To Classify or Not to Classify!

[Caminochaos]

Pvillehunter and I were on an outing this past weekend. We started off working what appeared to be the right side of the creek on bedrock. After quickly noticing that there was no gold on that side and Pville saying, and I quote: "This is my 4th pan I have ever done where I didn't get one single spec in El Dorado County". That was very discouraging to here from someone who has done it as long as he has. So we went to the other side of the river and started prospecting. I started on a crevice that was in a boulder or bed rock a foot or so above water running parallel to river. Pville worked the bank next to me. We both found a little color after classifying several buckets.

The day had all but past and we were both bummed by the results of our hard work. After a couple beers pville put on his mask and snorkle to investigate the bottom of the river next to the boulder I was working. I decided since the crevise was all cleaned out I'd get a little lazy. I placed my mini sluice in a strong current next to the bank with a rock laying on top to keep the little guy from floating a away. At that point I just started shoveling straight into the sluice. No classifying at all. Pville noticed that I'd gotten lazy and figured what the hell I'll be lazy with him. We moved the sluice in a better spot and wnet to work. I would shovel a couple buckets full (again no classifying) and pville would dump them in the sluice pick out bigger rocks if needs be. Then after a bit we switched.

A little less than an hour past by and we need to get home. Pville panned out the sluice and I cleaned up. With the site cleaned up I was able to witness the final swirls of pvilles cleanup pan. As the black sand started to clear the gold started glimmering as well as the beautiful silver color of the mercury attatched to it. We had processed the same amount of material and got far more gold in that last hour than we did the whole freaking day.

That got us thinking an our way home why not make 10' of sluice box about 5.5" wide (I pick that width because you don't need a lot of flow to run it and I have a --deleted-- load of 1x6's) and just have one person digging and the other dumping and cleaning the sluice. I would think with 10' of sluice you won't lose much.

My plan. Make 2 sluice boxes 5' in length using 1x6 material. 5.5" wide 4.75" tall in the channel. A layer of carpet on the bottom with expanded metal and no riffles but the expanded plastic show below. I would place the expanded plastic face down for 2' then face up for 2', face down, face up, etc, etc. for the whole length. I would think with this set up the water would change velocity just enough to create good settling points for gold.

Imagine the beauty of no classification and lots of sluice.

What do you all think?

 

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[Astrobouncer]

Just my thoughts, you probably hit a nice pay streak there in the river, and the gold you were seeing was from that, more so then from the lack of classifying. The narrow sluice sounds like it might work good, I dont remember if I showed you this link or not but check out:

http://64.172.168.34/neatstuff/sluice-build-partIII.pdf

There's also a part I and II on there that have some good info. They go over why narrower is better (up to a point) for regular sluice riffles.

Also, would love to see some pics of the gold!

 

[Caminochaos]

Just my thoughts, you probably hit a nice pay streak there in the river, and the gold you were seeing was from that, more so then from the lack of classifying. The narrow sluice sounds like it might work good, I dont remember if I showed you this link or not but check out:

http://64.172.168.34/neatstuff/sluice-build-partIII.pdf

There's also a part I and II on there that have some good info. They go over why narrower is better (up to a point) for regular sluice riffles.

Also, would love to see some pics of the gold!

The funny thing is we worked the same area the whole morning. But once we started not classifying and moving lots of material it started paying off in less than one hour. So basically its time vs. a little lost gold. With 10' of sluice do you think I'd lose that much?

 

[Goldwasher]

yea guys it wasnt a pay streak... we are working an area on bed rock were actually removing alot of the decomposed bedrock bottom layer....its flood gold i sniped alot of cracks from bank to bank without a fleck there was definately more gold on the side we moved to after sampling...i popped open cracks that were full or mud..clay and black sand on the other side of the creek no gold at all...moved to the other side started to see color. we are working an undammed river with major flood cycles huge gravel bars theres gold through all of it when your on a flood deposit and no noticable increase as you get to the bottom. i dug several different layers where i could see clay layed out....rusty oxidized sand in a layer and the bottom layer....flood gold in it all....i know the benifits of classifying for fine gold recovery, however we didnt produce until we went for broke and just plain dug as much material as possible.i am not a beginner....and know gold is where you find it and in this spot where we found it this is how we found it and believe me in other spots i would havenever sluiced this way...but, when we go back here were gonna set up a long tom dig like mad men fueled by the Golden Colorado Nectar and i gaurantee we will get more than if we sit over a bucket not diggin shakin that darned screen.

 

[eureka77]

I'm the last to give advice, but I'd have to agree with Takoda and Astro, atleast in my area.
You know yours though and I hope it works out good for ya. Please post a pic of the longtom when your done, would like to see it in action.
Good luck.

 

[Goldwasher]

dont forget a sluice box is a gravity classifacation device....the small ones we all use and constantly discuss modifying are good within certain peramiters....large volume of material isnt one of them....thats why we have to classify with screens to around the size of our biggest riffle or smaller. or the sluice does tend to load up with out heavy flow, with low flow i force myself to classify and slow down.the riffle studies done in canada were mainly on material that had been trommeled washed and by mining companies that mov etons more material through their equipment than we could ever get a chance to......and was on the loss of gold from barely visable to not....gold that you could never hope to even catch in most larger dredges.....besides the hose to a point a sluice is a dredges only classifacatin system..and the main factor i believe they have recovery issues is volume of flow blowin the fine gold through without it ever touching the riffles. If your stream sluicing and you make good mud in your buckets sit in the creek for a second use mother natueres flow stir up with a prybar, chuck some cobbles, mix repeat, dump at the head of a longer addon slick plate sorta deal that feeds your sluice dump in your mud walk away go get another bucket half full or switch with your diggin pard if you have one, come back pick out a few rocks....do the muddy bucket think again.....just be careful of clay asusual what happens is you movemore material especially if your alone thats why youl find more gold even just classifying by a just a little less..i keep proving it to my self time and again, i havnt owned a bucket type classifying screen since my last one broke. more material run is more gold.

 

[Goldwasher]

believe me guys.....ive tried many different ways, and i would much prefer to move more classified material really the reason it worked this day is the fact that it was decomosed granite that washed easily. i prefer to shovel on to a screen into a tub as well i have a sweet bread rack stashed at a remote dry spot right now that fits over a home depot mortar tub.Camino and i are starting work on a long tom hi banker that will have several steps of classifacation and undercurrents because of the finess of the gold at the spot were gonna hit, and we are gonna be dealing with material full of lovely Motherlode slate wich pretty much makes standard grizzlies useless so were gonna be doin quite a bit of experimenting. my favorite threads are the "hey guys this was weird......." or the new homebuilds cause it shows how different every spot can be.