Start by using the best tools available! Most basic gold mining equipment, pans, picks, shovels, and other gear for outdoor expeditions hadn’t changed much until fairly recently. Today, the use of modern gold prospecting equipment such as gold pans and lightweight, durable dredges and sluices will help you recover gold more quickly, safely and efficiently than ever before.
There are many basic tools required to find and work mineral claims. The low-budget prospector only needs the three basics: a shovel, a bucket, and a gold pan (and a source of water) to get started; people who have been seized by the gold prospecting fever can end up buying, and perhaps even needing, equipment to work a prospect and turn it into a producing mine. To recover enough gold to make the labor worth doing, the three basics (above) are not enough. Some of the items used to recover gold are:
There are many basic tools required to find and work mineral claims. The low-budget prospector only needs the three basics: a shovel, a bucket, and a gold pan (and a source of water) to get started; people who have been seized by the gold prospecting fever can end up buying, and perhaps even needing, equipment to work a prospect and turn it into a producing mine. To recover enough gold to make the labor worth doing, the three basics (above) are not enough. Some of the items used to recover gold are:
- Classifiers, Screens and Sieves
- Digging Tools - picks, rakes, shovels
- Gold Pans and Gold Panning Kits
- Dry Washers for desert areas
- Highbankers (Power Sluice boxs)
- Black Sand Concentrators
- Hand Dredge
- Rock Crusher / sample ore crusher
- Crevice Tools
- Snuffer Bottles
- Miners Moss
- Sluice Carpet Mat / ribbed vinyl matting
- Metal detector
- Face mask / dust mask
- Digging Trowel
- "Gold Cube" Concentrator
- Automatic Gold Panners
- Books on how to find gold
Sluice Box
This is a popular prospecting tool. It is good for small scale prospecting operations. It is compact and easy to haul around, making it good for remote locations. The way the sluice works is that water runs over pieces of flat, vertical angled L shaped things called riffles. When the water flows over the riffles, it creates turbulence under the L shaped bar and in turn makes a dead water zone where all the gold drops out. Just shovel dirt from the spot where the gold is into buckets and haul them over to the stream/river where you have set up the sluice. Then start running the dirt through the front of the sluice and the lighter of less dense part of it will flow out the back. The heavy dirt and Gold will be caught in the riffles. Make sure not to overload the sluice or gold can be lost out the back. You can tell if the sluice is overloaded by seeing if the dirt is filling up above the riffles and if there is a lot of dirt piling up. The price for a sluice box is usually around $90 if you get a smaller size model or up to around $200. If you get a larger model, you will be able to run a much more pay dirt through per hour.
Gold Pan
The gold pan is a good placer sampling tool. A good gold panner can process about 1 cubic yard in a day. Although you can produce a fair amount of gold with the pan, it is still a sampling and finishing tool. If you have found a pay streak or a rich deposit of gold, you would be better off using a tool that can process more material in a day. Even though it is mainly a sampling tool, a gold pan is inexpensive and still a lot of fun for the entire family. You will also need to pan out your gold concentrates from other gold separating machines, such as a suction gold dredge, sluice box, high banker, dry washer, etc. It is always a good idea to learn efficient gold panning techniques.
Classifier Sieve
This tool is a big sieve used to sift out panning material for further concentration. It is a good idea to classify panning material with a #4 or 1/4 in mesh classifier. These come in a variety of sizes from #2 = 1/2" down to #100 = 1/100" mesh. By sifting the material you reduce the possibility that a pebble or rock will cause a smaller fleck of gold to be bumped out of the pan. The classifier type shown above fits a handy 5 gallon plastic bucket.
High Banker
The high banker is a Gold concentration device that is based on the sluice box in combination with a water source, usually a pump. The water is forced into a hopper where the dirt and gravel are shoveled in. The water jets wash and break up any clay or soil lumps that may contain gold particles. This in turn drops though a mesh called a grizzly to the sluice box below and the process mentioned previously in the sluice box description finishes the concentrating of valuables and black sands. It is also possible to pump the water from a suction dredge nozzle into the hopper thus creating a small portable dredge unit. These systems are great for small sampling efforts and small production if a higher concentration of gold is found.
Dry Washer
The dry washer is like a land version of the sluice box. The dry washer works by having the prospector shovel dry placer gold laden material into the top, which has a built in screen to sift out any rocks too big to go down the next section. When the dirt goes through the screen it falls into the lower part of the machine. A fan blows the lighter dirt up and over the riffles and down to finally make a pile of dirt on the ground. The gold stays up at the top few riffles because the fan is not powerful enough to blow the gold into the air and then fall down into the next riffle. Some versions have a gadget that creates an electrostatic charge that makes the gold and other metals stick to the dry washer making for better gold recovery. Another dry washing gadget is a thing that vibrates and makes all the gold settle to the bottom of the riffles. You can get one that does all of the above and a bit more too.
This is a new tool in the prospector’s tool kit. It’s purpose is as the name says, to detect metallic Gold (Or Platinum will do fine thank you.) The way a metal detector works is to produce a stimulus of electro-magnetic energy or radio wave. This in turn spreads out through space and earth until it strikes a conductor. At that time a tiny electric eddy current loop is induced in any conductor. Think of a nugget or Gold crystal as a conducting antenna. Then something interesting happens, the collapsing eddy current causes the Gold to re-transmit an even smaller signal back out into space. This is where the different detectors are usually specialized. The Detector has a very sensitive receiver to pick up, process, filter and amplify this signal into some sort of human readable response. The response of the best detectors is usually an audible signal that represents properties of what is called a “target” or nugget. Targets can be tiny nuggets or grains of gold or they can be Pop-top pull tabs and miscellaneous “trash.” Dig them all and please fill the holes after you finish, this is stewardship in action. Good detectors help distinguish these two categories. The soil and rocks in the area being hunted can also influence the ability to detect gold nuggets. Soils and rocks with various conductive salts and moisture also have eddy currents. This makes those areas hard to hear the smaller nuggets among all the noise. The best electronic detectors have proprietary circuits to filter this “ground noise.” Using a detector is a bit of an art in itself. You must develop a discipline and methodical order to your search pattern. You will also need to develop an “ear” for the sound of what are called “values” vs. trash.
2" Backpack Dredge with Suction Nozzle
This is a high powered backpackable dredge is equipped with a lightweight and quiet heavy duty (approximate) 2.5hp Honda 4 cycle engine. This engine and pump combination produces an unbelievable 100 gallons per minute and up to 160 feet of head pressure. The sluice box is specifically engineered for fine gold recovery and easy clean up. It's constructed with an aluminum frame and is supported with either black inflatable or grey hard Marlex pontoons. Pictured above are the Marlex grey hard pontoons. The inflatable pontoons can be easily deflated and rolled up into a small package making them extremely easy to transport and store. It comes equipped with a power jet or optional suction nozzle. The power jet is ideal for most conditions and provides greater suction power. It include 15 feet of suction hose. For extremely shallow water conditions, a suction nozzle is recommended.
Crevice Tools
Scrape with the curved pointed end. Use the scooped end to clean the crevices. Valuable for any method of prospecting.
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Prospecting Tools
Bowl Concentrater
Bowl Concentrator Leg Levelers
Magnet
Crevice Flusher (Flusher Nozzle)
Crevice Flusher with 3/4" x 25' Hose
Crevice Flusher with 3/4" x 50' Hose
Snuffer Bottle
Gram Scale
More Tools
2 lb. Hammer
4 lb. Hammer
36" Pry Bar
14 o.z Pick
22 oz. Pick
Geo Pick
Gad Pry Bar
8" Rock Chisel
12" Rock Chisel
Sportsman's Axe
16" Camper's Axe
26" Camper's Axe
Gold Test Stone
2 inch by 1 1/2 inch test stone to be used in conjunction with test acids to evaluate the karat quality of gold.
Gold Testing Kits
The basic gold testing procedure is to make a small scratch test of the sample metal you are testing on the test stone. Drop a few drops of the test acid on the sample and observe it. If the quality of the gold is equal to or greater than the karat quality rated on the test acid the acid will not effect the sample. If the tested metal is not gold or is of a lower purity than the quality rated on the test acid the acid will destroy the sample. An optional method is to make two scratches on the stone, one with the sample metal being tested and another with a test needle of known purity gold. When you apply the acid you observe both scratches to see how they compare.