Gold Cube Setup

Jakal

Tenderfoot
Jul 16, 2015
9
29
Southern Indiana
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Started gold prospecting this season just classifying into a 120 mesh and panning it out. I had success.

Well I finally broke down and bought a Gold Cube 4 stack for Indiana placer gold after researching about 6 months and started to run my screened cons thru the Cube, way better success!

I have used it several times now and am recovering some of the smallest gold you can almost NOT see. Take a needle and dip it in ink and then dot a piece of white paper and that is the size of gold I am recovering and larger. I have checked my trailings and float bucket multiple times and in different ways. I can say, IF any gold is getting past this Vortex matting, it's the 1% not being recovered as stated by the Gold Cube inventors.

For Indiana gold, the product does what Mike and Red say it will do.

I had some trouble the first couple of times setting it up but with a hand level, things were going ok. Called Mike about the setup and leveling of the frame and Gold Cube. Mike stated that you want the front-to-back of the stand to look level and to place a tray and fill it with water. Looking at the trough, if the water is level or very near, you should be good to go. I asked about distance and Mike did say that he had a guy running 30 foot of hose and a 2000ph pump.

Went out and bought 50 foot of hose from Boatersplus.com and a SeaFlo 2000gph pump and a 100amp AGM type battery and installed a shut off valve at the Gold Banker inlet (yep, bought on of those also!) and now I'm in high-banker mode. I'm running 20 foot of hose and calibrate the water flow using the 5/8 dowel trick.

Of course, me being an engineering type, I wanted to make sure that the Cube was set at the proper 15 degrees for optimum vortex formation and thus better gold recovery. I knew my setup was not spot on so after doing some more research, I found these inclinometers from Tiltmeter.com, perfect!

I checked each tray by itself for uniformity down the face of the tray, while on the frame after leveling it first. There is some variance I found. Also I looked at the leading edge of the vortex mat to select the most uniform for the top tray. Marked the trays 1-3, most uniform to less uniform. Now I know what my Cube angle is and think this will actually help in better recovery.

Here is a pic... Sorry for the long first post but I thought this might help someone else that is starting out with a Gold-Cube!

GCinclinometer.jpg
 

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Goodyguy

Gold Member
Mar 10, 2007
6,489
6,895
Arizona
Detector(s) used
Whites TM 808, Whites GMT, Tesoro Lobo Super Traq, Fisher Gold Bug 2, Suction Dredges, Trommels, Gold Vacs, High Bankers, Fluid bed Gold Traps, Rock Crushers, Sluices, Dry Washers, Miller Tables, Rp4
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hey GG,


The Central chapter is going to have a clean-up weekend their next meet to help Robin manage the property. Chain saws and etc are being brought in by members to help out, anyone that wants to help out is invited.


I plan to be there this Sunday 08/16/2015 to test out the dredge adaptation to my highbanker gold trap, sluice combo. I think I've found the solution to my gold trap scouring problem. I found that replacing the hard diverter baffle with a damper flap eliminates the scouring when used as a highbanker. Hopefully it will also work with the higher velocity flow attained with the 3" dredge input.

My paydirt from the club donation came in today so I will be able to present it as an added bonus to Robin and Doug. I think they will get a kick out of panning it out. (I'll also add the gold that I recovered there this year to it)

Hope to see you there.
GG~


*ADDED.........8/16/2015
Well Just as I had imagined, the flap was not heavy enough to keep the trap from scouring due to the flow delivered from the 3" hose. Not even close especially considering that I had the pump throttled back as far as I could and still maintain suction.

Doubtful any weight flap would work with this narrow sluice, just too much turbulence to overcome. Will call this one a FAIL! and go back to the drawing board with a wider sluice and different config trap.

fail.jpg
 

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