The Big Orange Magnet features a powerful magnet enclosed in a syringe-like spring loaded plunger device. Pressing the plunger puts the magnet at the bottom where it can be used to attract magnetic black sands or other magnetic materials. The Big Orange Magnet is normally used to quickly remove magnetite black sands from a gold pan. It can also be used to pick up magnetic black sand from your gold prospecting concentrates from your gold dredge or drywasher. Press the plunger, then hover just over the sands and move the magnet back and forth. The idea is to draw the magnetic sands up and away from the gold, leaving the gold behind. It is possible for material to clump up and bring up gold along with the sand, so a light touch is better than getting to aggressive in grabbing the sands. Simply releasing the plunger also releases the sands from the bottom of the magnet.

It is a good idea to retain the removed sand into a separate container for a double check at a later time. To get the best separation, concentrate sands should be thoroughly dried, screened, and spread out first. A good workflow would be to use the magnet to remove sands from a pan and put the magnetic sands in a large plastic bottle. Take those home and dry them out and spread out on a sheet of paper of plastic tarp, etc. Again run the magnet lightly over the material drawing the magnetic sands up and away from the surface. In most cases you will end up with a small amount of gold that was drawn up with the wet material. You may or may not decide this extra step is worth your time depending on the type of material and gold you have, but the only way to know is to try it a couple times. If processing bulk concentrates drying and screening the material is a must.