trying to be lazy

[seafox]

two questions has any one used a pressure washer to help dig cemented gravels and does dry land dreging work so that say you use the bedrock as a natural sluice washing the fines down to a colecting point and picking it up with a syphen nozel and and save packing wet fines to high banker. meanwhile throwing oversized rocks out and straining out 1/2 inch plus with a screen weir? thankyou for your opinions.

ps is it lazy or just trying to be most efficent with my shoveling?

 

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[N-Lionberger]

I modified my 2.5" suction nozzle by adding a bypass valve to the head of the nozzle like a "hydro-force" nozzle and while it does a fantastic job of sucking up stuff off a high bank I found two major problems, first off it needs a ton of water pressure. Second it doesn't feed the box at a consistent rate, since you are supplying water to the nozzle verse having the nozzle under water it tends to "surge" and whenever it surges it scours the box, by my estimate on the last run I blew 2/3 of my gold out of the box, not good. I wouldn't use a pressure washer, just use the pump from your high banker to hydraulic the material, I like to do that at my highbanking spot, pre wash the rocks so I can shovel feed the banker at a faster rate. Last year I started working on a Vortxrex dry land dredge system which is basically a miniature hydraulic gravel elevator and it operates a lot like what you described but it is a fairly involved system that needs a SH*T ton of water to operate, especially at depth. What size dredge hose are you thinking? What kind of highbanker are you running? Finding a faster and easier method is far from being lazy, its working smarter not harder.

 

[et1955]

Pressure washers require pressurized water to work, 60psi, so you need another pump to get it going. Starting to get complicated, not easier. From experience I will say that it would not be very effective on cemented materials. We have many degree's of cemented material up here, some you have to use explosives to work it, other material we work during the rainy season, water softens the hardpan but in the summer it is a bear to run.

 

[SunshineMiner]

et1955 - all you need is your normal pump from your highbanker to run a HPWasher. The inlet on a HPW is supplied by a garden hose and only requires usually under 5-10gpm. They're usually gas driven, so you dont need a generator. Only issue is you're now running two gas engines at the same time. And tbh, while the highbanker pump will run at idle, the HPWasher will be running almost full bore to create those thousand PSI pressures. Running full bore will make you run out of gas real quick. Not to mention you almost need ear plugs running it. I think you're better off taking a smooth bore nozzle and attaching it to your highbanker pump and going from there. You'll have a "harder" hit from the water coming from a smooth bore nozzle, and since its coming from a 2" down to a almost 1/2" opening, it gets pressurized through the length of the nozzle(10-12") and comes out solid. Crank your pump to half idle and i guarantee you'll be hosing LOADS of material down and possibly be a little sore after hosing things off for a bit :P
Heres a couple options for you, most of em are 1-1/2" at the threads, but the last one is 2"
https://www.amazon.com/Dixon-NST-PL...6&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=2"+smooth+bore+nozzle

This one has my eye
https://www.amazon.com/Dixon-Valve-..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=P20A3N6RFY6FJBGEH5N0



https://www.firehosedirect.com/bras...iN4JUJYGFtkFDV0Oy7O7EIJJvjRcv9sBoCqS4QAvD_BwE

https://www.amazon.com/Dixon-Valve-..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=P20A3N6RFY6FJBGEH5N0

 

[russau]

Checkout Harbhor Freight for their brass fire hose nozzles .

 

[seafox]

last year used 1.5 inch hoses but hoping to go to two inch this year I got plenty water out of suction system shooting 4 feet out at 6 or 8 foot elevations. my highbanker is home built cribbing a lot of gre3at ideas from doc at gold hog. it totled 35 feet long from distruction chamber to last flaired 18 inch sluice most sluices in the 9 or 12 inch width with total of 42 square feet of matting to catch pay. noxel that wporked last year was 1.5 inch but have built a 2 inch but it did not seem to suck many fines from the sump and needeed tending to work the gravel I AM WORKING IS MAYBE 500 OR 1000 PSI ( where normal foundations today is 3000 or 3500) a full digging bar breaks it up but its sorta slow

 

[N-Lionberger]

Sounds like a huge box for such a small nozzle.