Finishing sluice with fine ruber matt...

[425jesse]

I have been running my home made finishing sluice thru the cons I get from a local river. When I pan the cons that I have not run thru the sluiceI seem to get maybe 3 or 4 specs per pan, when I pan the final cons I also get 3 to 4 flakes per pan. I am running my sluice at about 3/4" per foot, and my riffles are 1/8" tall. I use enough water to keep the whole sluice covered in an even flow(sluice slick plate clears in about 25 seconds). I know I am loosing gold, and end up panning everything I run thru the sluice because I want to see what I'm loosing. Any thoughts on how to capture more and loose less?

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

One mistake I consistently see made, when watching sluice videos, is the lack of a consistent feed rate. When finishing, and especially for very fine gold, you need a steady, constant flow of material into the top of the sluice, for best results. Very few people ever use an auto-feeder, but it will pay dividends in gold, or gem, recovery.
Jim

 

[Jason in Enid]

Slow down your water flow.
separate your cons into many sizes so that you aren't blowing small gold out trying to get the bigger light sands to clear.

 

[425jesse]

Slow down your water flow.
separate your cons into many sizes so that you aren't blowing small gold out trying to get the bigger light sands to clear.

I currently classify to 1/4 then to about -10. Should I classify more?

 

[Jason in Enid]

I currently classify to 1/4 then to about -10. Should I classify more?

OMG yes! You need to classify it with at least a 20, and a 50 in addition to the "10" although I haven't seen a 10 mesh. Personally, I use 1/4", #8, 12, 20 and 50. I should probably also have a 30 and a 100 but I do OK with what I have.

 

[425jesse]

The 10 is approx, it's a really well made strainer for the kitchen. Has 2 handles and fits inside a 5 gal bucket really well. I measured it and the openings were about 2.5 mil, or about 1/10th an inch.

 

[425jesse]

Is the reason for multiple classification to not flood the sluice with material? Once I get it to about 1/10, it all seems to flow well thru the sluice, but then again, that might be my problem!!

 

[DizzyDigger]

Is the reason for multiple classification to not flood the sluice with material?

Not really.

By classifying the material down to 20 mesh, 30 mesh and 50 mesh, and then only running one
size at a time through the sluice you are running like sized material. Gold that is in material of a
classified size will be much heavier than all the other material of equal size, so by running only
one size at a time you'll get more gold out of each, as the larger/heavier material is not there to
blow the gold out.

 

[Jason in Enid]

No, you classify to find the gold. Gold separation is a function of weight. 10 mesh blonds are still heavier than 50 mesh gold so that it can't get to the bottom and is continually being washed out. When you keep everything similar in size you let the gold go to the bottom. You also need less water flow for smaller mesh cons. The same flow that works for 10 will blow out everything smaller.

 

[425jesse]

Well shoot, I never thought about it like that. Will I need to classify like that to have success with the gold cube ? ( potential next purchase to replace my hand made variables). My finishing sluice is 2 feet wide and 4 feet long, collects loads of black sand, seems like an under flow is the next step to get rid of some of the black sand and concentrate more on the cons!!!!

 

[russau]

its called "specific gravity" ........you screen all of your cons and work them seperatly! -20,-30,all the way down to maybe -100 or -200.each screening gets panned/worked seperatly to keep the specific gravity working for you instead of against you. if every partical in you pan,sluice,Gold Cube, etc. is the same the specific gravity works for you. the same size particals will weight more for gold,plat. than the other particals and they will be washed out before the heavier particals will be!this works for all cleanup/highbankers/dredges/and other equipment!

 

[Jason in Enid]

Well shoot, I never thought about it like that. Will I need to classify like that to have success with the gold cube ? ( potential next purchase to replace my hand made variables). My finishing sluice is 2 feet wide and 4 feet long, collects loads of black sand, seems like an under flow is the next step to get rid of some of the black sand and concentrate more on the cons!!!!

2 feet wide!!!! That's not a finishing sluice, that's bigger than my dredge!

 

[Colt gold]

I would classify it with bout a 50 and start with the biggest and then put the smallest in last, so you dont have the bigger things nock out the gold. I trust the most for a clean up sluice is the Deep-v mat, works great.

 

[Goodyguy]

Don't forget to use a few drops of Jet-Dry, it helps keep the fine gold from just floating out by reducing the surface tension of the water. Also make sure that the material you are feeding into your sluice is completely WET!

GG~

 

[425jesse]

2 feet wide!!!! That's not a finishing sluice, that's bigger than my dredge!

It's an old metal door that has a really great surface on it. With the slick plate being 14 inches long, and the finish on the door being black, when the wet cons hit the surface the gold drags really well, well enough to use my sucker bottle and get a bunch of the visible stuff before it even hits the v-mats. I need to take some of the above advice about greater classification before running down the sluice. I always pan a bit of the tailings to see what's there, and there isn't ever much, but I would love to be confident there wasn't anything there. Thanks for the advice to all who have taken the time to chime in!

 

[kevin1]

It's an old metal door that has a really great surface on it. With the slick plate being 14 inches long, and the finish on the door being black, when the wet cons hit the surface the gold drags really well, well enough to use my sucker bottle and get a bunch of the visible stuff before it even hits the v-mats.

That's about the biggest Miller Table I've ever heard of, what do you use for flow control?

 

[425jesse]

I use the hose on my back patio, with a pressure regulator (just a ball valve). I use 1" PVC for my spray bar, and have flap or a metal bar I use to even the water flow across the slick.

 

[KevinInColorado]

I use the hose on my back patio, with a pressure regulator (just a ball valve). I use 1" PVC for my spray bar, and have flap or a metal bar I use to even the water flow across the slick.

Please share a couple pics of it in action :-)

PS: the gold cube is less finicky about classification due to the lack of riffles or ridges like in v-mat. It uses a combination of under flow, waterfalls (to break things up at the micro level) and vortex mat so you can dump everything smaller than 8 mesh in at once.