What are your favorite non-standard prospecting and mining tools?

[Jimoutside]

We all know we can buy our gold collection equipment from people who specialize in it, and so naturally most of us probably do buy a lot of it from vendors catering to the trade.

But what innovations, improvisations, hacks, cheap substitutes, and common objects go with you when you prospect, or do you use back home once you've brought your cons and gold back to the house?

Asking, cause I'm heading to the Dollar store shortly..... LOL!

 

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[Underburden]

Some of mine are hardware store items & some are home made, while some are prospecting store purchases.

 

[johnedoe]

A younger mans strong back....................

 

[Jimoutside]

I like your tool kit, Underburden! Looks like you have a very pragmatic collection there. Exactly what I was asking for.

 

[Darth Placer]

https://www.harborfreight.com/15-1-2-half-inch-flat-pry-bar-2529.html



I use this pry bar when dredging... it seems to get in between the cracks in the bedrock the best..... it's paid for itself every time I use it.... It's freed many pickers from mother natures grip. Works well on compacted cobble too.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

https://www.harborfreight.com/15-1-2-half-inch-flat-pry-bar-2529.html

View attachment 1733836

I use this pry bar when dredging... it seems to get in between the cracks in the bedrock the best..... it's paid for itself every time I use it.... It's freed many pickers from mother natures grip. Works well on compacted cobble too.

When those first came out, when I was just a kid about 60 years ago, they were called "Wonder Bars". They may even have been patented, though I'm not sure. I've been using them for 60 years, or more. I even have one of the ones I used as a kid. Great tools for some uses. All my brothers still call them Wonder Bars.
Jim

 

[Jimoutside]

I went to Dollar Tree today--don't have the picture, but I got a few things there including a turkey baster for snuffer purposes, a couple wire mesh baskets for classifiers (not very consistent sizing, but at this point I just want to strain the rocks out). Also picked up another trowel. Everything is a dollar each.

 

[Jimoutside]

I followed up with Walmart tonight (I'm a nocturnal animal), and bought a few things. Including my two 8-inch pans from Martin Prospecting a county away from me (shipped in 2 days with standard shipping), I've now spent $23.17 in tools and supplies. Of course I have some tools already, too, such as shovel, hammer, cat's paw (prybar), trowel, 5-gallon bucket, etc.

 

[OwenT]

Some of mine are hardware store items & some are home made, while some are prospecting store purchases.
View attachment 1733555
View attachment 1733557

Where can you buy the orange handled scraper/pry with the shiny metal?

 

[Rosey Morgan]

I have 3 out of the box thinking, favorite tools, two which I've made and or modified greatly, and a third one I'm beta tester for which is a new invention using an old fluid dynamics principle. They are:

My MEGAN'S MOTH, a backpackable DC "miller table", made with real slate. Uses 42gph DC electric water pump.



My SLICE, a complete, single-tray, stock Gold Cube with std Vortex Mat. Fits 5gal bucket-sized, for easy transport Uses std Johnson 1000gph Water Pump







And my newest exciting device built by Sluice Goose Industries of Albany OR:
The GOLDROP
I've named her "GOLDIE"


This is a sampling of what I do and how I do it differently.
I'm called the "Queen of Small Footprint" for a reason.

 

[Darth Placer]

Really like your idea of slicing up a single gold cube tray and making a full setup with it... pretty slick.

 

[Jimoutside]

I used to be a sawmill operator, and was active on a forestry- related forum. Sawmill people are forever modifying their mills--some things just beg for customization!

 

[Rosey Morgan]

Darth, I couldn't seem to put the money together to buy "full sized one". I kept watching the YT videos GC and others posted, and one day it dawned on me, that every durned video was showing folks plopping the scoop of dirt in the middle center of the top tray. Some were faster at plopping than others. Then I watched the material spread out in a predictable "fan/delta spread" from that laminar water distribution plate on the top tray where the bilge hose insert was into the backside of that top tray. Scooped and plopped material never real hit the edges of the top tray before disappearing under the submersing gateway at the end of the top tray!!!! Just seemed like a waste of "GC real estate."

A light-bulb went on. My thinking went something like this:

"Well, HECK, most everybody is wasting 2/3 of the capacity of that top tray!!" So, I set about to find a single tray for sale, with the genuine vortex mat attached. It should have been easy. It was NOT! NO ONE at the shows wanted to sell me just one. GC didn't even want to selll me just one!! Everyone wanted to know what I was going to do with it. Wasn't just curiousity. It was like I was suspected of being up to no good or something. Strange!

Finally talked the now shuttered D&K Detectors (Portland OR) into selling me one tray. $119 including S&H. ($99 tray/$20 S&H)

Precisely measured, and subtracted tablesaw blade kerf (x2 kerf) from the dimensions I got it table-sawed into precise 3rds at a local cabinet shop. I kept the curlies from the cut-aparts to be able to melt and use for repair should I ever need to.

Had some 3/16" Lexan clear sheets laying around and my Dremel router attachment, I I cut out 4 see-thru sides.

The rest is history.

I truly love using it. In fact, I have DC LED lit up the top end of tray 2 where Tray 1 gate dumps into Tray 2, so I can watch the lively exchange action. It is a trip to watch My SLICE work watching through the clear Lexan sides, all lit up and everything. Fun to see the gold nestle into the vortexs of that mat.

Thank for the compliment. A "three stack" for the price of one! It's priceless to me.

 

[Jimoutside]

So if people are wasting 2/3 of the top tray capacity, are they not also wasting at least 2/3 of the lower tray capacities, too?

This is how people start making sense.....

Unless they are going to load it faster, it's too big!

Ah--I know--it's that "cube" thing. It needs to be shaped enough like a cube to be worthy of the name, and you've made a rectangular (or trapezoidal) solid out of it--they would have to change the name. Hmmmm

Good on ya, Rosey!

 

[Rosey Morgan]

It does make me wonder, also. and, thank you!! I don't know. I've no way to watch the vortex mat exchange action on a full sized cube with it's non-transparent sides. I can say this about my SLICE, however...

Did you notice the second tray's mat is darker in the photo than the bottom tray which appears speckled in appearance?

That's BC I only have to clean out the bottom tray basically once a season!!! I hardly ever find anything there. So, I have my theory that I'm reaping some sort of increased effeciency in gold grabbing due to my re-shaping modification. And the haul this around weight savings plus increased portability are definite advantages in quick load and dash off to dig prospecting.

The reason I came up with the water insertion into the upper tray deck is due to how much water wasted volume was observed in the "GC game films." Now if falls harmlessly back into the My SLICE, and into the second tray to continue on to the recirc tub or back into the creek.

The piece of miner's moss over the 90 Degree elbow fitted inlet had another unexpected benefit. Instead of the water inlet acting like a rooster tail, it now performs as a diffuser. It's restored the necessary laminar flow which is vital to the GC designed submersible gates feature per tray...with an additional advantage. The laminar flow emerges from the front edge onto the slick tray, yes that small piece of diffuser with a visible cross-hatch pattern, a phenomenon I'd only seen in one other piece of very successful sluice Eqpt formerly built by the original Angus MacKirk company over here in Boise, and was designed and built by his clever son, Joel Farmer, now owner operator of the successful U.S. Prospector brand. That crosshatch distribution water pattern from the diffuser moss, I believe is truly responsible for the increased gold grabbing distribution in Tray #2 when it first hits the vortex mat.

Joel had discovered the beauty and utility of the cross-hatch water pattern in his S-1 sluice, still the standard I measure "ordinary" sluices by. This crosshatch pattern is so SO helpful in pulling gold from Quikcrete Sand sacks expecially in the PacNW.

All other things remain the same, including GPH of pump.

 

[arizau]

Rosey,
Re: your "slice". I think I read (I could not find it in a quick re-read) where you said you use the "original 1000 GPH pump". Do you use it full flow or adjust the output to where the top tray does not overflow the sides? It seems to me that the two thirds less volume throughput capacity created by the modified width gate could or would(?) back up the water, create an about half tray length lake, in the top tray to the point of over flowing its sides.

 

[Rosey Morgan]

Good Q, Arizau. I have my Johnson (Made in USA) bilge pump wide open. How I determine whether or not flow is "too much" is to use the trick Inventor Pung has posted many times.

1) Locate a 5/8" wooden dowel, because it will not pass through the top tray gap which forms the gate at the end of the tray

2) Cut the dowel exactly 2" shorter than the width of the top tray.

3) Turn on bilge pump, place dowel centered in gap. If water does not back up nor overflow, then the gph is set just right. If not, then use thumbvalve to dial back the gph volume.

4) Remove dowel and start "scooping and plopping" material into the SLICE, just like its full sized cousin, GC.

To be safe, I installed a large, PVC, thumb valve in-line. I don't even need it.

I thought the increase in velocity due to the more narrow sides was going to require a thumb valve at 1000gph. I fully expected it to do what you feared.

It doesn't.

Must have to do with the angle of the tray deck, is all I can figure. That's still the standard 15 Degree deck since it is genuine GC single tray I modified.

 

[arizau]

Thanks. That is surprising about your water flow not constricting. Yeah, I have seen the video and I have mentioned it to a few, couple at least, cubers at Cape D that I thought, by observation, were under powering their water flow* and not taking advantage of the SG and other separation that takes place in the water "bulge"/column at the outlet to the next tray. They may be unknowingly creating a situation where the slurry just flows over the edge and everything just competes for space from top to bottom rather than separating everything in the "bulge" giving gold the first opportunity to settle from the flow. You have probably seen Trev's (inspiration for the cube) illustration of what happens in the "bulge" found by going to page 8 of the attachment found in the first post here. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/481612-boil-box-fine-gold-beach.html.

*At least partially caused by a 4 or so foot lift the way they set them up...bilge pumps lose GPH capacity quickly the higher the lift.

 

[Rosey Morgan]

Yes, it is surprising, Arizau. And how terrific to learn you and I met before and used to hang on the AGF so long ago. I haven't heard Trevor's name for years, and yet, he was one I always read, and we PM'ed frequently. He had some fantastic things for sale, regularly, as I recall. I never bought any from him, but sure enjoyed looking and his education. He was a patient miner. The real kind. And, he was a walking miner's encyclopedia.

When Trev would get to talking gold mining, I know I always sat up and took notice.

I'd forgotten he had collaborated with Pung until you reminded me just now. THANKS! And no, I did not remember the GC "bulge" phenom JOINT solution effort, but certainly understand what you are saying and Trev was trying to convey, I agree whole heartedly. Thanks for that link to the zombie thread here on TN. I'll spend more time there, and catch up.

Re: boil boxes, you are smack dab on re: verticality of the box far edge being a necessity. The only one I have ever encountered was back when I was tasked with cleaning it out after a massive trommel cleanout up at Cracker Creek above Sumpter, several years back. They were doing "pay to get a share of the gold" ($1500 a head) gig once a year when that big ole trommel would groan to life and the owner would fill up a cast iron bathtub he'd perched up on a high metal scaffolding where he washed out the carpets. Then he pulled the tub stopper, and let the cons steadily drip out into smaller clean up machines. I was one of the smaller cleaners/operators.

I had both the Dixie Doodlebug reverse helix trommel, and the Green Magic's WHITE blacksands wheel with those 45 Degree adjustable cups around the perimeter of that white wheel there with me/us, and we sat up near the mine store/clubhouse. I'd grab a bucket of those dripping cons, we'd reduce them further in the two devices just mentioned and then take the super concentrate to 3 hand panners trusted by Joe and the Mrs. to complete the cleanup. Then we all feasted on grilled T-Bones and all the trimmings. Man, those were the good ole days!!!!

Boil box duty was part of that assignment I was trusted with. And the gold was great in there!!! 20' long sluices, 8' wide all day long, made for one Helluva concentrated boilbox. That trommel really ate up wherever the excavator could dump directly into the hopper from hillside across the road from the main camp. The road up to Borne. Remember that? Ayup, good times.

I found your Cape D comments quite accurate. I don't usually chat up when I'm working that beach. I have found that some of the died in the wool GC tower users are now swapping out for low flow/low v-mat sluices (10 cubic feet max allowed by state regulations) and really pulling in the tiny gold with their recirc units. I can hardly wait to get back up there and use my Goldie eTower Goldrop. Talk about fun!!! The wind came up bad, several months ago, and toppled all the GC towers on Benson Beach, and made for a LOT of sad miners that day. Gold was gone as those trays went ass over teakettle back onto the beach. UGH

I find your comment about 4' head being about max for lift without losing GPH on these bilge pumps, rather puzzling. Surely you don't mean all bilge pump, just those which are xyz GPH or less? I can't think of a boat I'd put a bilge pump on that is only for a 4' cavity I'd be trying to de-water. What am I not understanding Boating is not my thing, but I seem to recall adults could stand up fully below deck, and that is definitely over 4' in height.

Anyhow, good to see you emerge and talk to me here on TN. I appreciate it. I think I'll go check out AGF just to see who's still there. Hope my password still works. LOL

Is Jim still the owner? Marcy and I were pretty close as goldminer's wives go. She did me a huge favor when my article first appeared in the MGM&TH full color slick in 1990. She was McCracken's mag and newsletter editor at that time, and McCracken and her publishing my story (plus her unexpected book review) got me an article in the Front Page Biz section (below the fold...LOL) of the NY Times that year, and THAT NY Times coverage was picked up by AP and flung around the world. After that, I got mail from San Jose News (in Cali) some newspaper in the Bahama's I'd never heard of, etc., all kinds of places I'd never been. Yes, AGF'ers have been very kind to me as I recall.

Ayup. You brought back so good memories, Arizau. Is Trev still living?

Thank you.

Pls grab a minute and talk to me some more about this 4' limiter on bilge pump lift. I need more education.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

QUOTE=OwenT;6248757]Where can you buy the orange handled scraper/pry with the shiny metal?[/I don't think I can put his website up as he's not a participating vendor but he goes by Two toes or Honans mining supplies they are his crevice tools.