Home sluice

[Nuggetbrain]

Hi all. First time poster in this particular forum and an overall newbie so please bear with me. I know I ask pretty dumb, simple,and obvious questions sometimes!

I am wondering about sluices you can set up in your garage, workspace, etc.

For instance, you make it out to a creek, load up some good looking dirt, haul it back home, and run it through your sluice.

Is this an example of such a sluice?

Micro Sluice 2 Concentrator

I would like to eventually buy or make one as time wise it is just easier for me to do part of my search for gold at home if possible!

Many thanks.

Tim

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A Handbook of Civil War Bullets and Cartridges - Grab it through Amazon!

[GoldpannerDave]

Hi all. First time poster in this particular forum and an overall newbie so please bear with me. I know I ask pretty dumb, simple,and obvious questions sometimes!

I am wondering about sluices you can set up in your garage, workspace, etc.

For instance, you make it out to a creek, load up some good looking dirt, haul it back home, and run it through your sluice.

Is this an example of such a sluice?

Micro Sluice 2 Concentrator

I would like to eventually buy or make one as time wise it is just easier for me to do part of my search for gold at home if possible!

Many thanks.

Tim

It is late, but I will take a shot at some answers. First, you generally don't just "load up some good looking dirt." Usually you sluice, high bank or dredge material and take the concentrates home for further processing. The micro sluice you referenced, while I have not used it, is a sluice to use at home in your garage to work your cons (concentrates). But first you have to get the concentrates. I would suggest a Bazooka Gold Trap (BGT) sluice to use at the creek. I don't know where you are or the type gold you would be getting, but I would start with that and a gold pan. The type BGT you get depends on a lot of things which I don't know because I cannot tell much from your post. There are other good sluices, but the fact that you do NOT have to classify the dirt but just run it through the BGT sluice is a HUGE plus.

There are several threads here talking about the BGT, even how to build your own. You might search Treasure Net to see what you can learn about it, ask some questions (folks here are great at helping answer them) and get a sluice and get to the creek to start getting some gold. Most of us do final separating of the cons at home. There are several recirculating sluice options for that. And there are plans on here for building your own recirc. equipment.

Good luck and welcome to the pursuit of gold; the fever generally gets worse, not better.

 

[goldog]

There are people who take dirt home to process but I've found washing the dirt first is much better.

First, as mentioned, cons will give you a better shot at bringing home gold. But real problem is the dirty dirt will make a big mess. Even a bucket full will mess up your yard. You'll soon have a muddy mess. Not to mention the ants etc... that ride along.

 

[johnedoe]

Reduce your cons. why bring home 5 gallons of cons when you can bring home the same gold in 2 cups of cons?

This helps keep the mess reduced at home too.

 

[dashriprock]

As the guys mentioned..its better in the long run to just bring home your concentrates not buckets of dirt and gravel.

I bought a micro-sluice concentrator (the biggest one they sell) and still use it but mostly at home. It's capable of running creek bank gravel (after classifying first) either as a recirculator if the creek is dry or by putting the pump in a bucket and lay it in the creek if the creek is running. With the vibrator unit attached to the leg of the unit mine easily catches -100 mesh gold....on the creek running classified 1/2 inch material and I've even recoverd 150 mesh at home feeding it just concentrates. Nice little unit but I thought then and still do its kind of spendy. I see they haven't dropped the price any and I got mine like 10 years or so ago.

I had the wild idea to bring home buckets because the creek was dry most of the year and didn't feel like always having to fill up my 35 gal. (weed sprayer tank in the back of my pickup) then carry 150' of garden hose to throw down the hill to the creek to fill up the micro-sluice buckets (after awhile of running the tailings bucket fills up and you lose water so you have to have more water to fill it back up...my reason for the 35 gal tank) plus having to carry the concentrator down along with my tools then having to haul everything back up the hill at the end of day....hard on the old body.

Anyways getting back to bringing home buckets....I had nowhere to throw the small gravel and silt left over running at home except out in my driveway. Let me tell you...my driveway rose about 3 inches the summer I did that and also I had to do more work raking it all out to make it even. Work, work, work. Got old quick. Sorry for the long answer but just my .02 cents....maybe thats .04 cents...lol.

 

[bobw53]

Just off of newbie status myself. Barely off of newbie, beginning novice I would say.

My take... If you are going to dump 3 bills on a sluice to run at home, get a Gold Cube. The short stack is
fine, I bought the tall stack and haven't found much of anything in the bottom trays, I don't even process
the botttom 2 trays anymore, I just dump them in a bucket and run it when its full... Barely worth doing that.

As for taking dirt home... Where I've been digging, the digging is hard, really hard, and there is no water...
The best so far, for 2 of us and the better part of a day is 18 buckets.. Just getting the dirt out of the ground is
incredibly time consuming, no time to process at the site... Sounds sad, such a small amount of dirt, its really that
nasty. Mucky dirt, clay, big rocks all intertwined.

I'd love to process on site, but the volume would drop considerably. Besides, what would I have to do the next couple of days
at home?

As for the piles, get a big dog that likes to dig and fill in his holes... Or put the tailings back in the bucket and bring it back next time, I've got
20 acres here and its starting to look like a gravel pit with all the piles, so I take it back now.