DizzyDigger
Gold Member
- Dec 9, 2012
- 5,837
- 11,581
- Detector(s) used
- Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
- Primary Interest:
- Prospecting
After using a regular, bucket top sized classifier since I was
young, I broke down last year and built a manual trommel.
The trommel works great for dry material, but without a
spraybar, pump, etc. it's near worthless for classifying
the wet, rocky riverbank gravel.
The bucket top classifiers just wear my ass out, and the
constant up-down, lifting and shaking, etc. throws my
equilibrium way out of whack. They also don't classify
much material at one time.
So, what to do?
Chewed on it for a few days, and came up with an idea of
using a large tub to hold the classified material, and then
use a smaller tub as the classifier.
I wanted to make the classifying action (back, forth, etc) as
smooth as possible, so I added strips of cutting board material
(made of poly-something) to the bottom of the classifier
tub runners, and on the top of the rails mounted to the large
tub.
Might be easier to make sense out of in pictures:
The large tub is a 38 gal. Roughneck, and the classifier tub
is a 10 ga. Roughneck. First was cutting the bottom of the
10 gal. tub and installing the 1/8" screen, and then adding
the rails to both tubs. Overall it took about 6 hrs. to complete,
and no doubt some of you could build it much quicker.
Couple more shots:
Tried it out yesterday afternoon by a local creek, and it worked
fantastic! The rails hold all the weight, and the classifier tub slides
back and forth on the hard plastic runners like it's on ice. Took me
only 15 min. to dig and classify about 30 gal. of -1/8" material ...
(p.s. ran it all through the Cube and didn't get squat..
)
young, I broke down last year and built a manual trommel.
The trommel works great for dry material, but without a
spraybar, pump, etc. it's near worthless for classifying
the wet, rocky riverbank gravel.
The bucket top classifiers just wear my ass out, and the
constant up-down, lifting and shaking, etc. throws my
equilibrium way out of whack. They also don't classify
much material at one time.
So, what to do?
Chewed on it for a few days, and came up with an idea of
using a large tub to hold the classified material, and then
use a smaller tub as the classifier.
I wanted to make the classifying action (back, forth, etc) as
smooth as possible, so I added strips of cutting board material
(made of poly-something) to the bottom of the classifier
tub runners, and on the top of the rails mounted to the large
tub.
Might be easier to make sense out of in pictures:
The large tub is a 38 gal. Roughneck, and the classifier tub
is a 10 ga. Roughneck. First was cutting the bottom of the
10 gal. tub and installing the 1/8" screen, and then adding
the rails to both tubs. Overall it took about 6 hrs. to complete,
and no doubt some of you could build it much quicker.
Couple more shots:
Tried it out yesterday afternoon by a local creek, and it worked
fantastic! The rails hold all the weight, and the classifier tub slides
back and forth on the hard plastic runners like it's on ice. Took me
only 15 min. to dig and classify about 30 gal. of -1/8" material ...
(p.s. ran it all through the Cube and didn't get squat..
)
Last edited:
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