Lightweight pan

Hi Guys,

I have a Garrett supersluice and a Minelab 15" pan for my partner and I, however she finds both too heavy to pan with for even a short period of time and goes to the 10" pan very quickly due to the fact it's lighter. The 10" is fine, however it takes forever for her to get through dirt.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a lightweight larger pan?

Cheers,

Lightweight pan, normal pan I would think its the volume of gravel and wash that you put in is the determining weight factor.

I reckon the pan weight would be negligible compared to the weight of the gravel/sand/gold loaded into it. As well as being bigger, a larger pan will likely have a thicker profile to cope with the greater weight of material it can carry, so a larger one would always weigh more than a smaller one.

The best way to reduce the load on the arms is to keep the pan submerged as much as possible - everything weighs less below the water - so changing the panning technique might prove the most effective way to reduce arm strain.

Manpa said:

Lightweight pan, normal pan I would think its the volume of gravel and wash that you put in is the determining weight factor.

Click to expand...

This :Y:

Just put less gravel in the pan

Agree with the above.
Some other options to speed things up might be something like a mini concentrator?
Or if you have running water a river sluice?

Garrett make a smaller pan, not deep dished like the SuperSluice, from memory its called the Prospector (?)

Perhaps a turbo pan might help, not so good for concentrates but much faster, and much more buoyant.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Very meaningful as it's good to have some company when and I don't want her to loose interest over something small. I don't know why I didn't really think about less gravel? I'm usually concentrating on my pan so I have never really paid much attention to how much she may be putting in!

Interesting about the submerging. We will definitely give it a go. Its pretty easy when starting out to get nervous about loosing your load in the creek so we will need some more practice with that.

Will also check out the prospector. Thanks.

I hate to say it... but I bought a cheap, unbranded 14" pan on ebay for $20 (including postage) and it is far lighter then more solid pans such as a super sluice.
Held up fine the last 12 months - just don't expect a lifetime of use from it :lol:

Haha thanks for the input. I was sort of thinking that a cheaper one might be go if we can't get the right technique down pat for her!

Saves a lot of work if you use a 20 lt. bucket , mini concentrator . You can put say , 10 pan loads through and have only 1 pan load to clean up .

Watch the wal n Liz video for panning in the water.

https://youtu.be/JWciIvKqAIQ

Maybe a Gold Claw?

I don't mind using mine here and there.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=32418

Tie helium balloons to it layful: , but the key is a comfortable low seat ,gumboots so your legs are in the water so you have a more natural sitting position, elbows supported by knees or legs and the pan basically under water apart from 80% of the rim once the silt is washed out and you've spilt the larger stones you can raise your pan as the weight reduces.
Classifying down to 1/2 inch before panning usually reduces the material to be panned by 1/3 also.
A pan 25% up to 50% full is more than twice as quick to do as a chock a block full pan.

If that doesn't help go and find her hand bag if it doesn't weigh 10kg like most do hide a brick in the bottom to toughen her up.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

We're out this coming weekend. Will check back in and let you know how we go.