How long to run a sluice?

[Sluiceguy42]

First post!
I was at a GPAA gold show last year and during one of the lectures the speaker said that gold travels down a sluice box around 1 inch per minute. But on some older threads here on TreasuerNet it seems I can run my sluice all week without doing a cleanout. Not sure I should cleanout my sluice every 30 minutes or once a day . Any advice would be appreciated.

 

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[prospect007]

the big placer gold operators clean their sluices once a week, that's running thousands of yards at a time. why clean up every 30 minutes? trust your equipment. the more time you spend cleaning up, the less dirt you run, therefore the less gold you get.

 

[Sluiceguy42]

prospect007,
I understand your viewpoint, but gold works its way downstream, the longer you run it. So if I sluice for a week without a cleanout a may have lost 40% of my gold. And if I did a cleanout x number of times a day I could have saved that 40%. My real question I guess is: how fast will gold move through one's sluice?

 

[KevinInColorado]

It depends. Size of material, type of riffles, force of water...lots of variables. Or get a fluid bed sluice and stop worrying!

 

[B H Prospector]

What type of sluice are you using? I use a Keene A52 and run it all day before cleaning it out. I have put a pan at the end of it to see what I may be loosing and have never found more than a few flakes. Stop worrying and dig. Let thr gold river gods have their share.

 

[Sluiceguy42]

I have a Keene a51a Super Mini Sluice.
I guess I'll just not worry about it then. Thanks for your advise B H Prospector and KevinInColorado.

 

[Sick4gold]

Why not just pan your tailings instead whenever you feel like you should clean out and see for yourself?
Doing this will prove or disprove your point and should be quicker.
Everyone should test tailings periodically on every piece of equipment they use.

 

[Hoser John]

The only time I clean out is the end a the day,the gold is coming out the discharge end as piles of it or testing a new spot. That bs about gold moving down a box?better get a better made box as in 55+ years tain't never happened once-John

 

[Sluiceguy42]

Sick4gold I will. Thanks.

Hoser John, the president of a very succeful prospecting equipment company said in one of his lectures at a gold show gold travels down a box 1 inch per minute. Guess he's wrong then. If you've never had gold come out your box then I'll not worry about it. Thanks for your help.

 

[rodoconnor]

I think the speaker may have said the material moves at 1" per foot. With the correct setup the gold does not move at all.

 

[Sluiceguy42]

rodoconnor

I think your right, but it is hard to tell where i'm working though. Not much gold in southern wi. I am going on prospecting trip to Colorado this summer, I'll experiment more thoroughly there.

 

[Duckwalk]

i recommend running a sample down your sluice. Take some lead pellets for a pellet rifle. shave them, smash them, and chop them up. Count your pieces so you know how much you are looking to recover at the end of the test. Put random amounts of what you have counted into several buckets of dirt. Run it all down your sluice. then if what you are testing is how long it takes before it leave the end of the box, keep a pan down at the bottom. I recommend using at least 2 pans. one to sit down and catch, and the other to replace the safety pan while you test your catch pan. Be sure to time this so you can get an accurate guesstimate of how long, or if at all the gold leaves the sluice.

 

[QNCrazy]

I just purchased a Keene A52 this weekend from Rob Goreham who runs a mining equipment retail operation in Columbia, CA along with other mining ops. I posed the same question to him. He told me to preclassify my material and as long as the flow and angle are correct, I should be able to run all day before cleaning out. As far as flow, he said if my material gets blown away before hitting the flare, my flow is too fast. He indicated the material should stick and then disipate, 15-30 seconds and to pay attention to the riffles and make sure they clear out half way before dumping my next scoop. I noticed that when i had the correct flow, the black sands would collect where the flare meets the sluice then slowly work thier way through the riffles and get stuck in the carpet or expanded metal. I ran two clean outs just to see, eight 5 gal buckets in four hours. I could have easily went eight plus hours without cleaning out. Another piece of advice he gave me was to periodically fast pan a bucket to ensure you are still in the paylayer. Hope this helps.

 

[DizzyDigger]

QN, Rob gave you some damn good advice.

 

[Jimmydolittle]

Who Todd Hoffman?

Sick4gold I will. Thanks.

Hoser John, the president of a very succeful prospecting equipment company said in one of his lectures at a gold show gold travels down a box 1 inch per minute. Guess he's wrong then. If you've never had gold come out your box then I'll not worry about it. Thanks for your help.

 

[Sick4gold]

Hoser speaks and you take notes.
Seriously listen to this man, he does know his ****.

You may have misunderstood or the high ranking official may have mis spoke OR he doesn't know what that hell he is talking about. Whatever the case is I agree that gold doesn't migrate out of your sluice at 1 inch per minute unless you have the worst box ever made.

I have often run for hours and hours. I have a 5 foot long sluice on my dredge. Under that logic the gold I got just 60 minutes ago is gone and my box basically is only good for an hour at a time.
No sorry I'm not drinking the Kool-aid.

Just relax, run your sluice with the right angle and flow and do a tailings test pan every once in a while and have just have fun

 

[Kruzman]

To put things in perspective, I have a good ribbed mat on my flair as a visual indicator that I'm still on the gold. I dump my material directly on the mat, usually unclassified. It barely moves even with the repeated disturbance of additional loads unless I drop a rock on it. Gold does not move from a stationary position easily, so once you get it to stop it takes a bit of force to get it moving again.

 

[Herby D]

I also think it was a miscommunication..I can't think of any situation where the speed of the movement of gold would be pertinent, or usable info for me..except that my equipment ain't workin right..All my equipment is used to "collect" gold.. To me, regarding a sluice, collect means stop it from moving..

It was proven to me more years ago than I care to admit, when I was working as a gopher for an old guy, that a clean-up wasn't necessary unless we had stopped the flow of water..He said that when we restarted the water flow, the turbulence would/ could dislodge the gold and wash it out before the turbulence settled down to a smooth, even flow..or.. if we didn't do a clean up he would put a tub at the end of the sluice to collect material and then run it back through..He nearly fired me one day for allowing the dredge to run out of gas... If it was a stream bed sluice box that somehow lost its water flow he would always require a clean up...Every so often he would use the tub to double check the production efficiency...I'm sure there are other opinions and maybe it's overkill, but this has been my practice ever since... just sayin...

Most important two letter word sentence.. "If it is to be, it is up to me"

 

[Fullpan]

Sluiceguy - its 99% certain you mis-understood what was being said - nobody lecturing at a gold show would say that. The guys here are all in agreement - heed their comments.

 

[rockygulchJoe]

How about if a miner wants to take a half hour lunch.
Leave the sluice in the water whith no material running through it, or clean it out?