Gold Well Sluice test run

[Reed Lukens]

Here's the first video of an actual test on the Gold Well sluice. We ran it maxed out on water and it survived well.

 

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[DizzyDigger]

Good test Reed. Kinda figured it would work. But and that's A BIG
BUT, I was so turned off by everything they did trying to get the word out on their product that
I personally will not buy one. I think the damage has been done and they shot themselves in the foot.

Can they overcome it? Only time will tell. <snip>

Don't seem to have overcome the argumentative bit yet.

Watched Reed's long video, and was impressed with the amount of effort
he put into making it. I was NOT impressed with how much black sand
blew through the Gold Well, as it was all seen in the Keene clean-up. Up
here that much black sand (as was lost) would hold quite a bit of 50 to
100- mesh gold, and it would have been history if it wasn't for the Keene
backing it up.

 

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[AzViper]

Plastic doesn't define catching the gold as well as aluminum or steel. You can't put a sharp edge on plastic. Walmart is successful because it comes to town, drops the prices blow the cost that competing local businesses can even buy products for, so they drive the little guys out of business until there is no competition, then they raise the prices back up for their own profit, so you really need to watch the prices at Walmart because on many items they are extremely high.. Aluminum or steel is better for catching gold, when designed correctly a good steel drop riffle will out perform a plastic one any day. This is part of the reason that Keene and many other leading sluice manufacturers use steel & aluminum for the finest quality sluices. Personally I think if Bazooka made an aluminum or steel boil box type of sluice, I think it would benefit them greatly.

Reed you mention the sharp edges of the aluminum Gold Well. My question what's going to happen the Drop Well Vortex of the Gold Well sluice having 2" and 3" rocks tumble down the sluice or for that matter the 1.5" rocks you classified down to prior to running the concentrate through the sluice. Aluminum is soft and over time I would think that the Vortex's will become damaged. I suspect this is why Gold Well wants the end user to classify to 1/4" to control the size of material passing over these Drop Well Vortex cells.

 

[LP13]

Reed you mention the sharp edges of the aluminum Gold Well. My question what's going to happen the Drop Well Vortex of the Gold Well sluice having 2" and 3" rocks tumble down the sluice or for that matter the 1.5" rocks you classified down to prior to running the concentrate through the sluice. Aluminum is soft and over time I would think that the Vortex's will become damaged. I suspect this is why Gold Well wants the end user to classify to 1/4" to control the size of material passing over these Drop Well Vortex cells.

There are sluices that have been in use now for several months on a daily basis. No appreciable wear is seen, and in fact they still have sharp edges. However, I do not know why you suggest that sharp edges are required, when they are not. That is a result of the machining process. If aluminum were NOT a suitable material for the sluice to be made of, I would have chosen another. Aircraft aluminum is used that has similar property to steel. 6061-T6 is used for the 6" units and 7075-T6 on the 12" units. I have had stainless steel screws strip out in the 7075 and not harm the threads, where the screw was trashed. I have also seen 7075 used in some cases in a machine shop to stamp out steel parts from sheet metal. The only step up from these grades of aluminum would be titanium and would be so expensive as to be affordable only by large mining companies.

In any case the aluminum is stronger than most mild steels that standard sheet metal sluices only 1/16" thick are made from. The plates on the Gold Well are 1/2" thick.

There are several effects in the spiral wells, one of the effects is a high pressure zone near the bottom of the pocket and a low pressure near the top edge. Watching videos and stopping on cloesup will reveal these as two little collections of black sand, one at the top just off center and the other at the bottom (just off center to the spiral well centerline in the outer ring.)

Another effect at play is the differential velocity across the varying depth of the pocket, one side to the other, which is not dependent of the sharpness of an edge. This effect would occur if the edges were fully rounded.

Thirdly, there are microscopic forces at play such as boundary layer effects and molecular attraction. The microscopic forces play more important a role than flow or pocket shape when it comes to microscopic gold. They are not large enough to see the forces of the flow of water due to the fact they are so small and they are caught in the boundary layers of the sluice.

Black sands are not what the sluice is designed to collect, and amongst black sands, not all black particles are equal. In fact if one views black sands closely under a microscope, the majority of the particles are merely dark and not black at all. The picture on the other thread showed the stratification of the pockets well. That was what the picture was intended for. Even large 'black particles' sat atop much finer gold and was not intermixed with it much at all in the spiral gold wells. In the slot riffles there was relatively little gold collection compared to the pocket volume, and the black particles were intermixed with the gold.

The Keene in the video collected virtually no gold, as stated in the video. I believe Reed stated in the end of the video that 'half dozen to a dozen micro specks' is all that the Keene caught from all the material put through the Gold Well that the Gold Well missed.

The indication in the manual to classify to 3/8" is simply that to get the absolute maximum theoretical gold recovery, that classification to that range would be ideal. Yet without classification it is nearly ideal recovery anyhow. Most of the users of the Gold Well simply run raw material or material classified down to 1 or 1 1/2" or so (tossing out obviously large rocks). A requirement of someone that wanted to process large rocks through the sluice, would be to have sufficient water and angle combination on the sluice to 'float' the rocks out so they just didn't sit there in the sluice. The sluice has a very low water requirement, but as seen in Reed's video, it will work just as well 'full to the rails'. In fact, also stated in that video, is they were trying to push it far beyond what was suggested for the sluice, and yet it performed just fine.

That is one of the features of the Gold Well, that it is not finnicky about water flow and angle to the same degree that other sluices are. It works well over a broad range of flow rates and angles with very little difference in performance, and thus ideally suited for a beginner who wants good results easily obtained. One of my customers (that the crew here blasted for posting) even tested one of his at 45 degees and it still caught the test gold that he put in it.

Aluminum is soft but the surface of all aluminum instantly oxidizes, and aluminum oxide (the same material used in that gray sandpaper you sand metal with), has a harness of 8. Most steels unless heat treated, typically run in the 6 range. But one characteristic that is little known about aluminum, is it's molecular attraction toward other metals. In fact aluminum alloys with gold, and this alloy is purple. That molecular attaction is a great thing to have down there in that boundary layer zone where the forces of the water flow are not acting strongly on the fine gold. The molecular attraction then becomes more significant and can add to the collection of fine gold, and one good reason that I would prefer to use aluminum over plastic. Plastic has no molecular attraction to gold. Only thing plastic attracts is WalMart shoppers... I doubt you will see my sluice in WalMart ... but who knows

 

[Doug Watson]

You keep trying to knock plastic sluices. We've had plastic sluices that are years old and still look as good as new! We're running a lot of our equipment on the beaches with salt water to recirculate and I'd like to see your alum sluice after 3 years of salt water use. Our equipment is all made in the USA and not sold in walmart either. I've tried to stay out of this but you could really use some people skills in your marketing.

 

[LP13]

You keep trying to knock plastic sluices. We've had plastic sluices that are years old and still look as good as new! We're running a lot of our equipment on the beaches with salt water to recirculate and I'd like to see your alum sluice after 3 years of salt water use. Our equipment is all made in the USA and not sold in walmart either. I've tried to stay out of this but you could really use some people skills in your marketing.

Aluminum has certain properties that actually help the sluice to capture gold, and because of that, I prefer to keep using aluminum, until and IF I can find (if necessary) a better material that ALSO has it's properties.

I have sluices in use in Salt Water in Nome and other places, and there hasn't been any issue.

Here is a picture, see for yourself.



People forget that aluminum is commonly used in marine applications. Where does it say that aluminum will corrode in salt water? It all depends on the alloy and whether or not it is in intimate contact with other metals. If you place aluminum and copper, for example, in physical contact and immerse in salt water ... you are really going to have a problem fast! But the sluice is made entirely of aluminum and stainless steel, and there is little issue there.

Here is a quote from a paper regarding aluminum corrosion.

Salt water DOES NOT corrode aluminum!
You may have noticed that you never see aluminum
corrosion in lakes, pools, food packaging products, etc.
Typically, if you have seen corroded aluminum, it was in
or near the ocean. While it may seem logical to draw the
conclusion that the salt water must be corrosive to the
aluminum, it is not. Salt water does not corrode aluminum
because of its neutral pH. A saltwater solution can, however,
be a major facilitator for galvanic or dissimilar metal corrosion.

And here is a link to the paper that that quote was taken from:

http://www.sheetpileeurope.com/uploads/CMI%20technische%20documenten%20(engels)/aluminum_corrosion.pdf

 

[LP13]

Sorry you took offense at the way I tied in AZ Viper's Walmart reference and plastic in a tongue in cheek joke at the end of my post. I will remove it if that will help any. I made no reference to any product specifically in that post regarding it being made of plastic or otherwise. The only reference I made to any product was in context of the video in question, and I made no reference to its construction nor where it is made.

 

[Skiddum]

Ok so what is you conclusion. someone was doing testing and was deciding if the sluice was worth what they are asking.

 

[daniel2015]

Any tests? How does it compare to the gold cube when used as a concentrator sluice?

 

[Seden]

LP13-the only sluice I own IS a plastic sluice (LeTrap) 'cause that's all I can afford and where I am there are no creeks or rivers so I use a highbanker in the winter and drywash in the summer. If and when I relocate to an area with a year round creek, your sluice will be on my buy list! Also pay not attention to complainers-I got a laugh out of your Walmart joke.

 

[JB Hunter]

The Goldwell is starting up again and will be taking orders soon.

 

[Goldwasher]

starting to smell like spam around hee