Homemade Gold Panning Equipment

Cut off a square of window screen that can be folded over to make a 1 foot by 1 foot square. Use this folded piece of screen for a gold pan. Lay a handful of soil on the screen and grasp it with both hands. Bring your hands together, folding the screen over the soil. Shake it a couple of times under water to remove any silt and dirt. Sift through the remains for small pieces of gold.

Place your HVAC duct on the ground and cut it in half horizontally. Set one of the halves to the side for later use. Make a mixture of small rocks and clay and mold them together to make a cylinder-shaped dam that will fit in between the walls of the HVAC duct that will become a sluice. Place these dams every 2 feet. Line the floor of the sluice with window screen and place the sluice on the surface of the water. The water will feed through while the heavier rocks will be stopped by the dams. Inspect the deposits for gold pieces.

Use the other half of the HVAC duct for a homemade rocker box. Use the sheet-metal scissors to cut the half duct so that you can hold each end comfortably. Make the rocker box like the sluice, but place a rock/clay dam at both ends to keep it holding water. Place water and soil in the rocker box and lay it centered on the log. Rock the rocker box on the log to get the water to swish back and forth, letting a little spill out each time. Check the bottom of the rocker box for gold pieces.