How a gold wheel works
Every spiral wheel runs on the same principle. Water enters at the top of an inclined pan, the pan rotates at 5 to 12 RPM, and a spiral rib cut into the surface acts as a one way ramp for anything dense. Quartz, sand and black sand ride the sheet of water back out. Gold, at 19 times the density of water, drops through and gets pushed inward by the rib on every revolution. The wheel does not separate by size, which is exactly why it holds onto the flour gold that a sluice tends to lose.
Choosing between the models
Gold Magic
The Gold Magic 10M and the Gold Magic 12-C are the entry machines. Both can be hand cranked, both are light enough to carry to the creek, and both run off a 12 volt battery once you add the charger adaptor. The 10M is the smallest footprint we stock and the least expensive way to get a real wheel.
The 12E and the 12-10 move to a 12 volt gear motor as standard, which matters if you are cleaning up several buckets of concentrate at a time rather than a coffee can. The 12-10 pairs a 12 inch drive with a 10 inch pan and is the model most customers step up to. The 12-U is the widest pan in the line and the fastest per bucket.
Camel Mining Desert Fox
Desert Fox machines use a different geometry: a deeper, faster wheel driven by an integrated pump and spray bar. The variable speed Desert Fox is worth the difference over the single speed version if your material varies in clay content, because you can slow the wheel rather than lose gold to a wash running too hard. For higher volume, the Pro Camel 18 inch wheel and the 24 inch version step the throughput up again.
Gold Screw
The Gold Screw vibrating spiral panner is the specialist option, built for very high volume fine recovery where a standard wheel becomes the bottleneck.
Where a wheel fits in your recovery chain
A wheel is a cleanup tool, not a bulk processor. The usual order is to classify the material with a set of classifiers, run the bulk through a sluice or a Gold Cube concentrator, finish the concentrate on the wheel, then move the clean gold into a snuffer bottle and vial. If you are working dry ground with no water available, a drywasher takes the place of the sluice in that second slot.
Worth reading alongside this page: our guide to fine gold recovery with a Blue Bowl, which covers the same cleanup stage from a different angle, and how to read a river before you dig, which is where the concentrate comes from in the first place.
Finding the ground to run
A wheel only pays for itself if you are bringing home material worth cleaning. Most of our customers pair one with a gold detector to find the deposit and a sniping setup to work the bedrock cracks by hand. If you are early in the hobby, the beginner tools and equipment guide and where to start will save you buying twice.
Wheels, drives and wear parts
We stock the wear items rather than only the machines: Gold Magic 17 inch spiral pans, center cups, hand crank kits, drive belts in 19 and 29 inch, gear motors, hub and motor timing pulleys, third leg brackets, 12 volt AGM batteries and charger adaptors. On the Camel Mining side we carry Desert Fox and Pro Camel replacement wheels, drive units CM-011 and CM-012, spray bar assembly CM-027, flange CM-028, tailing tray CM-029, gold catch cup CM-013, the 750 GPH pump and power supplies in 3.5, 7 and 12 amp. Full brand ranges are on the Gold Magic collection page, and the rest of the range sits under prospecting.
Still deciding between a wheel and a pan?
If you are new to this, buy the pan first. A wheel makes sense once you are bringing home more concentrate than you want to work through by hand. Our gold pans and panning kits page covers the starting kit, the best panning kits for beginners post compares the options, and the TurboPan spiral pans give you the spiral geometry without the motor if you want to try the principle by hand first. The Le Trap technique guide is the best free instruction we have on getting a pan to behave.
