Keene mini sluice or other?

[robbor]

I was thinking about a mini sluice for crevicing thats easy to carry. Anyone use the little keene that is only 6" wide? Was even thinking about making one with a big flare and then just maybe the black matting and maybe 3-4 riffles. Does anyone else make a mini sluice cheaper?

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[montgomeryjrm]

Unless you have a way to actually make your own, that is really the cheapest way out. But then again you need a big piece of aluminum, a metal break, and exactly how those riffles are made. My dad made some back in the day, but looking back at it was it really cheaper? Maybe not, but pops is one of them types that never thows away anything either. It also helped he had a metal break back then.

[Hoser John]

Say no to spoon fed tinker toys and get a small REAL sluice and a shovel and get'r'done- tons a au 2 u 2 -John

[kiwi jw]

Got to agree with Hoser John. A little box like that is not going to move much.

Happy golding

Kiwi JW

[Nashoba]

My vote goes to the the EZ Sluice.. Inexpensive, extremely lightweight yet durable, AND works like a charm!
Luck to ya!

~Nash~

[jsehoule]

I would get a Angus Mackirk plastic sluice. They work great. I have both Keene and Angus's sluice. I really like the A.M. Sluice.

[patches63]

i agree with all the above.however also think a recirc. sluice could be usefull. the post specified for crevicing.say if i was crevicing a half bucket of good material and was real close to camp, would have it set up on a table or whatever.and not have to hunker down over stream sluice wet and cold.especially in the winter.imho lots of folks cannot properly set up a stream sluice.and when creeks/rivers are swolen,a battery run sluice could be comfortable.jet dry/claybegone may enhance the fine gold recovery as well.btw you dont need aluminum.something 8x36 could be marine plywood,caulked and painted.wood moldings make good riffles.do some browsing at home depot.and dont be shy about trying your own ideas.when something works,that much more fun.

[kiwi jw]

Hi all, If it is just for processing material from crevices, & we all know that crevices hold pretty concentrated material as it is, then why even bother with a sluice at all. Just dump the concentrated material from the crevice straight into your pan for processing. Straight away you will know what has come from the crevice you are working on. I have spent many an enjoyable day up a creek with a small backpack with basic crevicing tools & pan, a bit of smoko & no sluice box to carry. I may not take all this gear & most of it is home made.



Here I am sucking out a crevice directly into the pan using just the main body of the hand sucker pump without the nosey parker retention chamber fitted. This will suck up 1.5" material This is a quick way of getting down to the bottom of the crevice after digging out as much material as possible with a little hand trowel. Once most of the bigger material is out I attach the nosey parker retention chamber which is good for sucking up water & blowing it back into the crevice to stir up & flush out material from the tighter little cracks at the bottom & then suck up before the material has time to resettle. Especially any gold. When the retention chamber is full you just twist it off & empty the contents into the pan. Also good for sucking up little bits of gold that you may see sitting in cracks on the bedrock in a little shallow stream when fanning or using a view finder to spy such pieces.







The end result from this one crevice



Here is some bedrock I was working on with my little 2" suction nozzle set up. You will notice the crevices I have uncovered



This is a pic of a little nugget at the bottom of a crevice. The camera focused onto the glass lense in the bottom of the view finder & not the little nugget so it is a bit blurry. But you should be able to see the piece of gold at the bottom & a smaller piece at the top



Result from these little crevices



Happy golding

JW

[B1u3Dr4g0n1]

Sweet looking set up......what ever works....works...lol Like your home made dredge/highbanker..

[Hoser John]

I gotta jus' chuckle at the tool laid out pic--looks like a torture setup for the Marquis De Sade We do torture ouselves now don't we--fever thats what it is- a all consuming fever--and God I love it-John

[Crookedrecords]

I was about ready to pull the trigger on a bending break to fab up some micro sluices when I saw that someone had used a section of 4"x4" vinyl fence post. You can get it in 4"x4"x6' or 5"x5"x8'. It looked like he just cut off one side to create a c channel and then put some of that ribbed matt in the bottom. I'm thinking of doing that as well. I'll probably fab up an endcap with a hose connection and then make a little header box or something to even out the water flow followed by 12 inches or so of smooth bottom to let everything get wet and start flowing, then 12" of small ribbing, another space finished with 12" of the larger ribbing....
the fence post is about $16 if I remember correctly which is much better than the cost of a brake and the aluminum and also without the hassle...

[nuggetshooter323]

The mini sluice is great, but for it's size it might be a little heavy if your crevicing and you want to stay mobile, unless you put a shoulder strap on it. There are several brands of plastic sluices that would work great if low pack load is your concern.

[strickman]

you can take 4" corugated pipe,the black kind.cut a straight line down the center line.heat it up gently,very gently and open it up till it is flat put something on top of it ,till it cools.this will help change the memory in the plastic.roll it up and put velcro around it.and presto you have a roll up light weight sluice ,it does not take a lot of water to operate,very light weight will fit in a small backpack-and you will be surprised at how well this works.and the best part is it's very cheap! cut as long or short as desired,usually at least 24".

[UINTAEXPLORER]

hello there
as for mini sluices i picked up an EZ_SLUICE from go a supplier on the web dont know if i can mention them.
it is small 30" x 7" with jet flare. it only has 2 sets of riffles 3 at top 3 3/4 of the way down box.i laughed
when i opened the box its made completely out of plastic..i took it to the river and found i could get the right
flow in about 5 MINS. i poured some classifyied cons in and wow the snuffer bottle was working overtime.i could slow the flow with my hand to suckout the fines and after a clean up there was course gold in the miners moss.
for the size of this thing i was shocked how well it worked.you just cant load too much without clean up every half a bucket it was 39.00 dollrs plus shipping check one out

[kiwi jw]

I cant get my head around the FACT that you would even bother taking a sluice box for cleaning out crevices. This was how this thread started. Cleaning out crevices. You only need a gold pan, some crevicing tools, & a snuffer bottle. Why would you bother carting a sluice box around? You are going to have to pan off the sluice box any way & as we know, crevices are all ready full of pre concerntrated material. By the time you set up the sluice box & get it all running right you could have already cleaned out & panned off & know straight away what was or wasnt in any particular crevice & then move on to the next one. So are you really crevicing or just going sluice boxing & shoveling through bucket loads of material?

JW

[jog]

I cant get my head around the FACT that you would even bother taking a sluice box for cleaning out crevices. This was how this thread started. Cleaning out crevices. You only need a gold pan, some crevicing tools, & a snuffer bottle. Why would you bother carting a sluice box around? You are going to have to pan off the sluice box any way & as we know, crevices are all ready full of pre concerntrated material. By the time you set up the sluice box & get it all running right you could have already cleaned out & panned off & know straight away what was or wasnt in any particular crevice & then move on to the next one. So are you really crevicing or just going sluice boxing & shoveling through bucket loads of material?

JW

I agree, but I like to take a small half inch classifier also and classify right into my pan. Carry it and a pan with everything else I need in a backpack. Having a classifier makes for better panning, also helps keep the bigger rocks from pushing out the fine gold.

[Carlasdaddy]

Did you make that hand sucker yourself? I was thinking about trying to make one, but I don't have any plans for one. Do you know where I can get some plans?

[rodoconnor]

Hey Kiwi, is the tape measurer for the great big nuggets? Good setup As H.J. says KISS