My fine gold sluice

[Jack Hamilton]

I nabbed 6/10ths of a gram of fine gold saturday here in ca at the San Gabriel. Was a great day for me. The gold is spotty up there and I've been working it for a year or more now. Recent floods of feb have changed the river and turned over the bottom and slung flood gold on the banks. Still need to know where to look and why, but I have had some good days up there. After this post, I will share some pics from earlier in the year. This is from saturday, I took an extra sluice up to experiment with it and took a short vid for youtube: Here is my initial panning...I will go through my cons again:

 

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[Jack Hamilton]

Some shots of my sluice. I made the riffles myself with a home made brake, but took the sluice body to a shop and had it folded. Shop charged $5 bucks. The punch plate is drilled, not punched and sits on a slight angle so the water flows down through it pulling values down while lighter material goes across in the top water. I use deep v-groove mat all the way through, clipped not glued and miners moss under my riffles with no expanded metal. I'm not showing this off and trying to sell it as better than anything else. Its just what I have.

 

[Jack Hamilton]

A couple nuggets from other trips earlier this year. Gold came from the San Gabriel River..east fork. Since Feb, accumulated trips I've gotten 5.3 grams.

 

[russau]

well Jack, the proof is in the pudding! its saving fine gold so i cant argue with success!!!!! congrats and have fun with it!

 

[Jack Hamilton]

Russau I used to shovel directly onto the punch plate. I mean shovel too, not garden scoop. Sometimes I will find 30-40 flakes at the end of the day sitting in the v-mat directly under the plate. I learned this set up from others on the river. Running a full water flow I had always felt a bit uneasy about working so fast, even though this set up is billed for production. So I backed off and went back to spoon feeding with a garden shovel. Doing so killed my production so I began thinking about length. The second sluice experiment worked but it was just a test. I actually want to rework the slick plate sluice with just a few obstructions to help break up the material instead of riffles. I'm not fan of coming home with 5 gallons of cons. Miners moss collects more than I like but it works so....maybe try conveyor matt some day. Its all fun, especially when improvement in the end result happens.

 

[prospectordamon]

very nice, love the idea!

 

[russau]

Jack when i come home from 2 weeks of dredgeing, i bring home maybe 7, 5gallon buckets of cons.

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Jack, Nice build & love the gold. Just one query about your box. In your last pic looking down the box I couldnt help but notice the riffles sitting on top of a wee lip. Now I hope that with the miners moss under the riffles that the riffles are sitting nice & snug on top of the miners moss & that there isnt any gap between the under side of the riffle & the miners moss. If there is you will have gold & concentrates getting flushed through that gap where it should be building up behind the riffle & no current getting at it under the riffle to disturb it.

Happy hunting

JW