So, who has made their own sluice box?

[Cave_Dweller]

Hi all, new to the forum and prospecting in general. I live in the UK and decent sized nuggets and just gold in general is few and far between, it's all fine gold or on land where the owners don't let you prospect. Luckily for me where I pan and have done every time I have been finding gold. No where near to the extent of you lot over in the States (yes, i'm jealous ) but it still feels nice to find it. What some of you pull out in one pan is what we normally find over here in one day, even using a small portable sluice we're lucky to come away after a full day with anything close to a few grams max. Anyway, I guess that's the fun of it and a good day out regardless.

Anyway, with having a family to support with forever increasing bills and work not going too great just now it's safe to say my wallet isn't exactly deep. Therefore the cost of making my own sluice is quite appealing, I may not get it right, but it's worth a try. Mainly for the cost and simplicity I was looking at making a portable drop riffle sluice box out of wood using a router. If I can get that catching gold then I can look into making it out of a different material. I know there's a lot of different factors that go into catching gold, like water flow, angle, so on and so on, but if I can get a basic design then I can work from there.

Just wondering if anyone here has made their own drop riffle sluice box, or any other kind that isn't too hard to make for someone with not a lot of money and minimal tools...that's asking a lot I know lol. I'm just in need of some general advice and any pointers in the right direction. There's not many sluice for sale here in the UK and to order one internationally for me the postage alone costs the same as the sluice.

Many thanks.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Eu_citzen]

The style drop riffles you have work surprisingly well. I did a clean-up sluice in a similar fashion and it caught roughly 98% of all gold I put through it in the experiments I did. I did it in plexi-glass, because I had it in masses then.

Note that some of the first drop riffles are "tilted" of the normal (90 degree) vertical angle by about 5-10 degrees.
Seemingly creates a little vortex to help the heavies settle. I was aiming for a riffle in between "Drop riffle" and a vortex forming one.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Lanny in AB]

Lots of good information and suggestions here, thanks for the read.

All the best,

Lanny