The shaking table is comprised of a deck, in somewhat of a rectangular shape, covered with riffles.

How efficient is a gravity concentrating table compared to a gold pan? Well, using a full sized table with 64 square feet of working area, a average bed depth of ? inch, with a average SG of solids of 1.7, and a packing factor of 0.60, there is 100 pounds of ore on the table at any given period of time. The average residence time of ore on a table is 7 minutes for 100 pounds of ore. Most gravity tables have a sand deck for treating 1/8" to 80 mesh material and a slime deck for treating -80 mesh material. The appropriate deck should be used when treating ores. Most used involve the sand deck.

Now, for a gold pan, a very good panner can take a pan with 15 pounds of ore in it and pan it in 10 minutes. That is 1.5 pounds per minute, versus 100 pounds in 7 minutes, or 14.3 pounds per minute. The table is 10 times faster than a gold pan using theoretical situations. In reality it is more like 20-30 times more efficient than a gold pan. In gold and mineral applications, a full sized gravity table, like the No. 6 Deister Table, will handle 1 ton per hour of sand feed, and less for slime feed, sometimes only 1/2 TPH.

Shaking table