Anyone ever use the bucket sluice?

[A#1]

https://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/buslco.html

I'm kind of stuck with a recirculator here. Letrap is nice, but unwieldy. I have a gutter sluice with Martin GoldStop mat I can use in a bucket. Just Looking at other things small and mobile for fine Michigan gold.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A History of Mining on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska - Grab it through Amazon!

[Toecutter]

I was told once that the Cube is best for fine Michigan gold, i couldn't afford one so I used the blue bowl and did not like that to slow for me, so i gave up sold everything an focused on detecting...Would like to try some snipping in remote areas though...

 

[A#1]

Yeh, The Gold Cube is just too costly for me too......I think all last year I might have got $0.25 worth of gold.....so kinda hard to justify the $400 price tag.

The Blue Bowl is slow, but works well. I have one, but it's much more of an "end game" type tool than i'm hoping for. And too finnicky for takin out with me.

Also got a Miller table in the works, but, again, an endgame.

The way I've been doing it is production panning a bucket full of semi-concentrates, then coming home......been a sad year so far. It's hard goin legit.

I'm just kind of entertaining one more layer of concentration in the field.....or on the beach, lol. A next step in the assembly line I suppose. Mostly to make a lighter bucket to carry to the car.

Like a mini LeTrap. The the Letrap did me well last year, and only it's size is an issue. This bucket sluice kinda made me think along those lines.

Plus, it's another toy to play with......I like toys.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Might want to look at recirculating fluid beds for concentration. They really don't need much length to do the job.

 

[A#1]

Might want to look at recirculating fluid beds for concentration. They really don't need much length to do the job.

View attachment 1730051

I've honestly wanted to, but I seem to be lacking the skill required to obtain the build intel.

 

[Capt Nemo]

Not that hard. Most of the plumbing can be seen in my model 4 & 4D. Only mod I'd make is a deeper box (~6") on the 4, with a 60 degree angle on the tail wall. You want the material at the tail of the box to continuously slide down that wall. You want that material slowly settle before going out of the box. Both this and the Bucket Buddy below can run on a 500 GPH bilge pump. Tube spacing is the spacing of the 3/4" T fittings on the supply side. The rest is 1/2" CPVC. Build the side manifolds first and then test fit. The one that doesn't fit best is the side you assemble first. The opposite side requires doing multiple solvent welds all at once. When boring the holes for the tubes, use step drills, and countersink with the next size to provide a place for silicone sealant. Countersink on the outside of the box. To seal the box and finish, I take the bad fitting side and insert it into the box leaving enough space to apply sealant around the tubes. Once applied, press it fully into the box making the sealant squish into the countersink. I normally clamp it and let the silicone cure. Then I apply silicone to the opposite side and solvent weld immediately. Once the silicone cures I trim it.

Model 4


Model 4D on PVC cradle.


Size can be very compact, as in my Bucket Buddy II. It has the angled wall. The tube near the bucket equalizes pressure on the spray tube and also prevents rotation.



Here's a view of the bottom showing the jets.

 

[A#1]

Okay.....ya got my interest, lol. I wanna try a bucket buddy.

What sort of materials could I make it from? Think it needs to be clear?

 

[Capt Nemo]

Doesn't need to be clear, but it does need to be solvent weldable. ABS, PVC, acrylic, and polycarbonate could be used, but you need at least 1/4" material for strength. Clear just makes it easy to see if it's working properly.

The Bucket Buddy is 4" wide, so you'll be feeding with a tablespoon. Anything larger can cause too large of displacement and push gold out. It was made to concentrate the cons from my larger beds. (the highbanker above gives about 2 gallons of cons per run)

 

[A#1]

Hmm, that's a consideration.

Thinking about it, I'd kinda like to feed a cup at a time, maybe a bit more. Something like dumping the pan into it ater I work I down a bit.

What's the overall dimensions of the larger 4 and 4D?

Perhaps a larger version of the bucket buddy?

Any reason they couldn't be constructed of wood or metal?

Just kicking around Ideas. Thanks for your input so far, You got me thinkin.....thats dangerous, lol.

 

[Capt Nemo]

The 4D is 20" x 6" x 9" and can be fed with a hand scoop. Wood will be hard to seal as will metal. Wood will also sand down leading to clogged pumps from the wood fibers. It's a real pain on the beaches from all the rotted wood in the sand turning into paper pulp when it gets wet. In metal, anything less than 1/8" would not seal well.

 

[arizau]

Yeh, The Gold Cube is just too costly for me too......I think all last year I might have got $0.25 worth of gold.....so kinda hard to justify the $400 price tag.

The Blue Bowl is slow, but works well. I have one, but it's much more of an "end game" type tool than i'm hoping for. And too finnicky for takin out with me.

Also got a Miller table in the works, but, again, an endgame.

The way I've been doing it is production panning a bucket full of semi-concentrates, then coming home......been a sad year so far. It's hard goin legit.

I'm just kind of entertaining one more layer of concentration in the field.....or on the beach, lol. A next step in the assembly line I suppose. Mostly to make a lighter bucket to carry to the car.

Like a mini LeTrap. The the Letrap did me well last year, and only it's size is an issue. This bucket sluice kinda made me think along those lines.

Plus, it's another toy to play with......I like toys.

Don't take this the wrong way but, it is hard for me to imagine "production panning" down to a whole bucketful of concentrates when the whole object of the process is to not do that. Black sands and gold will stratify below the lighter blonde sands and pebbles and those are pretty easy to pan off (without losing gold) before you add more pay dirt, re-stratify and pan off the waste...over and over again until the pan has a significant amount of heavies mostly consisting of black sands. That is the point where you should dump (still probably less than a cupful) then start the process again. This is based on what I consider a usual stream environment where the black sands usually are a very minor component of the stream make up and it takes many pan fulls of feed to collect much more than a cupful of almost pure black sand concentrate. I have found trying to concentrate ocean beach sand by production panning is a futile effort as virtually all of it is minus 100 mesh to begin with and impossible to keep in semi suspension. That and I begin with sand that is already concentrated by the ocean....lake sand may be different but probably with a starting point of much less than a half pan at a time in order to be able to keep everything in semi-suspension so heavies can settle.



Good luck.

 

[A#1]

Don't take this the wrong way but, it is hard for me to imagine "production panning" down to a whole bucketful of concentrates when the whole object of the process is to not do that. Black sands and gold will stratify below the lighter blonde sands and pebbles and those are pretty easy to pan off (without losing gold) before you add more pay dirt, re-stratify and pan off the waste...over and over again until the pan has a significant amount of heavies mostly consisting of black sands. That is the point where you should dump (still probably less than a cupful) then start the process again. This is based on what I consider a usual stream environment where the black sands usually are a very minor component of the stream make up and it takes many pan fulls of feed to collect much more than a cupful of almost pure black sand concentrate. I have found trying to concentrate ocean beach sand by production panning is a futile effort as virtually all of it is minus 100 mesh to begin with and impossible to keep in semi suspension. That and I begin with sand that is already concentrated by the ocean....lake sand may be different but probably with a starting point of much less than a half pan at a time in order to be able to keep everything in semi-suspension so heavies can settle.



Good luck.

Not taken the wrong way at all.

I used the phrase "production panning" to convey generally what I'm doing, and you understood. I know I ain't doing it quite right....Simply because I don't wanna.

Honestly.....I'm in Michigan. I'm realistic enough to know gold prospecting here is something that's possible, but more fun when it's taken in a lighthearted fashion.

It's something I do from time to time, to kill a little time while I wait for the reaper.

On a hot summer day, I plop my butt down in a creek, or on a specific beach. I scoop the pan full, classifying to 1/8", and I pan it down some. Then I scoop it full again, and pan, and scoop, and pan and I splash and I play in the water till eventually, I get bored. I dump the pan into a bucket and I crack a beer. Then, I relax a while, and when the beer's gone I go back to the pan.

Pan....Beer....Pan....Beer....you get it, and I have a good time.

After a couple hours I have a 3 gallon bucket, about 2/3 full of classified and somewhat concentrated material.....That weighs 40 pounds and I have to lug to the car.

What I would like, is rather than the bucket, to dump the pan into my LeTrap, recirculating on the bank of the creek. But that's just an inconvenient mess of stuff to haul out in the woods.

So I'm looking at options that would be somewhat smaller, handle the cup of material I dump from the pan, and further concentrate the material with little effort on my part, and do a fairly reliable job of not losing what little bit of gold I may find.

Just kinda finding "my way" I suppose.

 

[brianc053]

https://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/buslco.html

I'm kind of stuck with a recirculator here. Letrap is nice, but unwieldy. I have a gutter sluice with Martin GoldStop mat I can use in a bucket. Just Looking at other things small and mobile for fine Michigan gold.

Hey A#1, yes I've used the bucket sluice. I have two, actually, and I use them in tandem.
You can see them in use in this video, at the 1:30 mark. I came up with that configuration on my own, and it works pretty well. Let me know if you want more information on the setup.



I feed it about a tablespoon or 1/4 cup at a time, so pretty quickly.
I find that it catches the stuff that's smaller than pickers but bigger than fly poop pretty well.
- Brian