Gold Planning Procedure

Gold washing is basically very simple once you realize that what you are doing is the same the river does to deposit gold in its different locations.

The processed is based in putting the material you want to process in the pan. Then by moving it under water from left to right and vice versa to make gold, that is heavy, deposit at the bottom. Likewise, useless lighter materials are worked in the upper part of the pan where it is washed out. The process of shaking it and sweeping it is continued until the heavy material such as gold, silver and platinum lay at the bottom of the pan.

Once you are in the field, you will notice that two people will never wash their gold in the same exact way. When you have some experience, you will develop your own movements to get better results.

Following are the basic procedures to wash gold using a pan:

• Step 1  - Once you have located some gravel to sample it, put it in a pan, filling it up to ¾ the limit. After having worked it for a while, you can fill it up completely without losing any gold. Meanwhile, put the material in the pan, and take out the bigger pieces of rock so as to have more space to put the smaller material and gold in the pan.
• Step 2  -  Choose a place for washing. It is better to choose locations that are at least 6 inches deep and preferably with soft movements, enough to throw out the mud and sediment water in the pan. This way, one can see what he is doing. You do not want water that moves too much and that could alter the washing activities. A soft stream will be enough if there is any like that. It is always better to try to find locations where there is a rock, wood, shore or something where one can sit to do the washing. One can equally do the washing kneeling down or bending down, but that is very tiring. If you are planning to process more than one or two pans sitting down will make your job more pleasant.
• Step 3  - Take the pan to a fixed location and sink it in the waters.
• Step 4  - Use your fingers to rub and break into pieces the contents in the pan to be able to soak them in water. This is when you set apart the clay, dirt, roots, mold and others, and make sure that all the materials have been broken into pieces and suspended in a liquid state in the pan. While doing this, the pan has to be under the water. Mud and sediment will float upwards and will go out of the pan. Do not worry if you lose some gold. Remember that when this happens gold will always be heavier than the rest of materials, so it will sink to the bottom of the pan wile the other materials float away from the pan.
• Step 5  - When the entire content of the pan has been broken down, take the pan with your hands (with cheater riffles on the far side of the pan), and beat it vigorously from left to right just below the surface of water. This will help you breakdown even more the contents of the pan and will start to work the heavier materials downwards in the pan while the lighter ones go up. In this step be careful to not make so vigorous movements when beating it you could spill everything out. Depending on the consistency of the material which one is working with, it could be necessary to alternate steps 4 and 5 for some times to keep all the contents in the pan in a suspended liquid state. This same suspended liquid state will allow the heavier material to sink to the bottom of the pan.