Building your own gold prospecting equipment is a great way to ramp up your gold production without spending lots of money. You can build your own sluice, rocker box, classifier, even your own drywasher!
Gold Prospecting Equipment Plans
Here’s two famous books, probably the only ones with DIY plans for mining equipment, both written by Sam Radding. They contain plans for everything you need to ramp up your gold production while at the same time saving hundreds of dollars!
Sam Radding’s Book of Plans 1 – $ 14.95
This first book in the two-volume series contains seven sets of plans and instructions on how you can easily build your own prospecting equipment. Build your own gold prospecting equipment with Sam Radding’s Book of Plans 1.
All plans contain materials and hardware lists, tips and advice for construction and also detailed drawings. Using common tools you’ll find in every home and cheap materials you can have your own prospecting equipment in a matter of hours.
Plans included in Volume I:
Port A Sluice
Build a compact, yet full-sized sluice box that breaks down into sections for portability and storage
Rocker Box
Build a traditional rocker box, a truly time tested pieces of prospecting equipment
Small Rocker
Plans for a small rocker box that is easily portable and great for sampling
Wooden Concentrator
Add a strong pump and this wooden highbanker style concentrator is great for getting gold out of those high benches. These plans also include a section for how to build a rocker concentrator
Aluminum Concentrator
Similar to the highbanker style concentrator above, but in lightweight and tough aluminum
Bellows Drywasher
Plans for how to build a hand-crank bellows drywasher, perfect for desert gold prospecting. Can also be powered by a small motor
Conveyer Belt
Build a conveyer belt for moving your drywasher tailings out of the way as you work
Sam Radding’s Book of Plans 2 – $ 15.95
Sam Radding’s Book of Plans Volume II is the second book in the series and expands on the first one. You’ll find 8 more DIY plans for homemade mining equipment, for example a crack hook and a fanning board.
As in the first book this one also offer easy step-by-step instructions complete with materials lists, diagrams and detailed drawings.
Plans included in Volume II:
View Scopes
Build your own viewing scope to snipe for gold underwater.
Snuffer Bulb
Works in a similar way to a snuffer bottle but can be used underwater to suck up any gold while sniping.
Crack Hook
A great tool for easily scraping out material from cracks.
Fanning Board
Use a fanning board underwater to quickly move sand, silt, moss and more.
Suction Stick
Use this homemade hand dredge to quickly and easily suck up material from holes or cracks and easily transfer it to your recovery equipment.
Vibrobasic Drywasher
Build your own small and lightweight vibrostatic drywasher.
Mini-Magic Drywasher
A bellows drywasher that is small and light enough to carry into otherwise unreachable spots.
Gold Classifying Screens
Make this handy classifier set to classify down all that gold you’ve found into various mesh sizes.
More DIY Plans
Highbanker/Sluice guide by Chuck Cummins – link
Build your own Gravity Dredge – link
Field classifier – link
High Volume Bucket Classifier – link
Ratled’s Highbanker – link
Home made sluices – link
Various DIY plans for gold prospecting tools – link
DIY Videos
You can find lots of homemade gold panning equipment on Youtube. Here’s one of a homemade classifier:
Don’t want to build your own equipment?
Then click here to check out the best gold prospectors store you’ll find online. They have a wide assortment of gold prospecting supplies and tools. Also, check out my list of gold prospecting equipment essentials to learn what you need to get started with prospecting and panning for gold.
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