OK....Thoughts On This Theory Based On Plenty Of Logic & Science

[John-Edmonton]

I only have flour gold where I prospect, like many of you. My theory goes like this

" the greater the opportunity there is to get (flour) gold caught in some sort of an eddy (riffle) the more gold you should be able to get in a given amount of time."

So, to compensate, we go wider on a sluice, go longer or add an extension. The thought being.....if a piece of gold missed a riffle, it can be caught at another riffle further on down the sluice bed. However, you can reverse this direction principal, by increasing the amount of eddies (riffles) in your sluice bed by by going smaller, and if you miss one piece of gold you can always hopefully catch it in another riffle.

So, here are the facts:

On my 4 foot x 10" highbanker, I can switch to different proven gold catching mattings, and also regulate my screening 1/2" to 1/4" to 3/8"

So, the math works out like this:

10" x 3' 6" dream mat offers 36 cells to catch and hold the fine gold
10" x 3' 6" one inch raised expanded mesh offers 136 cells to collect and hold flour gold over carpet or miner's moss
10" x 3' 6" half inch raised expanded mesh offers 400 cells to collect and hold flour gold over carpet or minor's moss
10" x 3' 6" Special matting ie Hog or other available, also many (100's) riffles to collect and hold the flour gold

So, if you can control the variables such as screening your material, rate of water flow and level of highbanker, based on my theory........ is to go with the half inch mesh, slow the water and screen the gravels to a smaller size or some sort of available commercial type of matting.

Thoughts?

 

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[akflyer]

I love the gold hog mats. I use them on my home built HB. I built 2, modeled after the piglet and the raptor. My first thought was that I could catch more flower gold with the larger raptor and running a longer sluice with the flair. The reality is, on a HB that is being fed by one person, the larger HB just adds to bulk and set up time. I kept testing tailing on the mini and never found even a speck in them so I don't know why I bothered to build the larger HB to run the same material through.. I guess it was the man in me thinking bigger has to be better LOL.

Unless I can talk more guys into going out and running shovels with me, I will stick to the mini this summer for the easy of transport and set up.

 

[John-Edmonton]

I love the gold hog mats. I use them on my home built HB. I built 2, modeled after the piglet and the raptor. My first thought was that I could catch more flower gold with the larger raptor and running a longer sluice with the flair. The reality is, on a HB that is being fed by one person, the larger HB just adds to bulk and set up time. I kept testing tailing on the mini and never found even a speck in them so I don't know why I bothered to build the larger HB to run the same material through.. I guess it was the man in me thinking bigger has to be better LOL.

Unless I can talk more guys into going out and running shovels with me, I will stick to the mini this summer for the easy of transport and set up.

I have heard nothing but positive things about Hog Mats. The option that you can pick and choose a variety of different mats with separate riffle configurations, really makes them a good choice. Once you figure out what type (size) of gold you are searching for, your type/size of highbanker, flow rate etc. you have the ability to fine tune your equipment and capture a lot of gold.

I too have added an extension to my HB, and also came to the conclusion that for the amount of time I spent putting it together, I could have easily gotten enough gold to compensate that extra work. Now if I was doing a larger production with gold, the extension would be of benefit, but I would to back to miners moss or carpet, where the gold can hide, and not do a cleanup until the end of the day, providing that there was no migration of gold.

I too usually go highbanking by myself.