whippet Dry Washer, Lobo ST, 1/2 width 2 tray Gold Cube, numerous pans, rocker box, and home made fluid bed and stream sluices.
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
You say you use a gold cube for all of your mining....gold cubes do not produce a huge amount of concentrates so simply classifying a days take into several different batches by screen size should enable you to simply pan to satisfactory results in just a few minutes....this because the gold particles are 3 or more times as heavy as anything else in the pan. By using a 30, 50 and 70 or 100 mesh classifier you can make 4 separate, small quantity, batches (plus 30, 50, 70/100 and minus 70/100 mesh to pan separately. The plus 30 mesh can be panned easily but then the other batches will become increasingly difficult....but doable.* Still do the above classifying steps if you choose to make a miller table.

Good luck.

* minus 100 mesh is especially difficult to pan if it is mostly black sand like ocean beach concentrates usually are.
 

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russau

Gold Member
May 29, 2005
7,279
6,735
St. Louis, missouri
Panning is so much easier if you run a rare earth magnet over your cons first to remove the magnetite and metallic particles , and then pan it ! Put your rare earth magnet into a plastic film canister or a baggie to remove the metallic's from the magnet !
 

Bonaro

Hero Member
Aug 9, 2004
977
2,213
Olympia WA
Detector(s) used
Minelab Xterra 70, Minelab SD 2200d, 2.5", 3", 4"and several Keene 5" production dredges, Knelson Centrifuge, Gold screw automatic panner
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Screen to 3/16" - remove magnetics - cube - remove magnetics again - Pan by hand
Dredge clean up is done in less than an hour
 

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