Keene A-52s sluice

[No gold in NY]

Has anyone seen or tried this new sluice? Can shovel into it with fast water or remove the screen section and hand feed for slow water.

 

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[N-Lionberger]

I saw a promotional video for it the other day I found it funny as the new features are mods that A52 owners have done for years.

 

[TEG]

Received yesterday. Fully assembled, a little over 19#s. Might make shoulder strap for carrying. Looks nicely engineered and manufactured. The mats in place. Riffle bars and heavier expanded metal up front, all part of the same assembly. Classifier section. All together. Didn't have resources for making these mods to my A52. All adjustments, experimenting and futzing all done.

 

[TEG]

Decided to take sluice out to the neighborhood creek to give it a quick trial run to get a feel for it. Put about 20 shovel-fulls into it. The sluice definitely needs sufficient forceful flow to get oversize up and over the punch plate and out of the last section of the box. It will catch fine scaly gold.

From Hungarian Riffle/Expanded Metal/Carpet section:
View attachment 1699252

From Miracle Mat Section:
View attachment 1699253

From Front Heavy Expanded Metal/Carpet Section:
View attachment 1699254

From Rubber V-Rib Matting:

View attachment 1699255

 

[russau]

TEG all of your attachments didn't go through.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

That 20 pound monstrosity is why I dont buy Keene gear haha. Other competing companies will come out with their own model to copy it but it will have 30 different mats and they will add an engine or whatever.

 

[wildminer]

There's a Dr. out there whose stream sluice with one mat weighs five pounds less at 15 lbs.

 

[No gold in NY]

TEG all of your attachments didn't go through.

I am never able to open those type attachments.

 

[TEG]

Recovered under low-flow conditions:

From front rubber-rib section:


From carpet under heavy expanded metal:


From miracle mat section:


From last section Hungarian riffles:

 

[No gold in NY]

Got the pics now. Nice first clean up TEG. Your profile don't show where you are from.

 

[QNCrazy]

Haven't had a chance to see one in action. A friend of mine just purchased one for a raffle prize for his club. I was with him when he picked it up saturday after we got done mining. My first thought was I have to get one of those kits for my sluice. After we parted ways and I was driving home, I reflected on a conversation we had earlier that day with one of our green members of our club. My friend an I were both using larger drop riffle sluices that day. Both of us commented on how nice it was to be able to clean our sluice into a bucket in ten seconds and how cleaning out an A52 takes 5-10 minutes. Now add that kit on top of it, probably 15 minutes to clean out. No thanks. I would rather see someone come up with a drop in plastic drop riffle modification for the A52. Hell, maybe I'll do it.

 

[Duckshot]

Haven't had a chance to see one in action. A friend of mine just purchased one for a raffle prize for his club. I was with him when he picked it up saturday after we got done mining. My first thought was I have to get one of those kits for my sluice. After we parted ways and I was driving home, I reflected on a conversation we had earlier that day with one of our green members of our club. My friend an I were both using larger drop riffle sluices that day. Both of us commented on how nice it was to be able to clean our sluice into a bucket in ten seconds and how cleaning out an A52 takes 5-10 minutes. Now add that kit on top of it, probably 15 minutes to clean out. No thanks. I would rather see someone come up with a drop in plastic drop riffle modification for the A52. Hell, maybe I'll do it.

I like wooden drop riffles. A eight foot 1x8 or 1x10, a circular saw, a square, a couple screws and you can make a four foot drop riffle likitty split.

 

[jsurddy]

I like wooden drop riffles. A eight foot 1x8 or 1x10, a circular saw, a square, a couple screws and you can make a four foot drop riffle likitty split.

Here’s a woody i ran across at an old miners cabin.

 

[johnedoe]

View attachment 1704016

Here’s a woody i ran across at an old miners cabin.

That old sluice has probably seen a good bit of material run in its day..... Not to mention gold too.

 

[TEG]

A52s second trial run: wanted to find a place that would have the water force and flow to move the oversize material up and over punch plate and through the sluice without being pushed along by hand. Took the unit out to a small stream, and located a steam bed area with a 15 degree decline. Placed the sluice at the bottom of the slope. Let the water cascade into the flare. Shoveled bank run material into the sluice. There was enough force and flow under these conditions, that the oversize material was washed up and over the punch plate and out of the sluice. There was just a small amount of fine flour gold in the source material and it was retained by the sluice. The retention was made further down the sluice. Ribbed rubber matting was pretty clean; only one speck of gold was found there. Most of the heavies were found in the carpeted area under the thick expanded metal section. Lots of black sand in the Hungarian riffle section.

 

[TEG]

A52s sluice, third trial run. Disassembled the unit. Placed the legs, riffle bars, punch plate section and mats in a backpack. Hiked about a mile to a familiar area. Usually use a Grizzly Gold Trap or Bazooka Prospector at this location. Reassembled and placed the unit in a swiftly moving stream. The water was about 18” deep. Could have built a rock dam, but wanted to try the legs. The water was moving swift enough, that had to take care with footing. Had to use a Bully Tools box trench shovel in order to get the gravel from the stream bed into the sluice. Even though the water was moving fast, the sluice had sufficient drop, and had the “V” in the middle of the top punch plate, still had to help the oversize material up and over the punch plate by hand. Put some large boulders on the stream bed in front of the flare in order to get the flow to boil up and onto the flare with more force. That didn’t help that much. Shoveled into the sluice for 2 hours. Recovered .4 gram, which is about par. Could have built a dam and used a fluid bed sluice in this scenario, but would have been time consuming to construct. However, using a fluid bed sluice would have made it an easier trip in to the area. Haven’t tried using the A52s sluice without the punch plate assembly, because the idea was to try out a traditional style sluice that required no classification of the material. Water needs to be falling into the A52s, like over a rock dam, in order to get it to self-clear the oversize.


I think I will use the A52s unit where: I need to capture fine flour gold that a fluid bed might not capture; the area being prospected is close to a road; there is sufficient water flow to move the undersize material through the sluice capture zones; & I will need to move oversize material by hand up and over the punch plate assembly.


It can also be used to initiate the “new guy”of the group by making him haul the fully assembled unit into the boonies until he has monkey arms.

There were only five specks of flour gold in the Hungarian riffle section. There were about a dozen specks in the miracle mat section.

There was more in the upper expanded metal carpet section:



And the most was in the ribbed rubber section:


After cleaning:

 

[No gold in NY]

You said in your post that the sluice had sufficient drop. I messaged Pat earlier to ask about pitch because in his vids I couldn't see the box very well and he said to run it level. Lowering the flare may have given you more flow. Still you got a nice amount of color. Ice and flood water is keeping me away from the stream.

 

[russau]

No matter the sluice brand , I always carry different material (riffle tray, matting) to change up the sluice configuration to suit the stream and the size of gold for that area. AND I always made my own sluice because of the cost and how EZ it is to make by myself.

 

[Goldwasher]

A52s sluice, third trial run. Disassembled the unit. Placed the legs, riffle bars, punch plate section and mats in a backpack. Hiked about a mile to a familiar area. Usually use a Grizzly Gold Trap or Bazooka Prospector at this location. Reassembled and placed the unit in a swiftly moving stream. The water was about 18” deep. Could have built a rock dam, but wanted to try the legs. The water was moving swift enough, that had to take care with footing. Had to use a Bully Tools box trench shovel in order to get the gravel from the stream bed into the sluice. Even though the water was moving fast, the sluice had sufficient drop, and had the “V” in the middle of the top punch plate, still had to help the oversize material up and over the punch plate by hand. Put some large boulders on the stream bed in front of the flare in order to get the flow to boil up and onto the flare with more force. That didn’t help that much. Shoveled into the sluice for 2 hours. Recovered .4 gram, which is about par. Could have built a dam and used a fluid bed sluice in this scenario, but would have been time consuming to construct. However, using a fluid bed sluice would have made it an easier trip in to the area. Haven’t tried using the A52s sluice without the punch plate assembly, because the idea was to try out a traditional style sluice that required no classification of the material. Water needs to be falling into the A52s, like over a rock dam, in order to get it to self-clear the oversize.


I think I will use the A52s unit where: I need to capture fine flour gold that a fluid bed might not capture; the area being prospected is close to a road; there is sufficient water flow to move the undersize material through the sluice capture zones; & I will need to move oversize material by hand up and over the punch plate assembly.


It can also be used to initiate the “new guy”of the group by making him haul the fully assembled unit into the boonies until he has monkey arms.

There were only five specks of flour gold in the Hungarian riffle section. There were about a dozen specks in the miracle mat section.

There was more in the upper expanded metal carpet section:
View attachment 1704498


And the most was in the ribbed rubber section:
View attachment 1704499

After cleaning:
View attachment 1704500

Introduce the material onto the punch plate rather than the head of the flare . The water is already moving, you won't cause surging in the under current the material will clear better.

Run it as fast and as level as you can.

 

[TEG]

GW - OK. Sounds like a plan!