Gold Mining Equipment. Use a Gold Dredge on Your Gold Mining Claims and Reap The Rewards



Posted: Wednesday, September 29, 2010

by Joe Mac Millan

Gold mining equipment comes in so many shapes and sizes that selecting the right type becomes a real challenge.

Many gold prospectors today are electing to go with the portable dredge. If you are considering doing so you need to choose between the dredge you employ to extract gold from between the rocks and gravel lying on the river bed or electing to do the high banking method.

Hi banking simply means that the dredge need not be floating on the surface of the creek. As a rule, the machine is set up near the water supply. Depending upon the size of the intake hose, from one to three people will feed the gravel into the box where it mixes with the water.

The machines are fitted with a removable hopper to allow it to be operated simply as a dredge without it, or with it attached it will allow the larger rocks and roots and debris to be screened out before falling into the sluice. Fitted inside the hopper there are two or three or more rods called the grizzly that help to direct the big stuff. The hopper will be fitted with spray bars that direct a high volume of water at the roots and rocks thus washing off any clay bearing gold that may be adhering to it.

Some of the machines come equipped with up to 5.5 horsepower Honda motors which are very efficient and very reliable. Since the machines are fitted with 5 inch hoses they will handle large volumes of gravel continually.

When the gravel passes through the hopper it will fall down into the sluice box that is fitted with riffles that are underlain with carpet or miners moss. This part of the process is exactly the same idea as used for many decades when the old time prospectors chopped down trees at the side of the creek and built a sluice box by hand.

People who are engaged in Colorado gold mining are no different than those folks from Alaska gold mining areas. They all work their gold mining claims with similar methods. Of course the brokers who push gold mining stocks keep up to date with the latest machinery to better inform their buyers.

Joe and Irma MacMillan have spent many years backpacking, skiing, and simply enjoying life in the mountains of British Columbia. Their website Whistler Outdoors is full of tips on snowboarding, camping, kayaking, rafting, camp cooking and fishing. They met on a blind date in 1957 and are still married. Take a look at their story here About us

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