black gold jewelry: July 2011

where-to-find-gold

Naturally occurring gold can be found in almost all fifty states. This gold may be still embedded in rock, known as "lode gold", or it may have been deposited in a placer (a natural concentration of gold particles in sand or gravel bars) after weathering from the host rock.

Which streams contain gold? Generally speaking, streams that are most likely to contain gold must have four characteristics. They should be unregulated, not dammed. They should be in a mineral rich area. They should fall through enough elevation to cause sufficient churning in the spring flood. The stream path and rock formations should facilitate the deposition of the dense materials such as gold, lead, iron, and mercury.

The trick is to find locations with enough gold to make it worthwhile to try to recover some of it. Prospecting in the better known gold bearing regions will immediately improve how your chances of finding gold are. Gold is where others have found it and you have come up with a better method of recovering gold.

Gold occurs in veins and alluvial deposits, and is often separated from rocks and other minerals by mining and panning operations. About two thirds of the world's gold output comes from South Africa, and about two thirds of the total U.S. production comes from South Dakota and Nevada.

The metal is recovered from its ores by cyaniding, amalgamating, and smelting processes. Refining is also frequently done by electrolysis. Gold occurs in sea water to the extent of 0.1 to 2 mg/ton, depending on the location where the sample is taken. As yet, no method has been found for recovering gold from sea water profitably.

All the shiny gold-colored material in you gold pan may not be gold. Pyrite, known as "fools gold," has fooled many before you. On close examination, however, pyrite does not really look like gold. Pyrite has a brassy color, is sometimes tarnished, and, because it occurs as crystals, changes shades as you rotate it in the sun. Gold is always gold colored, soft, and malleable or bendable. If you see gold-colored flecks that either float on the water or are so light in weight that they easily wash out of the pan, you probably have small pieces or "books" of mica, a mineral that because it is transparent and heat resistant was once used in doors of stoves so the fire could be seen. Mica has a tendency to break apart into flat sheets. It comes in several colors, and the the gold-colored variety is sometimes mistaken for gold by inexperiences gold panners.

The world's largest gold nugget is on display at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The magnificent Hand of Faith Nugget gold nugget, found October, 1980 near Wedderburn, Australia, is the largest on public display in the world. Using a metal detector, it discovered lying in a vertical position just six inches below the surface. It weighs a massive 875 troy ounces (61 pounds, 11 ounces).

The largest single mass of gold was found by Mr. Holtermann in Australia. His "nugget" as shown below was discovered at Hill End in 1872. The Holtermann Nugget remains the largest single mass of gold ever discovered in the world, measuring 1.5 metres long and weighing almost 290 kg.

Many a time, gold fever has caused an otherwise totally honorable and sensible man to give up his perfectly good woman, desert his devoted children, buy a devoted donkey, leave home, abandon good cropland, drink bad whiskey, waste good money, make disreputable friends, follow bad advice, ignore good advice, reveal secret gold strikes, pursue adventure, suffer hardship, and generally and perfectly unapologetically just go around having a shamelessly good time.

Gold is often found associated with the mineral quartz. It is sometimes associated with other minerals as well, including iron and manganese oxides, calcite, pyrite and other sulfides as well. It is not uncommon for prospectors, especially those who operate metal detectors, to find a rich gold bearing specimens of ore. Sometimes the best use of these minerals is to sell them at specimens. There are collectors who will pay top dollar for beautiful mineral specimens that contain significant gold. I have done a full webpage to discuss the best ways of getting top dollar for specimens and selling to collectors. (*Selling your gold) Some specimens however, especially those with a large amount of rock and only a limited amount of gold are best crushed and the gold extracted and sold to refiner (information about selling to refiners can also be found on my gold selling page*). Here is a discussion of the procedures to crush Quartz or other minerals and extract the gold from these rich ores.
For really large chunks of material, it may be necessary to initially break down the large pieces with hammers. Sometimes heavy-duty chisels can also come in handy in this part of the process as one breaks down large chunks into fist sized and smaller pieces that can be more easily handled.The classic old mortar and pestle was the method used by early day miners to crush their ore specimens for testing. You can still buy these things today at most prospecting stores - they are made of cast iron and last a long time and work fairly well. It just takes a lot of elbow grease and work to break up the rock. A slightly different version of mortar and pestle work is a variety called hand stamp crushing. A heavy cylinder of iron is welded to a long rod and placed inside a pipe or tube which is just a bit larger than the diameter of the iron cylinder. This iron cylinder is picked up and dropped onto the ore, much in the manner of the old time stamp mills. This method seems to be popular in Australia. A more expensive but certainly faster and easier method is to use a small jaw crusher, such as is used in preparing samples for assaying. I have one of these in my garage and it is pictured at the right. For those thinking about processing larger quantities of ore such as hundreds or even thousands of pounds of rock from mines, there are several manufacturers that sell small portable hammer and impact mills. These mechanized crushing systems can generate some very significant dust, and so when using them is important to consider methods for dust control or elimination.
No matter which crushing system you're using, the process will go far faster, and come out better if you do repeated screenings of the material from time to time. What happens in crushing is that some of the material gets crushed down to the size you want but other pieces don't. The small stuff then often gets in the way of the crushing process as you are working, basically protecting the larger pieces from being crushed and creating more work. To speed things up and make things work properly you need to screen out the stuff that's already been crushed to a small size. So as you are crushing, stop and screen your material, removing any free gold which has already separated from the rock during your crushing that won't go through your screen with your fingers. The coarser rock that won't go through your screen can then be returned to the crusher for further work to break it down, and the fines won't get in the way.If you're screaming of course you need to pick out the screen size you're going to use. It is really not necessary to go to super small screens like 100 mesh. This reduces most of your rock quite literally to powder. The size of screen I use is 18 mesh and I think anything in the range of 16 to 20 mesh is a good size. I would not recommend going with anything larger than 10 mesh or smaller than 30.

Finally, once the rock is fully crushed we get to the part about separating out the gold from the crushed rock. Often, this is accomplished simply by very careful panning. Panning is the most suitable method if you only have an amount of rock less than about 15 or 20 pounds. On the other hand if you are going to be processing large quantities of rock on a regular basis such as would come from the workings of a hard rock mine, you will need some sort of automated system to process your crushed materials. If you really are going to be working with ores from a hard rock mine, perhaps the best method for the small minor is the use of the a small shaking table. A good table is fairly bulletproof in one set up operates well on its own, and does an efficient job of capturing small gold particles. Such equipment isn't cheap of coarse but if you're going to be handling thousands of pounds of rock, it's just too much to consider panning as an option for processing. Another possibility that needs to be considered is the use of mercury in capturing the finest gold particles from your ores. In most instances if you are just handling a few gold Quartz specimens that you find here and there, the use of mercury will not be worth your time. In some cases the gold in the ore is extremely fine sized, and using mercury to capture it makes sense. This is also true for operators processing large quantities of hard rock material. I've done up a web page on using Mercury to capture fine gold and you can view it here. (link to page)
For handling another purpose as many operators will be interested in melting down the gold they recover in crushing their specimens into dore buttons and bars (Dore is a term for unrefined, impure gold and silver metal). I've done up a web page on melting and pouring your gold and you can view it here. (*Pouring Your Own Gold*) It is also important to consider safety precautions when crushing ores. These include: Ø Eye protection. it is normal that one crushing rock small particles fly through the air. If a small sharp piece of quartz lands in your eye, it could do some serious damage. It is important to always wear goggles or protective glasses when crushing. Goggles are the better choice of the two. Ø Dust mask: the process of crushing rock always creates airborne dust. If your lungs are already compromised by smoking or other problems, you definitely don't want to expose them to additional hazards. Silicosis is a very nasty and incurable problem which is brought on by long-term exposure to quartz bearing dust. Using a dust mask when crushing is a good habit and make sense especially if you're doing it a regular basis. Ø Gloves are also a good safety measure to protect your hands. I always use them. Ø If using mechanized equipment, always be very careful around any moving parts. A good number of accidents in the mining industry occur when people get hands or clothing caught in moving mechanized parts. The precautions you take will be well worth your time.

No question that many gold prospectors would love to own a dredge, and dredges are very cool pieces of prospecting equipment, but the prices for new ones are really high. Don’t forget however, that in the earliest days of dredging, there were no manufacturers, and all small suction dredges were handcrafted units made in someone's garage. There's no question that a good dredge can be made at home, and I know you can save some significant money doing it, because I've done it myself. Building a dredge is a big project with a lot of plans and decisions to be made. Take your time and think about what you really want to build. Think about what materials you have on hand or what you could easily acquire, then build a list of what you need to construct your dredge. Unfortunately, a simple set of dredge plans that would work for all sizes of suction dredges is just impossible, so I've not tried to prepare any such thing. However, you can do it for your project. If you really sit down and think about things, and use measurements taken from the commercial dredge makers you can design your own set of plans for your specific dredge project.
Of course you will be building on the cheap, but you don't want to shortchange yourself too much. You don't want your dredge to be rickety, or to fall apart, or to fail to function. Dredges need to be functional, durable and sturdy. The time you spend sorting through design concepts, deciding what you will build and how you will build it will be well spent. Think about what you want and what you need then weigh those together with what you can afford. Do up some drawings and lists. Perhaps the best thing I can suggest is that you study the designs of the well-known dredge makers like Keene and Pro-line. These manufacturers have done quite a bit of research studying their products, they have tested different options and have developed efficient pieces of equipment that do the job well. Check out their web sites as most have good photos of their dredges and the individual components that make up these dredges – you can get a lot of information from their web sites. If your local prospecting shop has a dredge set up, take a close look and even measurements or photos if you can. Another great possibility is to join a prospecting club whose members actively dredge, and then go out to the claims and check out the members while they are dredging. Take some pictures of the dredges while they're in operation. The club members may even let you have a few minutes behind the nozzle so that you can get a feel for the whole experience. The more general knowledge you have about dredges before you begin your design, the better your construction plans will be.	Sometimes good used dredge parts are available to start a homemade dredge.

When you are sitting down to plan the designs of your own home made gold dredge, probably the first question you will want to ask yourself is “What size of dredge do I want to build?” The bigger your dredge is, the more material you'll be able to process, but the more it will cost and the more it will weigh. So weight and cost are the trade-offs for the volume you can process, and practically speaking, the depth of bedrock you will be able to reach. It is a general rule of dredges that it is not practical to dredge feet of overburden greater than the inside diameter of your hose in inches. So for a 2 inch dredge you don't want to go through overburden deeper than about 2 feet, for a 4 inch dredge you don't want to go through more than about 4 feet of overburden, and the 6 inch dredge would be limited to around 6 feet of overburden, etc. Of course it is possible to dredge a 10 foot deep hole with a 2 inch dredge, but it will take forever and be highly inefficient. This little rule of thumb does not count the depth of water, only the depth of overburden to bedrock. Another piece of design information to consider in your planning is that a four or five inch dredge is about as big as one guy can handle efficiently by himself. If you're really big, tough and young you may be able to handle a 6-inch by yourself, but it will tax you. A 4-inch is probably the best size for a single guy operation.
Will you need compressed air for diving? If so, you will need an air compressor, an air receiving tank and related diving equipment. Air is really handy to have, but its optional, and you can always add air later if you plan well and allow space for the compressor on your dredge. Your homemade dredge will need a motor and a pump. If you want to dive, you will also need a compressor. I have developed a page to consider and discuss the purchase Mining Equipment component parts and elements. Before you make that buy, check it out at: Mining Equipment Component Parts Do you have the proper tools? Fabricating your own suction dredge takes tools. Things like a hack saw, pop rivet gun, drills, wrenches and the like are the minimum. Do you actually have the experience to build such a project? The more tools and fabricating skills you possess, the more likely it is that your home made dredge project will be a success. I have done up a page on hand tools for this type of project, you can check it out at: Mining Project Necessary Tools Having the ability to do some arc welding, or to bend and shear cut metal are also handy abilities to possess. My little 120V arc welder, while underpowered, has helped me complete some serious fabrication projects. If you don’t already own a welder, this project might be just the excuse you needed to buy one! I so strongly recommend that you consider buying one of these welders that I have done up a whole web page on it. If you are seriously considering building your own dredge, check out my page: Low Cost, Small Arc Welders For Home Use	An earlier incarnation of my dredge, with the old crash box sluice from Keene.
Count the cost and figure what is realistically possible: It’s not free! You can save a lot of money building your own home made dredge, but it still won't be cheap. I strongly recommend that before you actually begin to buy materials that you sit down with your design plan and figure those costs. Be sure you have enough money to complete your project. I decided to buy some parts from Keene, because I didn’t think I could fabricate an item as good as what they had to offer. On the other hand, I bought some used dredge components as well. All in all my 4 inch dredge cost less than 1/3 of what a new one would cost. Here are some of my comment on deciding what you will do for yourself and what you will buy: Near Impossible to make (but you might them get used): Engine: Hey, I’ve seen some really nice homemade dredges, but no one forges the steel to cast the block and make their own engine. You may be able to purchase a used engine and save a few bucks, but no one makes their own engine. Be sure your engine as the proper bolt holes for attaching the pump. Select a motor size to match the pump you will use. The manufacturers have certain motor sizes they use with certain pumps on dredges of a certain hose size. Plan to use the same sizes they use. Water Pump: Again, I’ve seen some really nice homemade suction dredges, but no one casts and machines the aluminum to make their own water pump. The centrifugal pumps used by all the dredge makers are well designed for this purpose. I recommend you purchase one of the pumps designed by Keene. I got my pump used at my local prospecting shop. Don’t use a trash pump and think you can pump the sand through the trash pump, saving the need for a jet. This is very bad design, and the heavy load of sand and gravel going thorough the trash pump will destroy it in a short time. They are also quite heavy and a larger motor is required than would be needed if a centrifugal pump and jet were used.

Air Compressor: I own a compressed air pump, but I have not gotten around to mounting it on my dredge. I have dredged for years with nothing more than a snorkel, but it does limit the areas that you can work. Long arms are real asset. Be sure if you do get one that you design your system so that it has room to fit in on the mount with the motor. Don't use a pump or hose that is not intended for producing breathable air - compressors for tools and paint systems add oil that you don't want to be breathing.... Hose: There are alternatives for hoses, but you need to be careful. Weak, thin walled materials will wear out. Transparency in a dredge hose is important to see where plug ups occur. The materials used by the dredge manufacturers is very suitable and durable and will get the job done.
Do-able With Some Effort: Sluice Box: A sluice box is probably the biggest and most important thing that you can make for yourself on a dredge. It's an key and critical item - hey, if your sluice box doesn't capture the gold, then your whole dredge project is a lot of wasted time. I've actually done up a whole separate webpage on designing and building the sluice box for your home made dredge. This page shows you what I did build my sluice box. Building a 3 stage sluice box for a gold dredge Header / crash box / flare: This is one where you have to decide what you want to do. You can go with a crash box style head and is relatively easy to make. A crash box is just a box that sits and the head of the sluice, directing the flow of water and gravel into the sluice. The other option is to go with a flair header which is much more difficult to make, but gets a lot better gold recovery. I chose to go to the expense and buy a plastic molded flare header from Keene for my dredge. I have also seen guys build flares out of Orange Plastic traffic cones. I recommend using a damper (a sheet of heavy rubber) to help control the water and slurry flow out of the box. Jet: This is a little difficult but not too bad if you have the right welding skills. First you have to decide if you want a suction nozzle or power jet type. The suction nozzle puts the high-pressure water in right at the nozzle. A power jet puts the high-pressure water in just before the sluice box. A suction nozzle is best in very shallow water; a power jet produces better overall suction. Most dredges are power jets, but some smaller units, 3 inches and smaller are suction nozzles. I recommend the power jet. Take a close look at the jets made by the manufacturers like Keene. Nozzle: Here's an easy project: really all you need is a piece of pipe about 10 inches long and of the right diameter to fit in your dredge hose. Simply take one end of the pipe and saw cut the pipe about every quarter inch. Take a hammer and gently tap the pieces down to form a cone on the tip. Weld a bead around the edge of your new nozzle and your done. You can even weld on a handle to the nozzle if you wish (I personally don't like them).
Flotation: This is a part of a project where you can really save some money if you want to. There are a number of different flotation types which you might select for your project. In the early days of portable suction dredges, most were floated on large truck inner tube tires. These large inner tubes are both light and inexpensive. This is the option I chose for my home made dredge, but these large truck inner tubes are becoming more and more difficult to purchase. Few trucks still on the road use them and they are difficult to purchase even at tire centers specializing in large diesel trucks. Nowadays, most commercial suction dredges are built on plastic pontoons. They are more durable but they are also a lot heavier. There are a number of options in this direction as well. I have seen homemade dredges built on a variety of plastic pontoons. One interesting option is five to 10 gallon sized plastic shipping containers or barrels. Sometimes these can be purchased quite cheaply. Another option is to purchase the pontoons from the manufacturer, but in general these are quite expensive. The other part of the flotation system is the frame or mount for the sluice box and motor, allowing them to sit in a stable manner on top of your flotation units. I made my frame out of scrap aluminum purchased at the local junkyard. It was inexpensive and not difficult to construct. Because it was flat it sat easily upon my truck tubes. Foot valve: The foot valve is an important but often overlooked item. You can put one of these together from a piece of pipe and some heavy screening with just a bit of bailing wire and some tack welds. A fairly short time sucking pure sand can ruin your pump, so don't try to run your dredge without one - all the manufacturers supply them with the new dredges. *********************************
You will also need a wet suit of some sort, although the actual type depends on where you will be dredging for gold. Even in California in midsummer the water gets awfully cold after an hour or two if you do not have some sort of protection. In Alaska, much more serious protection such as a well-designed dry suit is needed so that you can stay in the water while operating your dredge. I have found that the junk yard / recycling yard can provide some important pieces that you may use at low prices. I suggest that one you have good plans for the dredge you want to build, take your purchase list and go look through the local scrap yards - you can get stuff there a whole lot cheaper than you would at somplace like Home Depot. You may even find a suitable used engine there. I suggest that once you have assembled all the pieces you need, the next step is to put your new dredge all together and test it. I suggest that you test it with a couple dozen pieces of small lead shot. Flatten them, and paint them red or some other bright color. Then suck up some gravel from the nearest gold bearing stream and put the shot in with the gravel you are processing. Be sure to take in a good bit of gravel both before and after you've sucked up the shot. When you clean up the sluice, count how many of the shot you have recovered and compare that to the number you started with. You should not lose more than one or two at the most. If you lose more than three or four you need to adjust your dredge or make some changes to improve it so you can be confident you are not loosing gold. If you would like to look at some more info that I have done up on using a gold dredge, including a diagram as to how a dredge works, take a look at: OPERATING A GOLD DREDGE I hope you have found this information on planning and designing your own home made dredge useful. I wish you the best of luck with your home made gold dredge project, remember to measure twice and cut only once!	My dredge frame shown from underneath

A close up shot of my home made dredge


A sluice box lined with riffles is one of the oldest forms of gravity separation devices still being used today. They are simple and have been in use all across the world for thousands of years. A sluice is really nothing more than an artificial channel lined with devices to catch gold through which water flows moving the lighter materials such as clay, sands and gravels out of the sluice. They heavier materials remain behind, trapped by the riffles. For many years, most sluice boxes were home made affairs designed and built in the gold prospector himself. To this day, in the gold bearing regions of third world countries, prospectors design and build sluice boxes out the most unusual items – sometimes whatever materials are available locally. You don't really need any special sluice box plans - the exact size is really not all that critical. They come in all sizes and a can range from small, portable aluminum models used for prospecting all the way up to large sluice boxes hundreds of feet long, which are used at fixed installations in commercial operations.
Making your own gold sluice is actually a very good beginning project for new prospectors in my opinion. Just take a close look at the sluices being offered by the manufacturers, and that will show you how to build your own sluice box. It won't be difficult to get some ideas to make your own plans. Sluice boxes can be made out of wood, aluminum, plastic or steel. Injection molded plastic is not really an option easily available to the do-it-yourself prospector, and steel has a tendency to rust, so wood and aluminum are the preferred options. In developing plans for a homemade sluice box, the more time you spend thinking about your design, the better. You don't want to have to buy parts you don't need, but on the other hand your slice box needs to work and catch the gold efficiently. A good plan and a good understanding of how a sluice box traps gold are important to your design. I think using miners moss underneath your riffles is a real important item for capturing that fine gold. That is why miners moss is used in the sluices of nearly all commercial suction gold dredges. Having a liner underneath the riffles is an important aid in catching small gold dust, and is very worthwhile. I went with miners moss under all the riffles in my sluice, and I strongly recommend it for you.

The typical wooden homemade sluice is made of boards and varies in width from 8 to 18 inches, usually with a depth of 6 inches to a foot. A typical length would be in the three to 6 foot range. Riffles can be made from half inch square dowel nailed about every 6 inches down the length of the sluice. The section without riffles in the top of the box about a foot long is often left for the spot where material shoveled in. This type of sluice box does catch gold, and is easy to build, but is hard to clean out at the end of the day. In addition the gravel will beat up the wooden riffles over time. It is also possible to create steel riffles that fit inside a wooden sluice, and in that case you can also use miners Moss or some similar material to line the bottom of the sluice underneath the metal riffles. Homemade sluices can also be made from lightweight aluminum. Wooden sluices tend to become waterlogged in increased greatly in weight after they have been in the water for time. This gives aluminum quite an advantage and it is certainly preferred in the construction of the homemade sluice. The trough of the sluice, whether aluminum or wood, is usually roughly the same size. For those interested in making their own home made hand fed sluice box from aluminum with steel riffles as a do it yourself type of project, I can say if you have any metal fabrication skills, you will find this an easy project. A little welding, a little metal folding and the project is done. If you purchase fairly thin aluminum sheet it will be possible to bend it yourself into the trough shape as a single piece (just don’t go too thin). The prospector's portable gold sluice box has an advantage that it can be quickly taken up and moved to a new location, as the prospector searches for spot with good gold. The grade slope when the sluice is set up usually ranges from about one to 2 inches per foot.
The riffles are really the most important part because they are the part of the sluice box that catches the gold. Riffles are often assembled from small slats of steel set at about 45° angle held in place by a rail on either side. They are best assembled by being welded together. Take a look at the pictures with this article and you can see how I have welded my riffles together into a single easily removable piece. Keene and many other sluice box makers do the exact same thing. This makes the riffles easy to remove when it is time to clean the sluice out undercover the gold. Removable riffles, whether in wooden or metal troughs are held down with bots or wedges to keep them from moving around. Now my welds aren't pretty, but they do the job - they just need to be sturdy and hold the riffles in place. I so strongly recommend that you consider buying one of these welders that I have done up a whole web page on it. If you are seriously considering building your own sluice box, check out my page: Low Cost, Small Arc Welders For Home Use The more tools and fabricating skills you possess, the more likely it is that your home made dredge project will be a success. I have done up a page on the hand tools needed for this type of project, you can check it out at: Mining Project Necessary Tools If you would like to view some more information on how to operate a sluice box, be sure to check out my webpage on using one: How To Use A Sluice Box To Find Gold
The hand sluice properly set up with smooth flowing water.	Prospecting with the Grandson - Priceless!

Welcome to the Very Unofficial MXT Users Support Homepage.
Many new and experienced detector users are purchasing Whites MXT metal detector as it is powerful, easy to learn and moderately priced. Its flexibility to hunt coins as well as gold nuggets convinced me to buy one and I purchased my MXT in mid-October 2002. I have been very pleased with it. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have a few and I listen well to others. The MXT is a well designed detector, however, it is a tool, and all tools (including the MXT), produce more in the hands of an experienced user. Experience comes through practice and knowledge, so hopefully the information at this site will shorten your learning curve in mastering the MXT. I’m not a dealer, and I’m not associated with Whites in any way, I’m just an independent metal detector user. Many of the dealers are highly knowledgeable about the detectors they sell, but not surprisingly, Whites dealers tend to think Whites are best, Minelab dealers think Minelabs are best, etc. As a result, some folks take their comments with a grain of salt. I have nothing to sell, no axe to grind one way or another, so my opinions contain no hidden agendas - they are just my opinions.
The purpose of the site to provide independent information, help and input on use of the MXT. This information will be helpful both to the new MXT user as well as the person considering an MXT purchase. You may even see a few things you disagree with - not everyone sees eye to eye on issues concerning metal detectors (or anything else for that mater). I really welcome your thoughts and input on the MXT, as well as this website. However, I don’t get paid to do this, and I’m not retired yet, so I don’t have infinite time available to answer email questions, however I will respond to emails as I have time available. I have tried to make this site as comprehensive as possible, to have the information to answer most questions people may have. Whether your interest is in hunting lost treasure caches, prospecting for gold nuggets or just coinshooting at local parks and schools, I hope you will find the information here useful.
- Chris Ralph NOTE: The MXT metal detector is a product of Whites’ Electronics of Sweet Home, Oregon. This site represents the author's personal opinions and is not reviewed or endorsed or approved by White's Electronics.		Ready for battle with my trusty MXT and light saber. Ever dig with one of these light sabers? They will cut quickly through anything. Have a target that's under a concrete sidewalk? No Problem! They leave some pretty nasty burn marks around the edge of the plug, so on second thought, better not let those city employees see you using it.


Make Your own Gold Pan Most anyone can afford to buy a $10 gold pan, but on the other hand there are sometimes reasons that you might need to improvise. Here is the information you need to know about improvising your own "emergency" gold pan for those occasions when you forgot to bring one.
Design and Build Your own Gold Dredge Can't really afford expensive equipment to find gold nuggets? Interested in having your own dredge? There are a number of issues to consider, but I've done it, and you can, too. My dredge is based on a lot of experience in the field, so it works just great. A good homemade dredge will cost some money, but you may be able to build one a lot cheaper than you could buy one. Here are the plans and information you need to build your own homemade suction gold dredge.
Build Your Own Dredge sluice boxHere is the information you need to consider about building your own sluice box for a dredge. Maybe you want to upgrade your old crash box sluice. The sluice on a dredge is such an important part of the construction, I did up a separate page on it so you could see the full set up and how I built mine. After all, if the sluice doesn't catch the gold, what is the point of the dredge? If you are interested in a hand fed river sluice, look a the next item down on this list.
Plans to Build Your own Hand Fed Sluice Box Want to move up from your gold pan and take the next step in prospecting? A simple hand fed river sluice will process more in an hour than you can pan in a day, and more material moved means more gold in your poke at the end of the day. Miners have been making their own sluices since the days of the gold rush. Here is all the information you need to design and build your own homemade sluice box.
Plans to Build Your own Dry Washer This is just the piece of equipment you need to prospect in the desert for gold. There is a long tradition of home built dry washers. This is a very do-able project, but it does take time, planning, good design and some work. Here are my plans and thoughts on how to build your own dry washer.
Build Your own Gold High Banker The highbanker has become a popular piece of prospecting equipment. It is really just a sluice box set up to run at a location away from the waters edge. A close relation of the dredge and sluice box, the highbanker has the advantage of being able to work bench gravels left high and dry by river erosion. There are two main elements of a high banker: they are the feed box and the sluice box. The main types of deposits for which a higbanker is a good choice are gravels away from the water, such as bench gravels and sometimes residual gravels. Building your own High banker is not an exceptionally difficult project.

Build Your own Gold Shaker Table Shaking tables, sometimes also known as wet tables, consist of a vibrating riffled deck mounted on some type of support. The table is shaken back and forth longitudinally, using a slow forward stroke and a rapid return strike that causes particles to “crawl” along the deck parallel to the direction of motion. The lighter materials move up and over the riffles and down to exit on the tailings side of the table. Wash water is fed at the top of the table at right angles to the direction of table movement. Tables are most commonly used to recover gold from hard rock ores, but can also be used to recover other mineral materials of higher than normal density. While building a shaker table is a fairly difficult project, the results can be well worth it...
Make Your Own Hand Powered Rock Crusher Building your own rock crusher really isn't that difficult, but you'll likely need a welder to do it. The basic concept of rock breaking is making big rock pieces into little ones. Popular hand crushing systems include the hand stamp type crusher. Usually these are fully hand operated like mortar and pestle systems, but more elaborate spring type designs can also be made.
Build Your own Gold Rocker At the very dawn of the Gold rush to California, the rocker box was perhaps the most used piece of gold prospecting equipment. For a time it was perhaps even more important that the gold pan. Mostly this was because the miner could make a rocker for himself in the field from rough sawn lumber cut in the forest. They are also easily portable. So why might a modern prospector be interested in building his own rocker box? The principal use of a gold rocker is for mining small deposits where water is scarce. So perhaps the best use is in streams and waterways with very little water – where some water is present, but not enough to run a sluice box.
Build your own Metal Detector This is certainly not an easy task - but if electronics is your specialty, and you've already done a number of your own electronic projects, then you might want to check in here and see about just what what it takes to build your own homemade metal detector. I have also compiled some thoughts on coil fabrication. Take a look here.
Low Cost, Small Arc Welders For Home UseMy recommendation is that if you want to start fabricating mining equipment (and keep the stuff you already have in good repair) its a good Idea to purchase a small low cost welder - you'll find it has 101 uses around the home. In fact, I so strongly recommend that you consider buying one of these welders that I have done up a whole web page on it. If you are seriously considering building your own mining equipment, check out my page.
Fabricating your Own Prospecting Equipment: Useful Tools Here are some of the recommended tools for these mining equipment fabrication projects. Many of the hand tools listed on my web page are already present in most homeowner garages – you need them for those little maintenance projects that come up for everyone who owns a home. However, I wanted to provide this list of the tools needed to build your own mining equipment to help you better plan out what you need for your project.
Mining Equipment Component Parts If you are considering building a dredge, highbanker or dry washer, you will need some components like engines or water pumps to construct your project. I have put together a listing and discussion of these items, which you will want to consider.
Library and bookstoreWant to learn more? This website has loads of information, but there is always lots more to learn. Here is a large list of books I recommend on Prospecting, rock and mineral collecting, geology, jewelry making, etc. Each has a link where you can make a purchase from Amazon if you wish.

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