Sluicing tips? Please check out my video & give me your thoughts.

[jdlev]

Hey Guys,

The boys and I did some placer mining in Davidson, NC (just west of Concord, NC about 30 minutes away from Reed Gold Mine), and hit up some tributaries along Rocky River after all the flooding we just recently had. I found a tributary with a lot of black sand and thought I might as well give it a shot...so my boys (4 & 6) and I made a day of it yesterday.

Didn't expect to find anything since it was a flat tributary with very little bends, stones, and rocks. Set up our sluice fox (which might be our first problem - not sure if I like the sluice fox), and put some material through it. Cleaned it out when we got home, and not surprisingly...looks like we didn't get squat (the remnants are in the pan in the video).

I decided to try and find a better spot. Although it took about 15 minutes to go 100' because of all the brush, was amazed to find a primo spot that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Wish I had gotten a picture, but it was an area that dropped about 5-6' that was nothing but giant, jagged black colored boulders (which I believe were granite). The stream flowed straight through them and was loaded with pockets that I scooped out by hand that no doubt acted like natural riffles. I classified 2 5-gallon bucks to bring home and sluice, so I could make sure we had the best chance to actually get something and make sure the water flow, angle, and everything were ideal.

I've never seen so much black sand - which I think is a good sign, but so far the hardest thing I've found is the gold here (if it is gold) is so fine I can't really tell if it is actually gold or not! Some of it seems to black sand anyways, and some of it seems to be black granite because only about 3/4 of it seems magnetic. I've used a magnetic pickup tool to clear out the black sand from the riffles to keep things flowing through the sluice - but I'm still not certain I have everything setup properly or that I'm doing it correctly - so I shot a quick video hoping to get some feedback from all you fine people! Please let me know what you think. Thanks!!

 

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[brianc053]

Great job sharing all that information in your post and in the video. I think you'll get a lot of good feedback from the experienced folks on this website.
My thoughts:
- I'm not sure about the flow across the cleanup sluice for sure, but my first instinct was that there should be more flow. More turbulence and movement of material would be better, I think.
- pulling that much black sand out via that (awesome) giant magnet will likely pull gold with it, if there is any gold. If you take that magnet with black sand stuck to it and submerge the magnet part way into water (a dish or small bucket), then release the black sand, then put the magnet back in but DON'T touch the black sand, the sand will rise up to the magnet through the water and leave non-magnetic stuff behind. You'll be amazed at how much blond sand (and hopefully gold) is mixed with what looks like just black sand. You have to do that 2-4 times in different dishes/buckets to get the black sand "pure".
- your pan at the end made me think of a simple question: did you do any sample-panning at the various locations you mention? Most of us sample pan a location first and only dig material from locations where there is some color in the pan.

Good luck!
- Brian

 

[N-Lionberger]

No experience of a sluice fox but it sure looks a lot like a tee dee EZ sluice. As Brian stated don't stick a magnet into a sluice while running you will lose gold.

 

[jdlev]

Great job sharing all that information in your post and in the video. I think you'll get a lot of good feedback from the experienced folks on this website.
My thoughts:
- I'm not sure about the flow across the cleanup sluice for sure, but my first instinct was that there should be more flow. More turbulence and movement of material would be better, I think.
- pulling that much black sand out via that (awesome) giant magnet will likely pull gold with it, if there is any gold. If you take that magnet with black sand stuck to it and submerge the magnet part way into water (a dish or small bucket), then release the black sand, then put the magnet back in but DON'T touch the black sand, the sand will rise up to the magnet through the water and leave non-magnetic stuff behind. You'll be amazed at how much blond sand (and hopefully gold) is mixed with what looks like just black sand. You have to do that 2-4 times in different dishes/buckets to get the black sand "pure".
- your pan at the end made me think of a simple question: did you do any sample-panning at the various locations you mention? Most of us sample pan a location first and only dig material from locations where there is some color in the pan.

Good luck!
- Brian

Hey Brian,

Thanks for all the feedback, prompt response, and kind words!

My main gripe about the Sluice fox is it has become warped, probably because it's just plastic. Tried putting a rock across it to level it out, but you can see from the video how the material shifts from one side to another, so that might be causing some issues. Probably time to invest in a better sluice or maybe try my hand at a few riffle inserts with my 3D printer. Some of those swirl patterns look like they could really help with catching the finer gold. I think you may be right about the water flow. It looks like it's enough to agitate the material and get rid of the lighter sand, but if I didn't use the magnet, it looks like the black sand wouldn't move. Not sure if more water flow could get rid of the black sand or if it would just wash out the gold to. Part of the problem is some of the black sand appears to be black granite, which obviously isn't magnetic. I don't know how the weight of the granite compares to gold, so I'll try increasing the flow. If it just washes out everything...it's a closed system built in a storage bin tub, so I can just run everything through again.

I like your idea about double checking the pan. I was wondering what the 'white' material was that was left behind when I got towards the end of a pan (or as you called it, the blonde sand?) I kept noticing there's an almost salt like microscopic material and was hoping it was super fine gold...but it wasn't really yellow. I guess logic would dictate that it's actually pulverized quartz.

I've got another question that could really help me. Is there any lighting that you guys use that can help show the gold better than using a spot lamp? I really think going with a black sluice/pan would be better than the green and that might help, but the gold is so fine, it's really tough to see in the sluice or the pan - and with the spotlights, the fact that the pulverized granite has almost a black glass appearance and reflects the yellow light from the spot lights provides an over abundance of 'EUREKA!...wait...DOH!' moments, lol. I'll try the method you mentioned w/ the magnet. I noticed what you mentioned w/ the black sand rising through the water when I'd use it on the sluice. It'd take out 1/2 to 3/4 of the black material leaving behind what I can only guess is the black granite.

I did some panning, but nowhere near as much as I should have. I didn't bother at the better of the 2 locations because my 4 & 6 year old were losing interest. If I'd been on my own, I probably would have done some more prospecting/searching in the area for great spots. The 2nd spot was close enough that I could grab some concentrate and run it at home.

I'm also struggling with the fact that my panning skills definitely leave something to be desired. I'm not sure how I could improve my panning skills, but I've tried the swirl method, getting the black sand out w/ a magnet, and the gold hog 'tap' method, and nothing really improves my results - which frankly, could just mean there's no gold in the locations I've looked (which have been less than ideal in most instances...). The one bit of advice that I think improved my results as much as anything was that while looking at the pan, gold tends to 'tumble' when you get down to the heaviest materials. The tap method doesn't really seem to work very well for some reason. Gold hog shows that you tap the side of your pan w/ your hand and compares it to a paint can stopping in a car - naturally the paint can would come flying forward due to its inertia. I was expecting the same thing from what I 'thought' might be gold, but when I do the 'tap' method, the heavier specks that 'tumble' seem to fall out the back and the black sand gets pushed forward. I was kind of expecting the opposite if gold is the heaviest? Then when I would use the 'swirl' method, what would be left behind would be the white material (which I think is the pulverized quartz). But not really any yellow specks. One of the things I've always wondered is when you watch the gold hauls on shows like Gold Rush, you always see bits of gold that look like they're black rather than the pure yellow color of gold...can gold also be black?

Thanks again! I really appreciate the help

 

[brianc053]

jdlev,

Thanks for sharing all the additional information. Some more quick thoughts for you in reaction to that info:

1. The first question I'd ask is: are you in a known gold producing area? To answer that question I use the MRDS ( https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/map-commodity.html ). That page will allow you to click on a commodity like Gold and see historical/past mines and prospects. It's a decent indicator of where gold has been found in the past. Davidson, NC is shown toward the top of this image. Notice that there aren't any colored squares (past mines, prospects) near Davidson. That doesn't mean you can't find gold there, but it says that by driving a little distance east, south or west you'd have a better chance. (I've found gold in Pennsylvania, which has zero "deposits" on MRDS - I bet you have better chances in North Carolina than I do in PA).


2. Next question: did you get the "right" concentrates to bring home? You got black sand, so that's a decent indicator of heavy stuff where you dug. But I've grabbed black sand from the beach and there was zero gold in it. Was your black sand mixed with billiard ball sized (or larger) rocks? or a big sand bar? (You want dirt that's with larger rocks - the rule is, "big rocks, big gold" but my rule is that tiny gold seems to like to live with billiard ball sized rocks or bigger.) To separate the finer dirt from the billiard ball rocks you should use a classifier - do you have one? 8 mesh (1/8") or 16 mesh (1/16") is decent for the river. At home you may want to classify larger-than-30-mesh and smaller than 30 (or 50 mesh).

3. Panning is super important. Way more important than a cleanup sluice (warped or straight). You should practice panning. A lot. I started with lead shavings from fishing sinkers mixed in with sand/dirt. (don't use the whole fishing sinker - you won't find gold that big, sorry. You want fine shavings to be more like the wild gold you'll find, which is small).
If you can buy some pay dirt, do that instead of the lead shavings trick. There are many good suppliers and threads here on treasurenet. A $40-50 bag will give you good gold to practice with. Personally I like DirtHogg Paydirt out of British Columbia (I have no connection to them, so please don't censor this moderators).

I couldn't find any good videos I'd published where I'm panning, but this one has my home cleanup setup (about the 1min 30sec mark). It's ugly but it works. Notice the flow rate; sorry the camera doesn't show the turbulence in the riffles very well, but I flow the water pretty aggressively and then test the tailings and I maybe lose 5% total). The setup is based around two "bucket sluice concentrators" (I got them for $25 from Carolina Prospectors - again, no connection to them but Bill has been nice to me over the phone and via email. I've heard they don't make those bucket sluice concentrators any more).



Anyway, I hope this helps. You were generous with your sharing of information so I wanted to return the favor.
Good luck!

Brian

 

[jdlev]

Thanks again for the info Brian!

I'm not certain if where we tried is in 'gold country' or not. 90% of the reason I decided to try these spots is ease of access (close to home) and safety since neither of my boys know how to swim (yet). Finding gold is probably a long shot, but it gets them super excited and allows us to get out into God's country to enjoy the outdoors.

I think you're spot on with regards to the panning. Definitely need to get better at that, and smashing a fishing weight will probably give me some decent sized shavings to practice with. There's definitely no shortage of sand, lol.

We started out in an area that was literally a sandbar. I knew the likelihood of us finding anything there was practically nil because there was zero rocks, but it would let the boys get their feet wet and have some fun. Scouting out a better location, I went upstream to a bend that opened up into what has been the best local spot for potential gold that I've found - granite boulders ranging in size from your billiard balls to a coffee table, and most of them with jagged edges that could easily catch gold. If I'd had one of those pvc suction hand pumps, it would have been perfect for doing some spot panning. As it was, I pulled what I could out by hand and classified it w/ the 1/2" classifier. When we got home, classified it again down to 1/16" (that or 1/8"...its my middle sized classifier...rarely use the smallest one because it clogs so easily). That's what I've been running through the sluice. With the recent flooding we'd had, I thought there might be a chance we'd find a speck or two and get lucky. It was the worst flooding I've seen in the last couple years and took the creeks/streams about 2 days to recede to safe levels. Of course, it's probably all for not if there isn't any gold in the area to begin with.

 

[X4FRNT]

I’ve got a sluice fox as well, and I really don’t like it. I switched up and went with a drop riffle sluice (head over to Carolina prospectors in Statesville if you want one). The drop riffle really increased my gold intake. I live in Salisbury and go to Uwharrie quite often. Get yourself a Robinson Backpack Sluice https://carolinaprospectors.net/product/robinson-backpacker-sluice-blue/. I love mine.

 

[akflyer]

Springing for a bag of pay dirt from a reputable supplier will really help you on the panning and identifying what real gold looks like. Always pan over a safety pan or tub so the stuff you blow out learning wont be lost and you can just put it back in the pan and go at it again.

 

[jdlev]

I’ve got a sluice fox as well, and I really don’t like it. I switched up and went with a drop riffle sluice (head over to Carolina prospectors in Statesville if you want one). The drop riffle really increased my gold intake. I live in Salisbury and go to Uwharrie quite often. Get yourself a Robinson Backpack Sluice https://carolinaprospectors.net/product/robinson-backpacker-sluice-blue/. I love mine.

Sounds like you're just up the road from us. We live right next to the reservoir off 73. My family and I spent a weekend at Badin lake about 2 years ago. Nice area from what I remember, but there was NUTHIN out there, lol. Any recommendations on spots to try? I think Uwharrie is probably 45 minutes from us. I've really been interested in upping our game to dredging, and I guess if you guys are working around the Yadkin river, that would have plenty of areas to sluice. So is all the land/water in a national forest fair game? Just want to make sure we don't step on anybody's toes (or land!).

Springing for a bag of pay dirt from a reputable supplier will really help you on the panning and identifying what real gold looks like. Always pan over a safety pan or tub so the stuff you blow out learning wont be lost and you can just put it back in the pan and go at it again.

I tried brian's advice from earlier the thread and met with some better results. Took a lead fishing sinker...smashed it flat with a hammer and then 'bit' chunks off it...panning went fairly well, but still have a lot to learn. My biggest struggle right now is getting down past the black sand layer. I cheated and used a magnet to help remove some of the black sand because that's where I got held up. It kept the lead buried. Once I got the black sand out of the way, it was kiddie play...though I'm still not certain how much of the finer lead shavings I was able to save. I got a bunch of pictures and took videos of each step along the way that I plan to upload when I have a chance. I really like fabricating my own equipment (printing a gold centrifuge I designed earlier today that was inspired by the blue bowl...so we'll see how this does). I'll probably invest in the drop riffle sluice X4 mentioned if nothing else, and then give the pay dirt you mentioned a try.

Here's a rendering of the 'Sooperbowl'...I know...corny name and probably worse results, but it's just about finished printing so should be able to test it tomorrow. This is just version 1, but I've got some pretty trick ideas that I'll throw into v2. It's fun making this stuff even if all it's good for is leveling a table, lol.



Thanks to both of you for the tips and advice

 

[X4FRNT]

Uwharrie is pretty much fair game as long as you use the right methods. I actually had the wildlife officers stop by and speak to me last week while I was sluicing, they just wanted to check out and make sure I wasn’t using any electronics (metal detectors, pumps, etc). I asked them a bunch of questions and they said sluicing is perfectly fine and everything I was doing was perfectly okay. No dredging or highbanking at Uwharrrie though, good ol’ sluicing and panning like the old timers. Been finishing pretty good gold since the major flooding last week.

 

[jdlev]

Uwharrie is pretty much fair game as long as you use the right methods. I actually had the wildlife officers stop by and speak to me last week while I was sluicing, they just wanted to check out and make sure I wasn’t using any electronics (metal detectors, pumps, etc). I asked them a bunch of questions and they said sluicing is perfectly fine and everything I was doing was perfectly okay. No dredging or highbanking at Uwharrrie though, good ol’ sluicing and panning like the old timers. Been finishing pretty good gold since the major flooding last week.

Awesome! That's good to hear. I was thinking of getting some mechanical energy from kid one and kid two on these excursions, so no electronics might be perfect They'd probably lose their minds over something like a seesaw pump. Typical young boys....they tend to go bonkers if forced to stand still more than 2 minutes. Sooperbowl just finished printing, so I'll give it a test run. If you have a little recirculating pump, maybe I could send you one of these things to see how it is at cleaning up actual gold

 

[X4FRNT]

I have 3 pumps, I made a recirculating sluice at home using 3 sluice fox’s. I use it to concentrate my fines when I get home. Would love to give your little bowl a try though, I’ll send you a message with some contact info.

 

[mytimetoshine]

the sluice looks fine. It will catch gold. Water looks ok. When in doubt go with more. You really cant have to much water flow... But if the material has no gold in it. there is no angle and water speed that will help

 

[jdlev]

Not a bad first test:

 

[X4FRNT]

Yeah man, I’d say drop that cone down about 1/4” or 1/2” and it would be perfect! Looks great man, when you send me one of those I’ll post a vid up here of it catching the gold! Nice work

 

[Goldwasher]

way more water in the sluice

 

[N-Lionberger]

They put quite a bit of work into getting the angles right on the bluebowl, I have yet to see a homemade one work right.

 

[jdlev]

They put quite a bit of work into getting the angles right on the bluebowl, I have yet to see a homemade one work right.

I've never actually used a bluebowl, so I'm not sure what angles you're talking about. I did a test run yesterday and considered it a small victory that it didn't leak, lol X4 is right though, it needs a few tweaks...walls need to be a tad higher or shave a 1/4'-1/2" off center cone because I'm seeing some overflow. I love fluid dynamics...an interesting thing happens when it's perfectly balanced - the same thing that forms on the sluice when you get the water perfectly balanced - you kind of get those 'V' waves throughout...I don't know if it's just cross currents or what, but when the bowl and flow are setup just right, it looks like a petunia of water. I'll try to take a picture, but the glare and fact that the water is clear might make it tough to see. It's also when the bowl is the most efficient at removing materials.

I will say that I added some flow controls that are making a HUGE difference with run #2 tonight. It's just finishing up, and while I don't want to jump to any conclusions, there is some yellow colored stuff at the bottom.

 

[jdlev]

Added the flow controller, but like N-Lion mentioned...some of the angles need to be updated

 

[jdlev]

Making progress Turns out the angles aren't all that bad after all. Properly classifying the material and turning down the water flow so that the vortex could do it's job proved to be a big step in the right direction.



Here's the way the bowl finished up...pretty happy w/ the results (would have been happier if there had been gold in the bottom ):