Don’t want to pay $22 for a gold classifier? How about building a gold classifier for $5-7? I will describe how you can make your own gold classifier, one that works really well and isn’t that difficult to make. I won’t take the credit for this one though. I learned it from a fellow prospector out in the field. He showed me his homemade gold classifier and described the process. When I got home I made one and have use it in the field several times. Here is my summary for building his style of gold classifier.
Supplies needed to build the gold prospecting classifier:
A saw, one 5 gallon round plastic bucket, 6 pop rivets, a pop rivet gun, drill (note: you can do this without pop rivets if you don’t have a poprivet tool or drill), wire mesh (I like the 1/4″ square holes. You can purchase this at home depot or you can often find pieces of metal mesh or items that contain metal screens at a thrift store for $1-2). The mesh needs to be about 3-4 inches larger than the diameter of the bucket.
Gold classifier instructions:
Near the top of the bucket there will be a series of rims. Mark the bucket approximately 3-4″ below the lowest rim and draw a line around the bucket. Now, use the saw to cut the bucket in half at this point. (Note: by cutting the bucket in half, I mean that you should end up with a large ring and a small bucket. The cut should go around the bucket. Not up and down.) Now, take the small bucket, not the one that has the bucket handle. Make another mark about 2″ down from where you cut the bucket.
Again draw a line around the bucket and use the saw to cut a ring. This ring should be about 2″ thick. You may now discard the very bottom piece of the bucket as it won’t be needed. Now set this ring on the wire mesh and draw a circle on the mesh. The circle should be about 1.5″ away from the outside edge of the ring. So if the diameter of the ring is lets say 10″, then the circle you draw should be around 13″ diameter. These numbers are not exact. It all depends on where you cut the bucket and the syle of bucket you use.
Now, cut out the circle from the mesh. You are going to rap the mesh onto the ring so it may help to cut some 1″ V shaped cuts into the edge of the mesh to make it easier to fold onto the ring. Set the small ring back onto the the mesh and wrap the edge of the mesh onto the ring. You can hold it in place with your hand or you may secure it with duct tape, which makes it a little easier. Now place the ring with the mesh into the top section of the bucket that had the rims and the handle. Push the ring and mesh down as far as possible. You can use a hammer to get it to set in the bottom more tight. This is important if you are not going to use rivets. If you will not use rivets, get the ring in really tight and it is good to go. Over time, it may come loose and you might have to pound it back in, though I have one that I did not use rivets on and it has never come loose.
If you have a drill and pop rivet tool, drill maybe six holes through the bucket piece and the ring and mesh. You can pop rivet the ring into place and it will stay really secure. There you have it, your own homemade gold classifier! The nice thing about this type of gold classifier is that it seats really well into other 5 gallon buckets. These actually hold up really well. I have one that I made many years ago and it is still working well, just as well as my Keene gold classifiers.
Easy Way to Make a Gold Prospecting Scope
Have you ever seen the advertisements for the pre-made or do it yourself gold scopes that are a tube with a lense that allows you to look under the water to snipe for gold? I always thought that a gold scope would be the way to go on a creek that was too shallow for me to use a scuba mask. Well a few years ago, a friend of mine, Dale Bascom (www.slimsgold.com) introduced me to a cool little trick that accomplishes the same thing, but at a fraction of the cost.
All that is required is a scrap piece of plexiglass. (I can’t remember the size of his, but mine are about 9 inches by 6 inches. I also have some smaller ones.) What you do is hold the plexiglass at a slight angle so that the upstream edge is slightly higher than the downstream edge. Lower it until it makes contact with the water on the lower edge while keeping the upper edge out of the water.
It may take a little practice, but you can create a zone on the plexiglass that allows you to see clearly in to the water so that you can check submerged cracks for gold flakes and gold pickers. You can usually pick up some scrap pieces of plexiglass at some of the larger hardware stores that also cut the plastic on site.
If you want a more traditional looking gold scope, all you need to do is glue a piece of plexi-glass to a short section of larger diameter pvc pipe. They really are simply devices that you can make yourself for a fraction of the cost of buying one. Sometimes you can find discarded pieces that will not cost you anything. I prefer using just the piece of plexi-glass as it is not as bulky and still works well.
Also, Dale has written a cool book called Following the Legends – A GPS Guide to Utah’s Lost Mines and Hidden Treasures. If you are interested in the area, there are some interesting stories and information.