Loaming dish

[user 1769]

Is there any advantage in using a 10-inch, steep-sided loaming dish, rather than a small, 10-inch normal panning dish, when processing loam samples? It looks like the loaming dish might hold some more material, which might be helpful, but I can't see any other reason.
Cheers!

 

[MJB]

Not that I know of mfdes,

A loam sample from memory can be any size and any gold found will be relative to the size dish you use. ie; small dish fewer colours, large dish more colours. I think any dish that could fit in your panning bucket would be fine.

Have you read 'Loaming for Gold' by Sam Cash? Its worth the read and I reckon he says the size is not too critical

 

[user 1769]

Thanks MJB,

Yes, I have read 'Loaming for Gold' cover to cover a few times, I found the English a bit confusing on first read, it needed slow, careful reading! The reason I ask is that a few retailers have 10-inch 'loaming dishes', which cost at least twice as much as a the same size,regular-shaped dish. I'm thinking perhaps the steeper sides of the 'loaming dish' make cleaning the last little bit of gold using minimal water a bit easier?

 

[MJB]

fair enough....it might be a good marketing ploy too. I think any pan would do in all honesty but it has to suit your rquirements. If I was to loam I would use my little garret finishing pan just for the convenience factor

 

[user 1769]

Hahaha yes, the marketing ploy thing was what I was afraid of, and why I asked in the first place!

 

[rc62burke]

Hi Miguel
Mate I use my Garret Super sluice, I take samples using a hand auger to try to keep them uniform then cart the bagged samples home, carefully recorded of course, but once I have panned down to the fines I use the standard small black plastic pan, to get an extremely accurate speck count I pan this into another catch pan & re-pan a number of times, counting & removing the specks each time, this method has proved very effective.
cheers
Lee

 

[user 1769]

Thanks Lee, sounds like a good way to go.
Miguel.