ROTAPAN

sorry it took a while but finally I have done the translation for you.

This is an experience report of a user who bought Rotapan. I must say, you should be very proud of this product.

What Tecnomaster has to say is a hearty endorsement of this gadget. The only change it may requires is in the fit to different bucket sizes... Tecno talked about that also.

Enjoy the read. As usual, as the subject matter is a bit strange to me I interpreted parts as I understood them, rather than strict translation. I don't imagine these liberties would detract from the overall theme.

P.S. I assume, you do not require translations of all the communication that preceded this epistle?

I was curious and ordered the part for US$195 incl. air freight - and the postman brought it yesterday. At first glance 'Rotapan' looks like my deep fryer - with sieve and the same type of grip handle, with the only difference that this pot has cone in the centre of the which serves as spindle for the rotary sieve. 'Rotapan' is made of robust material. Whether or not it is rust free remains to be seen. Out of curiosity I tried this gadget in my "home stream". All that was required for 'Rotapan' was a standard 5 gallon bucket. (Tip: paint and glue containers are ideal buckets for this purpose. They are available from the building stores).

Without this particular bucket type, it becomes somewhat difficult as 'Rotapan' fits only on this tub (because of the handle set up).

The past weeks brought respectable floods so that the stream had a plentiful supply of new material. Operating procedure: Placed 'Rotapan' on the tub described previously, filled the tub with water (this will cause the lower part of 'Rotapan' to becomes flooded) and the sieve with gravel until about half filled – then placed the sieve into the lower part.

The sand/gravel must be covered completely with water (to avoid “surfaces tension” of the water you may add a drop dishwashing detergent, however for this experiment I refrained from using additives). One hand picks the larger chunks - ca. > 7 cm - and with both hands gripping the handles rotates the sieve with strong circular movements until the sieve contains only larger pebbles. The remaining sand/gravel should be checked for nuggets and then discarded. This operation is astonishingly quick, similar to the manual process with the “gold wash sieve”. The container or base of 'Rotapan' has openings at the sides from where the light material (tailings) are discarded into a bucket. The heavy material, like the magnetic sand, gold etc is collected in the base of 'Rotapan'. Through circular motion of the sieve creates a flood like current in Rotapan’s container which enables the wash process.

Floatation and water pulsation principles may influence this process. However I need to study this and do further tests. Already after 4 runs (with approx 12 ltr processed gravel) the black sand was visible (+- 1 tablespoon full). That is an unusually high result so that one can deduct, that 'Rotapan' works! Altogether I tested 20 loads (with 3 ltr gravel each). I took out of the stream only the uppermost 30 cm of the gravel layer since the last flood for washing and was very interested to see the result: in the washing out with the ‘Goldwaschpfanne’ [is this ROTAPAN?], I had 1 cup of concentrate of black sand, which contained 14 notable specs of gold up to 3 mm and 2 compact grains of gold approx 1.5 mm in size. Further tests will follow. One idea is certain: Rotapan will accompany me on all future prospecting tours.

The advantages of 'Rotapan' can be specially exploited in the quiet waters where due to lack of tidal activity sluice-boxes are useless.