Beach Sluicing

[Roln99]

Has anyone ever used a sluice at the beach? I'm planning on developing a sluice specifically designed for use at the beach. This particular design will use the beach-ward (tide-in) only motion of the waves to classify potential valuables. My design will be based on the dimensions and measurements of professional quality Sluice Boxes with a few custom modifications. I want to recover seashells, sea glass, shark's teeth, coral, pearls, precious stones, as well as any other treasure that happens to wash up on the beach. Any input will be greatly appreciated!!!

 

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[rockhound]

Sounds like a good idea, if you can set it up where you can watch it. Seems that anyone who happened by would want to investigate, and possibly empty it. I have done some beach salvaging. It involves using a specially built rake to drag through the water and sand to drag up hidden treasures. It will get most of what you are looking for, but it involves a lot of work, too.
rockhound

 

[Roln99]

Thanks for responding to this post!
I was beginning to wonder if anyone was actually reading it. This sluice will be constantly manned due to the fact that it will require constant shovelfuls of sand in order to increase the possibility of recovering treasure, as each shovelful will increase the chances of actually uncovering hidden treasures. It will utilize the inward motion (only) of the waves in order to dissolve the sand. It will be tethered in place at the rear and will float up on the inward motion due to its design and construction in order to regulate the flow of water in the riffle section of the sluice as well as to prevent the backwashing of valueables. The back of the hopper at the rear of the sluice will be facing the ocean and will be the entry point for the water. Sand will be shoveled into the top of the hopper which will be lined with 1/4" netting. Anything smaller than that will be washed into the sluice over the riffles. This sluice will only be deployed on the beach at low-tide conditions, preferably after a storm in order to process fresh findings. Right now this is in a theoretical stage, however I'll soon construct a prototype based on this idea and test it at the beach in order to improve on its design!

 

[bja3908]

Roln, I have tried lots of things on the beach so am very interested in any new ideal I built a rake about 3ft wide that had a basket that we carried out as far as possible then pulled in with a wench lot of work but found some good stuff and lots of fun. So keep us up to date on how it works out
Bobby

 

[Roln99]

Hey thanks for the inspiration!
I find your dredging method quite interesting. My wife and I went to North Myrtle Beach for the week of Christmas and stayed at the Ocean Creek Resorts. The second day there I went to one of the beach stores and purchased a small fishing net and a plastic shovel. I located certain target spots and put shovelfuls of sand in the net. I would then submerge the net slightly under water and move it back and forth until all of the sand was gone. I could then look into the net for whatever was in it. This experience is what inspired this particular type of sluice. The idea is to cover more ground efficiently thereby increasing the chances of a killer find(s) in minimal time with minimal effort. Although I didn't find much of anything with the net and shovel method, the experience in itself was worth the effort. I hope this experiment will yield reproduceable results. I will keep you posted on all of the developments and hopefully be able to provide some live footage!

 

[barber]

Back in the "80's, my brother got permission to run a dredge at Long Beach, CA. he made a big screen, about 5 ft square, he was going to dredge, I was to work the screen. When he started the dredge, the screen instantly filled with seashells.and the dredge put so much sand up in the water he couldn't see anything. It was impossible to sort thru' so many shells. On alighter side, he said every time his partner bumped him, he about had a heart attack, wondering if it was a shark.

 

[Roln99]

LOL
That's one of the reasons I chose this approach. I can't swim, and I definitely don't want any encounters with sharks, jellyfish, octopuses, eels, and whatever else lurks in the sea. Right now I'm on a budget and this is the best solution that I could come up with for now. I would love to have a dredge, perhaps in the future!

 

[aarthrj3811]

Hey Roln99………..The GPAA has a bunch of beach sluices in Alaska….They had the plans for them on the web site a lot of years ago. Check their old files and see if you can find them….They were different than any conventional sluices……Art

 

[boogeyman]

Years ago we used to build what was called a beach cart. Nothing more than a large basket with a cutting blade on the front. Pulled by a lawnmower handle, with two wheels welded on the back. Worked better in dry sand than the surf. Used them mostly around the fire rings in Newport & Balboa. Grabbed all the goodies everyone else missed due to the huge amount of nails & aluminum blobs fron the fire rings. If you build one, it should only take a couple hours to throw together. Oh yeah, you can pull up a ton of sandcrabs with one, so if you get skunked, you can sell the softshwll ones to the bait store

Hey Barber! Hope it was Long Beach you guys were dredging not the Harbor! Unless it's changed in the last few years, I'd be more worried about the scummy water more than sharks!

 

[rockhound]

What I used was a garden rake, and added more teeth, closer together. I made the teeth longer, about 8 inches or so. I welded a ring where the handle normally goes. I attached a length of rope about 15 feet long and threw it into the surf. You will get tons of seashells with it, but also coins and jewelry, if your tongs are close enough. I also curve the teeth inward for more bite into the sand. HH

 

[rmptr]

A friend had told me, following WWII, the beach crowds at Santa Monica CA were huge.
(I can imagine!)

He told me there were a number of folks with a 3ft diameter shallow basket that would sift their way
back and forth along the length of the dry sand beach all day long in hopes of recovering something.

I'd imagine they did OK...

Good luck to you!
rmptr

 

[MEinWV]

Beach recovery methods have been used for a long time. I saw a picture once from the turn of the century that showed a couple of people with table screens and small shovels, with a caption that said that they were sifting for coins. It is surely a hit and miss method unless you know the lay of the beach. If you know how to find the lines, you can put yourself in the hottest spots and increase your odds. If there are obstacles on a beach, such as pilings, rocks, ledges, etc., they can act like the riffles in a gold pan, trapping coins and other valuables.

Good luck! Keep us updated!

 

[lou423]

I once built a sifter box with wheels which I dragged in the sand....
It was a lot of work and there was nothing much to show for it..
Stick to your PI metal detector.

 

[boogeyman]

A friend had told me, following WWII, the beach crowds at Santa Monica CA were huge.
(I can imagine!)

He told me there were a number of folks with a 3ft diameter shallow basket that would sift their way
back and forth along the length of the dry sand beach all day long in hopes of recovering something.

I'd imagine they did OK...

Good luck to you!
rmptr

A lot of people back then were using "sand crab nets" that you could buy or rent from the bait & tackle shops. Shallower version of a beach cart. Even if you didn't find much, by the end of summer you had calves the size of watermellons If anyones interested I think I've still got the plans for a beach cart some where.