How to pan for gold
Version 1.0
By Tim C.

Before I start remember one thing, there is no right and no wrong way of panning, everything is opinion and I invite you to e-mail your thoughts on how you do things and I will add your thoughts to the bottom in a user comment section.

Equipment needed:

1) Gold Pan or two if you want to pan into a pan to catch any missed material so you can re-do it. Also the pan should have had the finish removed from it. If it’s a plastic pan that is newly bought take it out into the creek and using gravel, rub the inside bottom of the pan to remove the finish. The reason is that the finish will not hold the gold; it will let the gold slide out of the pan. Metal pans need to have finish removed also. One method is to place it in a camp fire and let it burn off the finish, and yes be careful you don’t get burned when you dump the hot pan into water to cool it off.

2) Someplace to sit. If you are using a tub to pan in try to get comfortable, there are tubs you sit on the ground, or put on a crate, others have stands that they are on and you have to stand in front of them. You can buy tubs or you can make them yourself, or if your at a creek you can use it. If using a creek pick the best location you can, a water level at least 6 inches deep with enough water movement to wash away any of the cloudy water you will be making.

3) Classifier: Panning sieve. Sizes vary you can get a ¼ inch screen (4 mesh) up to a 100 mesh screen in size.

4)  Suck up kit: Snuffer bottle, tweezers, eye dropper, magnet, and Vile to hold your gold.

5) The material to go though, pre-concentrates, that you have.

Before you start

If you have classified your concentrates into separate sizes already skip this step, but if you haven’t then: using your classifier separate out large stones and sticks and moss and such out of the material until you get to the fine stuff. Some devices like the Blue Bowl work best when you separate the material into different mess sizes. While panning really doesn’t need it to much, once you under stand the science behind the panning you will understand why. Also filling up the vile with water before you start makes the gold come off into the vile easier when you are using the tweezers or eye dropper.

 The Actual Panning Section

1)      Fill up your pan to about half to ¾ full.
 

2)      Place the pan in the water just deep enough to cover the pan. Now shake the pan back and forth several times, and using your hands break up any clumped dirt, cleaning off any big rocks and removing them from the pan. Now shake back and forth again. Now as gracefully as you can proceed to the next step in a fluid motion.
 

3)      With your hand at the back of the pan and the riffles at the front. Stir around in a clock wise motion while slowly lifting the back end of the pan (where your hand is holding the pan) letting the material slide off the riffle end of the pan that is facing away from you. If you see any black sand moving out of the pan stop and slide all the material back in the bottom of the pan and start over, continue till you get down to the fine material and the gold.

The science behind this is that Gold is very heavy and stirring around the material will cause the gold to move to the bottom of the pan (like quick sand lets items sink) while the lighter material will stay at the top to be removed by your tipping motion.
 

4)      Once you are the point where you have all the large stones and other non gold items out of the way and have removed any nuggets that you have found the next item is to get at the finer material.

Take the pan out of the water and hold it close to you so you can see very clearly. Leave about an inch of water in the pan and swirl the water around in one direction, slowly at first and then pick up a little bit of speed but not to much to cause a current to move every thing, we are only trying to move the lighter material than the gold, and if there is any gold it will be left at the end of the black sand.  Once you have it separated using the suck up kit suck up and put away your gold.

Note: While gold is heavy so are other types of material, since gold doesn’t have a magnetic property (except for those that want it) use the magnet to remove any have material like iron and hematite out of the material so you can more easily get to the gold. But remember gold can stick to the other material so you may want to crush up what the magnet picks up and crush it and pan it out again or you can use other techniques to get gold from that material’s matrix.

Photo By Tim C.

This picture was taken during a dig. It's a small speck in the middle of the picture. I'm looking for a better picture of gold from our property "in the pan", if you have one and would like to share please email me it.

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