Kitchen Utensils used for finding Gold

Many of these things can be used in the search for gold, but not all.
Photo by Jeppestown

About the last thing in the world you would expect to use in the hunt for placer gold are ordinary kitchen utensils. Just think about that some of the most useful tools in the hunt for Gold are nothing more complicated than a spoon, knife and fork along with several other common things that can be bought at a kitchen supply store.

One of the most useful things you can have as nothing more than a simple plastic colander. This is used to separate large stones that would normally go into your gold pan before they ever get there. The colander is used by placing it over a gold pan and filling it with stream gravel then pouring water over it causing the smaller particles to come out through the bottom into the Gold pan. You can then throw away the larger stones, but examine them first to be sure they do not contain a gold nugget.

Another useful kitchen gadget is a wide mesh sieve you can actually set up in the gold pan below the colander this serves to separate even more of gold bearing sand from the larger particles. The material that is caught by the strainer is retained for future panning to recover any larger particles of gold.

Although a gold pan or even better a set of gold pans are nice to have but they are not really necessary because the author has actually used plastic food containers to pan for gold. No we ever set a gold pan had to be round!

The spoon, knife and fork are used to dig around in places that are too small to use a regular shovel. This is especially true of places like crevices in rocks. In the same vein one of the most useful tools for the recovery of gold is a large serving spoon that is also used in small places that are also too large for shovel.

One of these plastic food containers can be used as a gold pan.
Photo by Stuart Spivack

Most of the gold panning kits that are now on the market include a snuffer bottle that is used to suck up small pieces of gold that are too small to be picked up by the fingers. You can use a turkey baster to do the same thing although it is a little large and cumbersome but actually works better is an ordinary eyedropper. Some kitchen supply stores supplying these things made from plastic as large as 5 ml, or 1 ounce.

Your homemade gold panning kits should also include a 10 X. magnifying glass and a pair of sharp pointed tweezers. This collection along with a conventional gold panning kit should serve in just about any situation that you find yourself in your hunt for placer gold. Who knows you may even find some other devices in your kitchen supply store that you may also find useful.

References:

This article is coming from personal experiences by the author over many years of panning placer gold.

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