Online Concentrates / Testing New Equipment

[Zaroc]

Hello All,

I've been building a new Highbanker this summer, and I ready for testing (I got a little carried away and built a cleanup sluice too)!!! I was wondering if you can point me in the right direction? I want to find a decent volume of paydirt to process in the machine to test its performance. I live in an area where there may be a small amount of flour gold, but I want to be sure this beast is catching EVERYTHING! I don't usually order dirt online, so I'm not sure who is the most reliable. Is there a trusted company to order from? How much would you suggest to break this thing in? Are there specific test I should perform besides just turning the water on? And other than just running dirt, do you recommend I do anything else to test it or "season" it before our first adventure into the unknown?

I appreciate your feedback!

Z

 

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[winners58]

cut up some lead, test top and bottom separate, seeing how local river run material acts in the box will
allow you to adjust the flow, feed rate and angle to work best, just putting in a few LB's of paydirt will not tell you much.
if you want to test with different size placer gold buy a known quantity off ebay, might also pick up a set of scales that goes to thousandths.

 

[ratled]

cut up some lead, test top and bottom separate, seeing how local river run material acts in the box will
allow you to adjust the flow, feed rate and angle to work best, just putting in a few LB's of paydirt will not tell you much.
if you want to test with different size placer gold buy a known quantity off ebay, might also pick up a set of scales that goes to thousandths.

^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^

 

[mike(swWash)]

I'd buy a gram of flour gold online and mix into a bag of home depot general purpose sand, you could even throw in some 2" minus round landscaping rock. About as close to real life as I can think of and you'll know how much gold you have paid for, and you can use it over and over testing new toys.
Gold is much more fun to look at than lead although much more expensive

 

[Zaroc]

Thanks everyone!

I have about a 1/4 oz. of variously sized gold, I was hoping not to have to do another cleanup with the stuff. I already spent too much time recovering it all. Maybe that's just perspective though. Once I've found the mother load, playing with the stuff won't seem so high risk! lol. I have 2 sluices which my children name for me. I have "The Ocean Blower" and "Bunny Eggs", just thought I'd share!

Thanks again!

Z

 

[Zaroc]

What do you think of the riffle design? 1/8 inch aluminum 3/4" tall set with a -15 degree angle and a and a 90 degree at 1/3".

 

[KevinInColorado]

Too steep for my taste.

 

[GrizzlyGoldTrap]

You may want to consider taking out your riffles and replacing them with Gold Hog mats. If you describe your setup and operation, they will suggest the right mat combination for you. The Gold Hog mats really do work well for DIY highbanker setups. Good luck and looking forward to seeing the color you find!

 

[Timberdoodle]

These "clarkson" type riffles need to be spaced properly to work well based on the riffle size. They operate poorly as individual riffles like in your pic. They need the interaction between the riffle and the leading edge of the following riffle to create a strong vortex. Once dialed in they can work very well.

 

[winners58]

some articles & studys (Link removed for rule violation non supporting vendor)
if you go to their parts page they show the size of riffles by vertical and lip
and gold hog riffle study Riffle Study - Sluice Science

 

[Zaroc]

I'm all ears! What would you recommend? I have them spaced just under 5" apart. I'm not as wise as many of you are at this, so any advice is encouraged. Should I perhaps place a 1/2 inch riffle in between set at 0 degrees or vertical? Thoughts?

Thanks again!

Z

 

[Goldwasher]

they are just way too big for that size sluice..

The best way to set up "positive" riffles in a sluice is to have them about the size of the average largest material you will be running.

That way if your classifying to 1/2 inch you will have about 1/2 inch riffles.You will be able to run faster and flat when you have a lot of water and will be able to classify or not.

Once your riffles are bigger than the majority of the material you are running you start to get build up and will have issues with any flow less than what you need to get material to run through the box.

You want your spacing about 2.5 times your riffle height.

The best bet, is always low profile recovery with "negative" riffles or traps. Expanded metal over moss or carpet, Gold hog or drop riffles. Take care of a lot of the issues "positive" riffles cause in stream sluices.

The Clarkson studies are interesting and informative thought he tests and info are based on large sluices running A LOT of material.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

No matter what you end up doing (I agree with Goldwasher), I would suggest less substantial welds so you can easily modify it as it gets real world use.

You should be able to run any kind of river gravel through it to determine how well your design is working.
There are heavy minerals other than gold that will get trapped. You can also throw some lead shot in there to see where it gets trapped.


Wait until you really like how it's works before building it sturdy.

I would suggest a couple riffles at the head, then expanded steel over miners moss. Hard to go wrong with that once you figure out the right size/style riffle and gauge size for the expanded steel.

I have found that under lower water flow conditions, gold will catch at the front of riffles rather than behind them and there is nothing wrong with that as long as it gets caught.

 

[Goldwasher]

You don't need much

 

[Timberdoodle]

In actual use the "clarkson" style riffles function much like deep drop riffles with a strong vortex pulling water/material down from the slurry. They need fast water flow to get the energy for this action and are good for a highbanker but not a steam sluice. Greywolfminer on youtube has some videos of them in action. They are not the best at getting flour gold which is better suited to lower water depth and smaller riffles. Goldhog has certainly taken riffle design to a new level and have many products suited specifically for a highbanker to capture a variety of gold sizes.

 

[goldhog]

If you're going to put a lot of work into a unit I'd spend the time to watch this video.
It's a longer one... but one that might help understand what the others are talking about and their concerns.
Constantly "throwing" fine gold back UP that is trying to settle cause most losses and what we cure in many commercial ops.
Doc

 

[Zaroc]

Here's a pic of the nearly finished cleanup sluice. Let me know your thoughts!

I'll get the plumbing finished and post the setup soon.

Z

 

[Zaroc]

The feedback was awesome! I listened, I made a highbanker, lol! I’m not sure if that’s what you were really telling me, but now I need to test this thing out. What do you all think?

 

[63bkpkr]

Beautiful Work! I would appreciate an explanation of what we see in the highbanker cleaning box. Thank you...............63bkpkr

 

[craig82]

That's a work of art!