Advice please...... garnet?

[mangoat]

Hi Guys and Girls,

Just a quick one.
I was recently on a family holiday and stumbled into Bingara. Apart from some gold panning and panner's mate activity up at three creeks with paul (where i found a quantity of fine as well as a little clinker of a nugget) i went off and grabbed a bit of dirt from Ruby Hill with zero idea on how to pan/clean/sort for garnets.

So basically, i have some dirt/gravel from the hill, and would like to know what sort of tools to invest in to start the cleaning and sorting process.

I have a couple of black plastic gold pans. Obviously i need to invest in 1 or 2 or 3 sieves...... what gradings should i look at?

And the process.... where do i start? If this yields something of interest, i think i might just have the wife hooked on the idea of fossicking holidays with the kids, as they loved the getting back to basics and exploring the wilderness.

Any information would be great.

Regards,
Goat.

p.s. sorry for probably asking the most mundane and possibly common question.

 

[Whisp]

Fossicking holidays with the kids, as they loved the getting back to basics and exploring the wilderness.

Nah, they just liked getting wet and dirty and not get in to trouble for doing it.

 

[LONEWOLF]

These are the sizes I use...
1mm mesh for Diamond areas...3mm or 3/16" mesh for Sapphire areas...
6mm or 1/4 mesh and a 12mm or 1/2" mesh, and a homemade 20mm ......
I really don't use the 1mm much as anything you find is too small to cut anyhow...
There are several Places that sell them...
Aussie Sapphire have 'Beginners kits'.... and anything else you may require...
https://www.aussiesapphire.com.au/i...17_211&zenid=5e8d45491effb9a26e034aa1c925a858

LW....

 

[Chiron52]

I was recently on a family holiday and stumbled into Bingara. Apart from some gold panning and panner's mate activity up at three creeks with paul (where i found a quantity of fine as well as a little clinker of a nugget) i went off and grabbed a bit of dirt from Ruby Hill with zero idea on how to pan/clean/sort for garnets.

So basically, i have some dirt/gravel from the hill, and would like to know what sort of tools to invest in to start the cleaning and sorting process.

I was at Ruby Hill 12 months ago. A couple of hours digging but found nothing. The garnets from Ruby Hill are very small anyway and probably not worth the effort.
You would have been better off taking the family to 7 Oaks or Billabong Blue in Inverell for sapphires (more likely to find good stones and all your equipment and how to instructions are provided free).

Most fossickers today use 2 sieves - 1/8th inch and 1/4inch.
See the Aussie Sapphire link LoneWolf posted above - I bought a couple of their kits last year. They are good value.
Cheers mate.

 

[mangoat]

I was recently on a family holiday and stumbled into Bingara. Apart from some gold panning and panner's mate activity up at three creeks with paul (where i found a quantity of fine as well as a little clinker of a nugget) i went off and grabbed a bit of dirt from Ruby Hill with zero idea on how to pan/clean/sort for garnets.

So basically, i have some dirt/gravel from the hill, and would like to know what sort of tools to invest in to start the cleaning and sorting process.

I was at Ruby Hill 12 months ago. A couple of hours digging but found nothing. The garnets from Ruby Hill are very small anyway and probably not worth the effort.
You would have been better off taking the family to 7 Oaks or Billabong Blue in Inverell for sapphires (more likely to find good stones and all your equipment and how to instructions are provided free).

Most fossickers today use 2 sieves - 1/8th inch and 1/4inch.
See the Aussie Sapphire link LoneWolf posted above - I bought a couple of their kits last year. They are good value.
Cheers mate.

I was at bingara, i just happened to get the info from the info centre about the garnet area, ive never fossicked for gemstones before ..... just thought it might be interesting to get a bucket and bring home.

But thanks for the tips of where else to try, id love to take the kids to new places and i think we might just head out there next time we get a chance

Regards

 

[Muzza]

Mangoat.
I am far from experienced with Garnet, but a recent trip to the Gemfields in NT saw us using the smaller size sieves as mentioned in others posts here, yhen when all the loose dirt had been sieved out we washed the remaining gravel in a large pot capable of taking the full diameter of the seive. Once the gravel was washed we would hold the seive up to the sun and looking from below into the sun we could see the red colour of any garnets in the seive.
If you have access to water you could run a hose through the gravel in the sieve instead of bucket washing.