Hi Rich,
That is great news, I'm glad it's 'panning' out for you! I've been giving mine a workout this summer and almost wish they made a larger version of it. Definitely reduces the time-consuming panning process.... one sluice-load of cons is a lot of material to work thoroughly with a pan. I bought a small and very powerful rare earth magnet (not pictured) that I've been using in the Bowl now and it really speeds up the process. I pause the Bowl about halfway through a session to remove magnetic heavies and then resume. I was using the standard 'spring-style' (Jobe) miner's magnet pictured in this thread, but it just wasn't powerful enough.
Another thing I have done since then is replaced the cheapo plastic recirculation hoses and valves (pictured) included with the Bowl Kit. Those things were eventually shooting water from every connection. I went to the hardware store and picked up a much better flow regulator and a 6ft section of quality garden hose to replace those items. The hose was sold as "connection hose for hose reel", or something of that nature and there was probably a whole isle devoted to flow regulators. The pump motor that they give you with the Bowl kit is top notch though, mine has been working flawlessly and I also power a recirculating sluice with it.
Now.... if they'd only invent some kind of super-magnet to extract micro-quartz.

Swizz,

Just came across this thread, doing some research on picking up a blue bowl myself. Quick question: would you advocate getting the "leg levelers" that are advertised alongside the BB? Seems a bit steep at ~$21...

Thanks

Jake,
I'm big bowl fan, so I'm definitely the type who's gonna recommend it.
It does have a bit of a learning curve but really not too bad. Their instructions SUCK and are inaccurate. Go to prospectorchannel.com and watch this vid: Gold Processing
It will take ALL of the pain out of learning the nuances of the Blue Bowl.

Brilliant thread! I was trying to wrap my brain around how I was going to process the 12 (1/2 - 3/4 full) buckets of 1/4" classified material from this weekend and now I've got it! I know the classifiers are stackable, but seeing the photos made it all clear... must be that 6.5 years I spent in the "Show Me" state; I need a visual.

I did order a blue bowl, it'll be here Friday. Unfortunately, starting Wed, I'm going to be tied up working 16-ish hour days at the Warrior Games (http://www.teamusa.org/warriorgames/) for the next 2 weeks, so I'm not going to get to dedicate any time to it anytime soon. :(

So for the blue bowl kit parts, I assume I just take all the kit plumbing parts and go find the higher quality equivalents at the hardware store?

Thanks for sharing your smarts Chris!!

With that much material to run don't get in a hurry when you're classifying. If you try to run too much material the screens will fill up and not allow all of the smaller stuff through. I have a small cup that I use when I'm classifying, one scoop at a time and I make sure all of the cons are washed before I put another scoop in.

I'm down with that! When I thought about trying to speed things up in the field this weekend, wondering if saving time by skipping the "extra" quick wash, a check of the bucket showing I was still catching stuff the buckets missed confirmed it was worth the time! I don't want to waste all that back breaking effort with the shovel by throwing gold away!! Copy, slow & steady!!

OH, I just had a thought, we have 3 50 gallon rain barrels (shhhhh.... don't tell) so I won't even have to use any water I don't already have! I can just put the bilge pump in the rain barrel (suspended near the top to keep from picking up shingle sand and dead critters lol), put my bucket on the top of the barrel, and I've got my recirculating system set up!!

BTW, that harbor freight power supply worked like a champ!

All right, I got my classifying area set up last night (took a pic, will post this evening) and ran about 10 small trowels through. Definitely takes some time to get a good routine. No doubt it is going to take a LONG time to run through 12 buckets! I just panned each level and didn't see a single speck; LOTS of mica and not a lot of black sand... maybe this bucket was one that I got a lot of the overburden that had dropped in? I know it was only 10 small scoops, so not huge odds there would be a lot in them.

Did you ever play around some more with that small bucket sluice? Any suggestions on how I could work them in to my process? The buckets are classified to 4- now, should I do it to 8- and try that sluice, or to be safe, just take the time to use the classifiers and do 20, 30, 50, 100 and then pan the 20- and blue bowl the 30/50/100?

Makes for long days at work, sitting here wishing I was home playing with my dirt!

So I got a little recirculating area to classify set up. Still trying to get in to a groove on how to most efficiently work. Ran 4 rounds through the 8, 12, 20s. Panned one of the 12s & 20s with no sign of color :( Grabbed a couple of handfuls of the 20- and panned it, no color :(

Swapped the water out in the tub when I got done; quite a bit of muck bottom, guessing mostly the stuff that was light enough to suspend in the water and come out of the bucket drains. Should I bother to pan most of that or just skim off the light stuff and save the last little bit of heavier stuff in the bottom?

Try panning it. You may find some very fine gold that also floated out. probably not anything bigger or thicker tho...good luck!

More importantly you can skip the 12 for sure and you should add a 50 mesh. The -50 gold will pan out MUCH easier when it is separate from the 20-50 material. Watch a video on the shake and tap method to see how best to pan the finer stuff. (either Mike Pung or Doc from Gold Hog have good videos on this method)

Thanks! I am planning on panning the 12 & 20 and running the 20- through 30, 50, 100 and blue bowling that.

That should work well!

Mrs Crusty will be out of town Mon-Thur. Might have to set up some work lights and get some quality time with my cons after work next week!!

"Quality time with my cons." Sounds romantic! Perhaps by candlelight and a nice bottle of wine to ease the gold out of its iron coverings?

Jessie, that's very sweet, but bright lights and beer work much better - seems that raw gold runs to the "Redneck" side of the tracks! Crusty, I do like the 12 mesh classifier for panning, too. I needed something between -8 and -20, and -12 works great. I would take a 16 mesh too, but that's overkill. I also bought a black sand magnet to make things easier (yes, I pan/run that too!). I like what you are doing with your set-up, and would like to get with you on that this weekend so I can put together a station, too.

Well in that case bring whisky, moonshine and light up the room with a string of Christmas lights and Chevy brights!