From the looks it seems to be an agressive expanded,reaches a bit higher in to the water column than other expandeds,which (i hope )should help take the material out of the deeper waterflow that may occur in dredges.One may say that we can use riffles for that purpose but i have already a open riffle section and just want to add another different catching device to cover all possibilities.
I run a gravity dredge and when you have no motor,the tuning becomes more difficult because you have no throttle.
I often have to work with minimum drop because the river i work runs pretty flat.In this cases i run the dredge with flatter pitch and and less waterforce.
This can lead the fines under-section to material build up because i can,t get enough velocity under the wire mesh-expanded.I can see the bright sands thru the screens then,cleaning out waaay to slow.When placing my hand on top of the screens while running,it re-starts to exchange in the undersection because my hand diverts the faster water above the screen in to the under section.
I may add a cross bar on top of the beginning of the undersection screen ,to force some faster water in there .
At the end of my dredge the water is faster and deeper since there no screens braking.The idea ,as seen on other dredges ,is to widen out to lower the water column and help the expanded to get a grasp on the gold that may be escaped the under section because it cleans out to slowly.If possible without having rocks stopping there.
Didn,t you begin a 8 inch built some time ago?
If its finished be sure to post some vids.
Here,s a vid i already posted in my gravity thread,i want to put the flared section where the formwork panels begin.
In this setup i estimate we had 2 to3 inch deep water.How high is the 4lb exp.and what water depht (on top of the expanded)would you recommend for the 4 pound exp,.
Emilio