Backyard Sluice with new feed system

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I sat down with a couple of beers and came up with a new feed system for my sluice with Keene miracle mat. The original feed system was the hoses from a 600 GPH pond pump "shooting" straight down the sluice. It would blow all the blacksand and gold out of the first riffle and most out of the second riffle as well.
I took a 5 gallon tote and and plastic stacking tray and cut a hole in the tote and the back out of the tray and glued them together (the duct tape is since I didn't want to wait for the glue to dry). The tray feeds the water onto the sluice much more like a stream.
Also with the 600 gph pump, that has two hoses, I can adjust the flow from a trickle to a roaring torrent. I ran some bought paydirt, perfect for this type of test. other than 3 pieces in the 5th and 6th riffles and one piece in the 8th (maybe a stone caused and eddy) all the gold, about .4 grams ended up in the first 2 riffles, so it seems like this will work very well for concentrating.

 

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[Goodyguy]

Lookin' good

Running 8 mesh concentrate on that miracle mat doesn't require a real fast flow or too steep an angle. Of course you are doing the right thing by watching how the material moves down the sluice. Too slow and the riffles load up, too fast and the gold moves down the sluice too far, same with the angle. Keep an eye on the low pressure area behind the taller riffles..... the light material should be bouncing while the heavies remain still. Also when running a recirculating setup a surfactant such as jet dry is recommended to keep the flour gold from floating out.

I like the way you pan toward you, and remember that once you're down to the black sand it's time to use the non riffled part of the pan to get down to just the gold.

Keep up the good work!
I enjoy your video's.

GG~

 

[russau]

i see a potential problem with your setup. riffels keep the fine gold in suspension in the water,and ends up moveing them towards the tail end of you sluice and end up eventually loseing them.also screening your material and running each scrrening seperatly help utilize specific gravity in captureing your fine gold.and a real biggie with me is ,adding dry cons to a water system,WILL cause fine gold to float out of the sluice.ive see people do this many times!!!always work dry cons with a dry system of captureing gold and wet to wet systems.but i do like your ideas on thinking this out and trying several methods to see waht works for you.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

rassau
That is a good point on the dry into wet. I do feed all the dirt down the sluice into a bucket and then panned out the bucket, didn't find any gold in the "tailings", so I probably got lucky or more likely there wasn't any real fine gold.

Question on the riffles keeping the fine gold in suspension and off the end of the sluice, is that a problem just with the Keene Miracle Mat, or wouldn't any riffle system do that? The Keene A52 and A51 have riffles as well, I have never used them but wouldn't they have the same problem?

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I am still a newbie, still trying to find the perfect gear. I was going to buy a Keene or Yellow Jacket sluice with the metal riffles and miners moss or I/O carpet and a friend recommended the Miracle Matt, self cleaning and won't lose the very fine gold we have here in New England. I have used the 6 inch sluice once on the river and several times in the backyard, both with pay to play paydirt and dirt I brought back from New Hampshire and some dirt that I salted myself. It caught fines that were so small I couldn't see them without a 10x magnifier.
I am still experimenting with it for the proper angle and flow in the backyard and am I getting enough water through it etc.

That being said I am still torn both ways as to whether to get a 10 inch "traditional" sluice with metal riffles and moss/carpet or a 10" with the miracle mat.
At least I have all winter now to agonize over it!

I wonder what the effect would be if one where to cut the first two riffles off a Keene A52 and remove the rubber mat and install miracle mat from where the current mat is to the 3rd riffle and then have the rest of the riffles and the moss/carpet the rest of the way down the sluice?

What are peoples opinions?

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I decided to try some of my practice gold (.6 grams) and add another pump (a 300 gph pool cover pump) and reduce the angle of the sluice. I tried it first dead flat but the water barely moved and wouldn't move the dirt off the feed plate. I put a 3/4 inch piece of wood which gave it a 1" in 3' pitch. The water seemed to flow through better rather than rush through. It still doesn't get very deep. I noticed that the riffles clean out in the first 3 riffles and start to get some build up further down. But it seems to catch all the really small fines. I did see 3 or 4 fines that went further down, may have floated or been knocked out by a pebble. 90% or more of the gold stopped in the first riffle including on the drop of the flare. I think this latest modification is getting close.

 

[Goodyguy]

Looking at the close up photos I can see that more classification is definately in order. Remember this is a clean up sluice not a production sluice. As smaller and smaller material is run the angle and flow will need to be adjusted accordingly.

The typical size of the gold in your area will determine the best initial classification to use. If the gold usually runs no greater than 16 and no smaller than 20 mesh then classify to no larger than 16 mesh (approx 1/16")

But lets say that you get gold all the way down to micro size and you want every teeny tiny speck. You are going to need classifying screens that go all the way down to 100 mesh! Some folks go even finer like to 200 mesh

You will also want to use a miller table, or blue bowl instead of the miricle mat when running material smaller than 30 mesh.

Russau's advice to run all same size material at a time is absolutely the best most efficient way to recover all the gold with the absolute minimal loss.

As far as using riffles when in the field going for the fine glacial gold, I say forget the riffles and run just the mat, just be sure to classify everything first to no more than 1/8"

To be on the safe side always check through your 1/4 to 1/8 classifying tailings to see if you missed any larger than 1/8" pickers or nuggets.

Here is a handy mesh to inches to millimeters to microns conversion chart: http://www.showmegold.org/news/Mesh.htm

GG~

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I had been using (one trip) this sluice as a production sluice from listening to the feedback it sounds like it might not be the best production sluice unless time is taken to always screen very small.
Here in New England, from what I have seen and been told, most gold is very fine but will have some pickers and an occasional nugget.

A question, If I am going to the river in New Hampshire and want to move a lot of material and take the concentrates home to work out would the Keene A52 be better than this set up? With the keene it almost looks like 1/2 or 1/4" classifying is good (are a Bazooka). I think of the Keene type sluice as that is what I see everyone using with the metal riffles and it also looks right.

I would guess that having a clean up sluice and a production sluice wouldn't hurt.

 

[Goodyguy]

Lots of folks use the A-52 it's an old standby, has been for many years. It is a good all around sluice, I started with the A-52. However in the last few years many improvements have been made in the design of sluices, especially as far as fine gold recovery is concerned.

The Bazooka fluid bed design that eliminates major classifying issues while retaining the fine gold.
The Gold Cube super concentrator.
The Angus McKirk sluice
The Le Trap
To name a few
And the list goes on.

Then there are the super mats such as "The Miracle Mat" and the "Gold Hog" mat and the "vortex" mat ( which is just rough top conveyer belt) and other custom mats. Plus I've seen certain carpets perform almost as good as the high dollar custom mats.

I live in Indiana and have designed my own equipment specifically for capturing the fine and flour glacial gold that is most abundant here. There are the occasional pickers and rarer nuggets to be found here as well, but you keep an eye out for them during classifying or put your 1/4" to 1/8" classifying tailings into a bucket for later inspection.

Classification is the key! The guy's in my area using the A-52 as is, and are only classifying down to 1/2" or 1/4" are blowing out more gold than they are keeping because they have to run the water fast enough to keep the riffles and mat from loading up and at that speed the gravels and flow will knock the fine gold loose and it will surf right on down and off the end of the sluice.

In your situation I would stick with the miracle mat and forget about the A-52.
If you hate classifying, get a bazooka and you can load it with up to 2" gravels with no problem other than the regular clearing of the grizzly.

Do a google search on Bazooka sluice and watch a video or two. Same with the other sluices and mats mentioned above.

GG~

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Thanks for the comeback. I will check out the Bazooka.
Our area sounds alot like Indianna, rare nuggets and a few pickers, mostly very fine gold. I was thinking of adding a blue bowl to work my black sand concentrates I have left over from panning and then try classifying down to 30 or 50 and try that in it this winter in the basement.

It probably makes the most sense to stick with what I have, a 36"x6" with miracle mat and classify everything, even better if I can get one of my kids (25, 27, & 29) to do it. I think run next summer with what I have while I learn more and also I was planning to try to find smaller overlooked streams and they might not have a good flow of water so a sluice like I have would work well.

This hobby is fun, although 5 days after my trip up north my ankle is still killing me from walking on all the rocks!

 

[Goodyguy]

Thanks for the comeback. I will check out the Bazooka.
Our area sounds alot like Indianna, rare nuggets and a few pickers, mostly very fine gold. I was thinking of adding a blue bowl to work my black sand concentrates I have left over from panning and then try classifying down to 30 or 50 and try that in it this winter in the basement.

It probably makes the most sense to stick with what I have, a 36"x6" with miracle mat and classify everything, even better if I can get one of my kids (25, 27, & 29) to do it. I think run next summer with what I have while I learn more and also I was planning to try to find smaller overlooked streams and they might not have a good flow of water so a sluice like I have would work well.

This hobby is fun, although 5 days after my trip up north my ankle is still killing me from walking on all the rocks!

Sorry to hear about the ankle, may as well invest in a good pair of waterproof hiking boots with good ankle support. I had the same problem but boy what a difference a good pair of boots made. Better for your wallet to hurt than your ankles

I have as much fun building and tinkering with the equipment as I do getting the gold, so I'm happy either way.

The blue bowl is a pretty touchy piece of equipment to operate correctly but there are a lot of tutorials on the net so enjoy.
You'll find that classification is just as important on a blue bowl as it is on any other piece of recovery equipment, actually even more so.

Best Wishes,
GG~

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I have 2 pairs of waterproof boots got them at Bass Pro, the 18 inchers were $100 and the hipwaders were about the same. I didn't see any other than hiking boots that would give really good support. I will try a ankle brace next time, it was only my left ankle (that and try to lose weight!)

Seems that most equipment can be touchy not to lose gold.

 

[russau]

if while useing your current setup you see any gold in the lower sections of your sluice,check the time youve been running. and do cleanups at that amount of time to keep from loseing your fine gold. riffels(any) cause fine gold to stay in suspension while going over the riffel, and this WILL casue your fines to migrate to the tail end of your sulice eventually.and if you dont do a clean up, youll lose it. fine tuning any peice of equipment is a individual task! have fun and good luck,your on the right track!