Started building a 6" dredge

[principedeleon]

Okay so now my friend hose is 5" and it serves me no good. I tried looking for one here and i was told that they have a 6" goodyear hose but its not see through and that they could get me one ordered from the US.. Which i can do myself.
But ill see if i could get a better price on shipping with them.

But mean while Anyone know of any online seller that could give me a quote .. A reasonable one?

And Could i start dredging with 10-13 feet of this none see through hose? Maybe having two long branchs for if a rock flip or two big rocks clog it up by accident? Since the hose wont be too long i think it might work.

 

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[omnicron]

Just restrict your nozzle down to 5"...problem solved.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Actually 5" hose is perfect for the motor that you have. The outside diameter of the 5" hose is approximately 6" so you can put duct tape around the first 3" or so of the 5" hose to create a seal and then add more tape down the hose to make a =< tight seal then at that end where you have the 3" inside the jet tube, put a clamp on the hose so that the hose will be sucked into the jet up to the clamp. The clamp will hold it to where you have it set against the outside of the jet so it is adjustable for the length that you have going into the hose. Then you can tape over the clamp and over the power jet end and the suction and tape will hold it in place. I've done this before when I needed a deep water 5" and it sounds backwoods like it is, hehe, but it works. You can do just fine with a non see through 6" hose if it is cheap enough because you can feel where the plug is inside of it by the weight. Or if you really want to order some good hose there are plenty of manufacturers here
https://www.google.com/#q=6"+tigerflex+suction+hose&safe=off

Either pick a supplier of 6" Tigerflex or Capital Rubber of Sacramento sells it also.

 

[Timberdoodle]

Got to agree with Omni. Just restrict the nozzle.

If I remember right your 4" used 4 1/2" jets and worked great. I expect you will get the same outcome with 4 3/4" jets on the 6". I don't expect volume to be an issue since the jets are not the same orifice type as a cast log jet etc.. which pass more volume for the same size jet. My personal expectations from what I have seen so far is that you will have approx. 100gpm per jet at 35psi for a total of 400gpm on a 500gpm pump. I think you will reach a working pressure of 30-35psi and have very good suction. Of coarse I think you know this already P! Good job

 

[principedeleon]

Reed .. Ima try this because i want to see the dredge working and i dont have to weld anything to it that wont let me to later put a 6" hose on it so i have nothing to lose..

Tim..i dont know how much my ke201 pump puts out with a 8hp motor it is a older pump but anyways from what reed was trying to explain is that a p180 pump puts out around 350gpm more then what is advertise and thet if i had double the size in openning on the jet i would have to double my water supply. My setup will only be delivering 500 gpm instead of 700gpm. it will work but the motor will have to run a little higher then normal.. But who knows maybe my ke201 pump didnt put out all those GPM.

 

[Timberdoodle]

I couldn't find the specs on the ke201 either but since that size combo was used on Keene's older 4" dredges, I would guess around a 300gpm rating. If you want to measure the actual jet throughput on your 4" you can use this method. USBR Water Measurement Manual - Chapter 14 - MEASUREMENTS IN PRESSURE CONDUITS, Section 13. Trajectory Methods Works very well for high volume measurements. You can measure the jet alone by capping off the inlet and measure both jet volume and suction volume combined which would help provide you with some working numbers.

 

[principedeleon]

I dont have a 4" dredge no more the river has flooded and drown the dredge some where .
I havent been able to find it.. I believe it went through a waterfall and lost the tanks and drown in a 30-40' deep pool.

 

[Timberdoodle]

Sorry to hear that P.

 

[principedeleon]

Sorry to hear that P.

This has motivated me to finish up with this dredge sooner and want to work harder.. Maybe theres a good thing behind all this. Who knows!

 

[principedeleon]

Okay so i started fitting the mat into my sluice box but i notice that each square measures 3/4"x3/4" seems pretty big.. I dont know if this would create too much of a vortex for the size of material that would be going through there .. I have also 3 piece of angle iron to seperate the aluminum sheet but i dont know if 3/4" spacing is too small and maybe 1" spacing is what i should give between the matting and the upper current. Im thinking of going with a 1" high but i really dont want to mess up.. Also Reed.. i will soon start building my riffles and i want to know the space and slope i should give riffle set. I want to do some normal angle iron straight 90degree and some slanted ones . Then a couple hungarian followed with about 4 dove tail riffles. I find no measurements for iron angle riffles or dove tail.

 

[Reed Lukens]

1" depth is a bit much but it will just fill up what it isn't using and will still collect the gold and black sand. Here's some pics of the Dahlke riffles and you can guesstimate from these pics and also from the dredge video. We made ours with a bit more depth and a bit less angle for the added gpm. You should be able to use the numbers in the photo's just fine for the 550gpm.

 

[principedeleon]

Thanks reed, i wont be really estimating since you brought out the measuring tape..

Now i believe i can go and build my own. =D

 

[principedeleon]

I made a call today to see if i could had gotten some punch plate with 3/16 hoes and what they have instead is some 1/8 woven wire mesh that is stainless steel. Could this be any good ? Or should i keep looking ..

 

[Reed Lukens]

Keep looking for punch plate. Woven wire disturbs the slurry and though I have never used it myself for a separator, it's because I have been told by Hoser and others many years ago that woven wire doesn't work well at all.

 

[Timberdoodle]

Hi Reed, Good pic's. I hadn't looked that close to a Dahlke riffle set before. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first 3 riffles look like a variation of Clarkson style riffles. A little difference in each angle and separation though.

 

[principedeleon]

Keep looking for punch plate. Woven wire disturbs the slurry and though I have never used it myself for a separator, it's because I have been told by Hoser and others many years ago that woven wire doesn't work well at all.

i thought different i thought it was better in dropping the fines faster out of current since it haves more opening area than punch plate. i had a diamond shape screen not woven mesh and it used to work great.. ever since i changed the screen to punch plate i couldnt find much gold in my undercurrent.. but i dont know if it was different paydirt or the screen. but ya is the expert and my beliefs was not based on any studies or nothing ..so its pretty worth less.

also as i reread this thread i noticed you speaking of my separator mesh having to be 8".. i have it for 24inches since i wanted to give it more time for the finer material to drop out the current; but i dont want to make my upper current not work well. i also noticed Omni saying about he has 4inches of water running through his box.. which would mean i would have about a inch of water over my riffles or maybe its 4inches without nothing inside of the sluice... i was thinking of even placing a 3/8" woven mesh over the separator mesh and first couple riffles but i fear not having enough water to roll the rocks over the mesh. Note: ill be making less then 4inches since im running with just 500gpm."/

 

[Reed Lukens]

You don't need 24"because the gold will drop under right out of the flare. Make the separator plate adjustable so that you can slide it in & out. 8" give or take will work fine since the gold will be riding along the bottom of the flare. By adding a longer opening you are adding more water to the undercurrent and at 24" it will be more water than is needed underneath when you will be starved at best up top already depending on your riffle height. 550gpm will run the 20" over/ under box fine; where you will find the problem is with the suction depending on the hose length. 15ft of 5" hose will give you lots of suction where 15ft of 6" hose will be questionable.

 

[principedeleon]

okay i guess ill be buying a 5" hose here there is some see through ones so i like the fact about that also.. and that i could probably get about 15 feet of 5" for about the same price as the 10-13 feet of 6".

now the problem comes here if you see in the last picture i post; the separator plate is 4' long .. so this is another reason why i wanted to go 24" since my sluice box is 6' long.
what could i do with the extra foot or so of over hang .. cant i put a screen or something and drop it to the under current mat ? since is easier for me to find a piece of screen then buy another whole aluminum sheet ?

or i could detach the aluminum angle iron from the bottom of the separator plate and buy new aluminum angle irons and cut them to about 5' and attach some pieces of aluminum sheet i have less..

or cut the box to 5'

thanks for following up with me on this...

 

[omnicron]

Listen to Reed, he knows. I'll tell you as Reed said, gold will drop out fast. I'm finding most of my gold with in the first 4"'s of my flare. I'm talking -30 mesh gold.
You have a few options, buy another piece of alum or even galvanized sheet metal and splice it in using rivets or leave it free moving so you can adjust the opening. You can put it in front as a "slick" plate and or make it a 3 stage. Lastly you can cut your sluice down.
I was trying screen before I switched to gold hog mat and as was said, it didn't work all that good.

 

[principedeleon]

Listen to Reed, he knows. I'll tell you as Reed said, gold will drop out fast. I'm finding most of my gold with in the first 4"'s of my flare. I'm talking -30 mesh gold. You have a few options, buy another piece of alum or even galvanized sheet metal and splice it in using rivets or leave it free moving so you can adjust the opening. You can put it in front as a "slick" plate and or make it a 3 stage. Lastly you can cut your sluice down. I was trying screen before I switched to gold hog mat and as was said, it didn't work all that good.

How would i adjust the seperator plate by placing different size of clasification mesh example: a 8"..10"..12"??

I like the 3 stage idea sound like it could be a easier solution; plus i could have a quick sample clean up.