I know how you feel. I have been Gold panning since I was a teenager in the 90's and the lingo and the techniques they use on this topic is a bit beyond my scope.
I do understand why they need to refine larger amounts of material to get the Gold out though.

OK, in my recirculating tub there is a lot of sediment, from the light sand that is suspended in the water. Is the fine gold light enough to get caught up in this stuff as it floats about and should I be panning it or saving it for the blue bowl? Or is it pretty safe to assume it is all just waste?

Knocked out another bucket... only 7 to go!

Since this is from Chris's claim, I would not worry about the sediment as there are very little fines in his area. You might find a speck of -100, but I doubt it. Also, if you are properly using a surfactant (like "Jet-Dry", and producing no foam), fine gold will not get caught up in the fine sediment. I'd toss it - Try as you might, Crusty, no matter what, you can't catch it all. Some will get away for whatever reason, and it's just not worth the time/effort to try and catch it.

Definitely using jet dry. Glad to hear that, as I did quickly pan the first 1/2 bucket I pulled out and didn't see anything. If it was in an area that had more fine gold, would it be prudent to process it, or is even the fine stuff heavy enough not to get caught up in it?

Thanks for sharing your smarts! :)

I agree that most of the Gold from that latest hole is +50.... not much in the minus 100 class. I'm never too excited about processing minus 100 from up there, takes longer and doesn't yield as much... but has to be done.

When I get down to the -100 cons I run the bowl really slow for a few minutes, roughly 1 1/2 down from the lip. That slowly pulls the light blondes off the top, then I stop the flow and spread out what has built up around the cone and push it to the outside. I keep doing that while slowly ramping up the speed until all I can see is a little bit of black sand left. I'll pan that slowly and watch for color trying to move with the black sand. The hard part is getting it out of the pan, I have an insulin syringe that I filed the point off of that works pretty good, but I have to check the rubber piece inside because the gold loves to stick to it. It really is more trouble than it's worth for the super fine stuff, Chris is right that most of the gold is 50+ up there from what I've seen in both of my cleanups.

copy, thanks fellas!

Jessie - I'm pretty sure you now have a sluice, and a clean up sluice from Swizz (which is elegantly simple with a really nice construction IMO). That seems to be how it goes....you build up gear along with knowledge over time.

Donny - if you fancy a trip to just west of Golden on Clear Creek, Jessie and I will be up there Saturday (US 6 headed west, ~mile marker 261....first major turnout to the left after you pass Mayhem Gulch's paved parking lot). While at the creek, I generally use my pans to test and keep the sun off my sodas cooling in the stream, so you could use those. I also take #4 and #8 classifier screens (smaller ones stay at home for cleanup), and have a Wolftrap sluice you could use. You'd just need to dress to be in the water, and bring a shovel. I can show you how I learned to pan (backwash and tap technique primarily), and lessons learned since then if you need that. Let me know. I figure I'll be up there around 10-10:30 unless I don't end up sleeping in tomorrow.

There is no sleeping in! We have gold to find!!!!! Donny you are more than welcome to join us.

That is very cool of you EMac and Jessie! Have fun and stay safe out there............ and I hope the gold lines your pans!

Revisiting this thread, FINALLY setting up my blue bowl!

OK, I'm definitely a blue bowl convert. Had fun working though my 2 coffee cans of cons from 3 trips to Swizz's claim and one trip to Clear Creek.

Got all set up, and of course it started raining, so I had to move closer to the house and break out my raincoat.

Found one flake in the 30 mesh and 5 little bits in the 50 mesh. Tomorrow I'll run the 70 and 100.

Thanks for the great tips Swizz; made doing this for the first time a breeze!

Got my 70 & 100 screens mixed up, so it was all 100... let's just say I just THOUGHT I was sold in the blue bowl, now that I ran the 100 and the -100, I KNOW I am sold! This is material I've panned the heck out of and I am shocked at the amount of color I got.

Pics in the morning; bed time for now!

I forgot in addition to 3 trips to Swizz's and a Clear Creek trip, there are cons from a bag of pay I bought over the winter to play with.

Amazed at the amount of stuff I missed panning (and wondering how much I've thrown away after panning and throwing away material I though was color free )

Here's the 100 mesh
Click to view attachment


, the -100 . Curious at the amount in the -100, as I know Swizz's claim doesn't have a lot in that size... so either we hit a layer that does, or it is all from CC and the pay I bought.
Click to view attachment

and the total I got out of 2 half full coffee cans
Click to view attachment

I'm cornfused.... that can't be your grand total from our last trip. If so, somethin ain't right.... or we need to move on to another hole. That's not a lot.

These are my leftover cons that I'd already panned, but held on to, so I could blue bowl them. So they'd already been panned (with my obviously crappy panning skills! lol)

I just mentioned you in the -100 comment, since I know hasn't been much of that size stuff coming out of your hole, so either we came upon a fine layer or the pay I bought had a bunch of fines in it. I didn't have too much material from CC, so I don't think it was from there. Will be interesting to see what you got on the 4th to see if you ended up with much 100 & -100.

Oh... I get it. I might suggest that you organize and tag your con samples? I use Ziplocs to organize my samples but the coffee can containers are a good idea too, just take up too much space for me.

Rog, saw you doing that and will definitely clean up the "technical" side of my operation, so I know what's what.

Reading about ye olde blue bowl, it seems some folks like to move the supplied valve back a bit from bowl; perhaps it provides a more laminar water flow. Did any of you do any mods? I saw that Chris was considering replacing the valve.

Yes, for sure. This thread is about 5yrs old now.... a few years ago I retrofitted a good spigot about 8 or 10 inches back from the bowl. It helps for sure. I also recommend a small pump like a 250. Anything larger gets a workout when you choke the flow with the spigot or whatever regulator. A solution to that (too big of pump) would be to run it full blast and add a "Y" connector to bleed off the excess (back into the tub).... which also can help control the bowl flow.
My current setup.... (15gal) Small submerged pump and no bleeder.
Blue Bowl by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Excellent! I suspect I'll have to do something similar. It should be here tomorrow, so I'm pretty stoked.

I'm not understanding the water setup (yes I am a newb) Is it sucking water up out of the tub and spraying it back in? I don't see where the end where you can get electrocuted is doing anything but sitting in the water with an exposed wire attached to a battery. I have seen some of the prospectors use this setup when cleaning gems in the field, but not in a house.

In the pics, water is pumped (submersible) from the bigger 25-gallon bucket into the blue bowl setting up a vortex. The water level is adjusted for the mesh size being processed, and the theory is to set the water just high enough to lift the black sands up the center cone, while the heavier gold settles around the bottom of the cone. Swizz linked a video in post 18 of this thread that shows it in action.

Silky, Eric is correct. The white hose in the pic leads into the tub. At the bottom there is a small 12 volt bilge pump exactly like the ones used in boats.... it can't electrocute you, it's only 12V and fully sealed. The Blue Bowl is essentially a centrifuge and works similar to a toilet. Water is pumped into the bowl and swirls clockwise. Slowly add material. The light material finds it's way to the cone first. It climbs the cone and exits the center (flushed down the toilet).... into the waste bucket that the bowl is perched on. The Gold is way too heavy to climb the cone and get flushed. It stays at the base of the cone and elsewhere throughout the bowl during the process. It's kinda fun to watch.

In my opinion, this unit is used best for cleaning out concentrates and not raw material.

For sure. Anything larger than what the Blue Bowl is designed for (#30 mesh or smaller) would scratch the inside of the bowl.... which would be bad.

Mine should arrive today, and I'm wondering about what Chris said earlier about bleeding off excess pressure. The pump in the kit is a 750, and the other pumps I have are bigger than that. Considering moving the valve back and bleeding off pressure, I think I'll try using a Y-split. My thought process is to be able to switch quickly from classifying to running the BB. I'm thinking put a nozzle on the other side of the split. Any thoughts on the utility or wisdom of that?

Eric, I just checked and I'm running a 500 pump, it is just right. I used to run a 750 but it gave up the ghost last year. I would recommend a Y for the 750. Most garden variety Y splitters have a built-in lever style regulator on each outlet. Combine that with a good spigot valve on the main bowl feed and regulating flow will be much easier.

Looks like the links to the pics at the beginning of the thread are dead.