I won?t worry about it. The gold was weighed before cleaning and then again after. The pieces that were lost were very small so it was no great loss. I also washed a honey bucket last night and the sink was filled with water to get the job done. The gold would most likely have been pushed through the S bend. When I was out in the bush I did have an interesting find which has never happened before. Normally when a target is detected, a pick is used to dig it out and then a plastic scoop is utilised to recover the target. The scoop which is filled with soil from the pile of dirt and is then passed over the detector coil. If you hear a sound from the detector, you know that the metallic target is in the scoop. If you hear no sound, the target is obviously still in the pile of dirt and the process is repeated. To find the piece of gold(or junk), half of the material in the scoop is tipped into your hand. The scoop is again passed over the coil. If the detector makes a noise, the gold is still in the scoop. If it doesn?t, you know that it is in your hand. Either way, the material that you have left has reduced by half. This method of dividing is used until the gold is spotted. Quite often you can get down to a few grains of gravel before you spot what you are after. I was going through this process at one stage yesterday and as I halved the spoils, I noticed a small piece of gold in my hand. I tested the material that was in the scoop and the machine still made a noise. I therefore had two pieces of gold at that point. When I carefully checked all of the soil, three small pieces of gold resulted. That is the first time that situation has arisen for me while detecting.
