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Oh not another
gold pan. This pan certainly looks different, hmmm, lets
see. The Grizzly Gold Pan at first sight is strange.
It has an unusual triangular shape and has a hole in the
bottom and looks like a miniature sluice box. The
construction is of hard plastic with a number of built-in
riffles. These riffles on either side of the box prevent
any gold loss and forces the heavies into the bottom slot.
Once at the bottom, the concentrates including the gold,
can be taken out by removing a rubber stopper.
After a recent
trip to one of my hot spots I managed to bring back about
20 l of rich gravels (I was hopeful) for further concentrating.
A good opportunity to test the Grizzly Gold Pan.
Having a “panners back” that sometimes kills me, I do a
lot of my panning and cleaning up in my back yard in a large
water tub. I do this so that I can sit down on the job,
nice and comfortable, with a beer at a handy distance.
After reading
the instructions, I classified the gravels through a 1/4
inch (6mm) sieve. The pan works best with clean screened
material. I plugged the hole on the bottom with the supplied
rubber bung, filled the pan right to the top with the gravel
material from my bucket and proceeded with the next step.
Sitting there
comfy with my elbows resting on my knees, I dipped the
Grizzly Gold Pan into the water to the top and level
with the lip, letting the water in. I kneaded and stirred
the wet sloppy gravels in the pan with my fingers, letting
off air bubbles. Next I started moving the pan back and
forth, left and right, first slowly then with an ever increasing
tempo. I noticed that a lot of gravel started to go over
either side of the pan, between my fingers. I hoped I was
not losing any gold!
Now and again
I would tilt the pan first to the left and then to the right,
thus removing more waste gravels. When there was about 1/4
of gravels left in the pan I would tilt the pan to one side
and slowly let the water drain out. The leftover gravels
and gold concentrates remaining in the pan. Next I filled
a small pan with about 20 mm of water placed the Grizzly
Gold Pan over the pan, removing the rubber plug and
dipping the bottom receiving cavity into the water. Only
the gravel material in the very bottom would wash out and
fall into the pan. After a quick rinse the rubber plug would
be replaced immediately and the Grizzly filled with more
gravels to repeat the process over again.
Second time
around I was getting faster and the suspense was getting
to me, I just had to have a peek. With all this back and
forth movement the gold just had to work its way to the
bottom with the other concentrates, once more, into the
clean-up pan for an inspection.
A couple of
swirls of the clean-up pan revealed some nice specs of gold
with some black sands. Wow! some of the specks were barely
visible. I am impressed. With the next load of gravels I
really went fast, whoosh, whoosh. There was water splashing
everywhere. I had to find out how quick this Grizzly
Gold Pan could fly. It is fast, I have no doubt that
it is far faster than my trusty round gold pan. The manufacturers
claim up to 10 times faster than a conventional pan.
On checking my tailings in the tub, I was pleased on how
little gold I had lost seeing that I had really tried to
go as fast as I could.
Using
a round gold pan, your upper body and rear end moves about
greatly, increasing fatigue and back pain. To use the
Grizzly Gold Pan most movement comes from your wrists
and arms, and it is possible to rest your elbows on your
knees increasing comfort levels, and oh yes, don’t
forget the beer!
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