Gutter clean out sluice

[Foulwind]

A while ago I put together a clean out sluice made from 5’ of plastic gutter. I lined the gutter floor with V mat, and made a rudimentary water dam out of 3/8” plywood that’s siliconed in creating a water bath about 5” big. It’s fed by hole a gutter cap. Initially I had no idea how to set it up. It was trial and error on my part to get the thing to work. My water pump at the time was a cheap Harbor Freight 12vdc 200GPH. I installed a garden hose valve to control water flow. My first few attempt at trying to get gold with it were fails to the point I was thinking it was a waste of time. I knew there were variables I needed to deal with and learn. Sluice angle, water flow, and feed rate. I tried an extreme angle at first with to big a feed and had more gold in the tailings than what was. Rinsed out of the gutter v mats. I try ed a few more times changing the angle of the sluice, then changing water flows, and feed rates but something wasn’t right as still more gold ended up in the tailings. Jump ahead 2 months. I’ve finally dialed in using the gutter to catch gold! 11 deg angle, es water pump with speed controller, and tablespoon size feeds and the V mat doesn’t pass any gold into tailings. I ran my last weeks 6 buckets run entirely through the gutter, and whittled the 1/2 bucket of cons down to maybe 1.5 cups of cons. There was easily over 1000 pieces in the first exposure and just as much still hiding in the black sand! I tested the gutter tailings and saw no colors in the test. So I m glad I didn’t toss the whole thing back when I made it. It definitely makes cleaning up a lot nicer and a lot less panning. Picture is my gutter sluice when I first put it together and not knowing how it works. Today it’s set up works! It works.
S

 

[DizzyDigger]

That's one of the things I enjoy most about prospecting. You get a good idea in your head, go ahead and build the thing and then ultimately see it work the way you intended.

 

[russau]

You need to start somewhere and this is a good first step !

 

[Foulwind]

Well, i've been using my little gutter clean out now for some time. I made a very simple PVC pipe frame from 3/4" PVC to support it, have a 500 GPH submersible bildge pump, and speed controller for it, the combo works great in botm my V mat and Dream mat gutter sluices.
Having used both of these gutter sluices to wash 6 full 5 gal buckets of my localeach sand i can say that the V mat gutter catches more gold. My dream mat gutter does catch gold, but because the individual mats are just slightly narrower than the floor in the gutter some sand (And gold) does run down along the mats not over them. If I silicon the dream mat sections in along their sides this will stop this problem, and slow mat clean ups for me. Reason for this post, today i decided to chang a parameter within my system. I increased the working angle of my simple sluic stand from 11deg to 15 deg by slipping a short 2×4 under the feed end. I understand the higher angle will mae a little faster water fow and hopefully allow gravity to work on the gold a little more. The results I got after running 3 pan fulls of local raw beach sand were good, maybe 100-200 colors, about the same as running at 11deg's but it was first run. Does anyone have thought on what might be an optimal running angle for tbese V mats. 11deg's seems to work as i've recovered gold, 15deg's works also. I have not tried a lesser angle yet like 6deg's (I'll need to make new shorter legs for the stand for 6 deg's) I think at a lower angle the sand won't clear as fast (And neither will the gold) and I'll need to feed sand alot slower than I'm doing now. Maybe I could run the water a little faster with a lower sluice angle? Too many thoughts now. I'm just going to run on the 15degree angle for a few more pans and see if I can actually notice any difference in gold.
If you've read this far thanks!

 

[russau]

The finer the gold the less angle you need. Also on new mats or any type of material you put into the sluice you need to clean the release agent or manufactuors lubricants off the material or it will cause the finer gold to float off and out of the sluice. On ribbed rubber mats you need to scrub them good to help remove any bubbles that will form on the mat when water goes over it.

 

[russau]

And classify everything into same size if you can , Specific Gravity will take care of the rest. When using the sluice , on each run you should alter the angle and or the flow/pressure of the water for the finer gold! and if your recycling the water use a little bit of Dawn dish soap to help the water tension . It will help the fine gold drop out of suspension. And warm water will help this also. Re-run your cons several times!!!! I'm sure I missed something BUT

 

[southfork]

My cleanup sluice is 10 inches wide with V mat I run it almost flat. Water control and feed rate are key it's a slow process. Classifying and milling and sluicing with plenty of dish soap helps with my recovery of super fine gold.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Dream Mat runs great at 11°, I used to run the Vmat & Gold Hog between 7° & 9° mostly, but I prefer the Dream Mat these days in my mini trommel. Everything loses some gold, I just prefer the higher speed of the Dream Mat at 11°.
To me, the Vmat, having to be ran slower & still losing visible gold just pissed me off. I use 8" of it in the head of my box before the Dream Mat just for a quick view. But for an actual gold catch these days, it's useless comparred with the new products developed in this century.