homemade sluice box **COMPLETE** Lots of Pics

[prospectordamon]

Re: homemade sluice box

We took a short video of me stuffing my sluice....force feeding it. Was an experiment to see if running a second sluice for 4 ft of slick plate with everything stripped would help seperate the gold from the lighter material. Honestly it worked. Thats all I can say. Need to play with it some more to see how I like it. So far, panned out 1/4 of my cons and seeing good color.....Here is the video we made today:http://youtu.be/GYx9kNO5m8I

very interesting and cool experiment! this is why im wanting to attach a flare to mine to create a few more inches of "slick" plate for the material to wash-down so to speak, nice video!

 

[Jack Hamilton]

Re: homemade sluice box

damon that was exactly what I was after. I think russau missed my point. There was no purpose for the first sluice to trap gold. It was to break up the material and seperate it. Honestly as fast as I was feeding it, it worked beautiful. Normally where I go I would get 1/10th of a gram. I weigh it so I know that is normal for me. Yesterday I got 6/10ths. As far as feeding the sluice too fast, well that was part of the experiment. By having 4 feet of slick plate the first sluice acted almost like an auto feeder. The water stripped away at the material feeding it consistently through the lower sluice. Lower sluice is set up with tall dredge riffles and miners moss on top of deep v-groove matting. The punch plate creates a lower pressure flow under it and fine gold drops through the holes and sits down nice. With all that said, and with a full flow of water flowing I could dump about a 1/4 bucket of material into the first sluice at one time. The last 1/4 of the bucket saves a few minutes allowing me to get back to digging faster. I moved at least 30 buckets sat and nabbed over a half gram. Noone has to agree with me, just thought I would share. Good luck out there.

 

[nuggy]

Re: homemade sluice box

If you have to have riffles on top of mesh, when you weld them on - use a resin or polymer filler to seal holes in expanded metal directly underneath riffles otherwise water coming up from underneath can displace fine gold caught behind riffle. If this is not done it works better to leave out riffles altogether. Nuggy

 

[russau]

Re: homemade sluice box

yep Jack, ill conced to your point! who can argue with sucess!

 

[Goodyguy]

Re: homemade sluice box

Wonder how much gold a 10 foot sluice would catch Probably more than an 8 footer, but not as much as a 12 footer.
Long toms were great for catching the fast hydraulic run offs just think how much gold they would have trapped if they had good riffles and carpet.

 

[Doug Watson]

Re: homemade sluice box

I for one am glad they missed some! Doug.

 

[Jack Hamilton]

Re: homemade sluice box

Me to! I posted a pic of this weekends finds in my new thread about my sluice. What I have noticed about the gold I am finding there is that it is chunky. Even the fine gold. Now, I don't always go straight to work. I do wander around a bit and check for history, old workings etc. What I noticed is up above the location we picked to call home for the summer has old hydraulic tailings up above. The material that was worked at the time is literally hundreds of feet high of old river sediment. My "guess" is the old timers were only after the big stuff...mainly cause thats what I've heard, but also because alot of what we are finding hasn't been pounded completely flat like most river gold. At least flakes and fines that is. Still looking for that big shiny sucker that slipped through while the old boys were draining a whiskey bottle.

 

[russau]

Re: homemade sluice box

Wonder how much gold a 10 foot sluice would catch Probably more than an 8 footer, but not as much as a 12 footer.

Long toms were great for catching the fast hydraulic run offs just think how much gold they would have trapped if they had good riffles and carpet.

i guess it all depends on how much material you shovel into it!

 

[Goodyguy]

Re: homemade sluice box

i guess it all depends on how much material you shovel into it!

It would also depend upon how much gold is actually in the material that you are shoveling into the sluice as well for that matter
The question is: Would a longer sluice be more efficient at trapping gold than a shorter one?

It makes sense that the more area in a sluice to trap gold the better, but when does maximum efficiency end and overkill begin

I would imagine that the rule of thumb for length would be related to how fast the material is being washed through.
Faster would need more length than slower.

When I see a sluice shorter than 4 feet I wonder if that isn't a trade off in efficiency for cost and portability.
Makes me also wonder if perhaps even a 4 footer isn't a trade off as well.


GG~

 

[russau]

Re: homemade sluice box

GG i agree with your statement on ,"it depends on the speed of the water/material going through the sluice. Phil Hontz (original maker/designer of the DFS sluice) said that on his sluice, you countne Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi and so on untill you get to five.this is the time that your material needs to be cleared off your sluice. so using this premis,maybe itll work for you also in determining the length you need for a particular creek?

 

[nuggy]

Re: homemade sluice box

Making the box longer will possibly trap more gold, but then the problem of - gold that wont stop for the set up in the top part of the box - wont stop for the same thing lower down. The old timers had boxes many times longer than we could employ today and let a lot of gold escape at times for a variety of reasons. Beating this problem - that the old time miners didn't much worry about - can make it more worthwhile putting their wash through again now.
Most professional alluvial miners are aware of this - and employ these solutions; Make the box wider lower down - thereby lowering water pressure - avoid any unnecessary turbulence this stops gold settling - use a variety of riffle types such as; Hungarian, expanded metal etc - ribbed rubber matting and the newer types of mat that are available now.
Boxes should be set at about 12 degrees but a little more or less could aid recovery in some circumstances.
Avoid vibration from motors on sluices as this tends to pack wash tightly between riffles so that gold cannot get down through the sands and skims over the top. Giving the stuff between the riffles a good stir now and again stops compaction too, always start this process from the lowest riffle so that any gold disturbed has a nicely softened spot to settle into.
Just making the box longer may not make much difference to how much gold is caught. I put a plastic crate at the bottom of my longer sluice or dredge box at times - to test if any quantity of gold is escaping - there is always a little, and I expect this when feed rate and classification are not perfect, but I change things and go problem hunting through my set up if there is a worthwhile amount getting through. Lotsa Luck, Nuggy

 

[Goodyguy]

Re: homemade sluice box

Good info Nuggy

I always keep a 5 gal bucket under the discharge end of the sluice to re-run after a cleanup. I think some prospectors do not do a clean-up often enough especially on the smaller sluices. A loaded sluice will loose a lot of gold.

GG~

 

[prospectordamon]

Re: homemade sluice box

gotten a little work done on the sluice, just gotta order the riffle tray hold-down clamps from keene or anyone that has some and install the nuts/bolts to hold the front of the tray down! Parts so far are miners moss, outdoor carpet (this seems to be a little different than the green carpet that comes in the Keene sluices, my black carpet is very similar to drop riffles! any ideas as to how this will perform compared to the green flat carpet? im thinking it will out-perform it!) ideas welcome please give me some tips as the gold I will be finding will be mostly very fine in the 18-50 mesh range most of it in the 30 range! I'm thinking I may extend my carpet to the next set of riffles or do you guys think the miners moss will work as good or better than carpet? Add expanded metal? If so what size do you guys recommend? Enough with my rant heres the pictures!

 

[prospectordamon]

Re: homemade sluice box

also, are the riffles I have pictured regular sluice riffles or are they the dredging riffles? I'm a bit confused now that I have seen another thread on the forum

 

[nuggy]

Re: homemade sluice box

This type of riffle and lay out would be more common in dredge, will work good in sluice also. I would be putting in a couple of extra riffles to vary gap in between - holds more fines though. Nuggy

 

[prospectordamon]

Re: homemade sluice box

This type of riffle and lay out would be more common in dredge, will work good in sluice also. I would be putting in a couple of extra riffles to vary gap in between - holds more fines though. Nuggy

thanks! so I guess keene sent me the dredging riffles instead of the regular keene a52 riffles! that sucks! thanks for the advice! Only way I can add riffles is with some sort of a riffle tray, may need to get in touch with heckler fabrication. any tips on material im using? haven't noticed anyone using the same style carpet I have pictured

 

[nuggy]

Re: homemade sluice box

Mat and carpet should work ok - just try and set sluice at about 12 degrees of fall when using - also classifying your material will aid fine gold recovery. Nuggy

 

[umpqua_gold]

Re: homemade sluice box

Those are keene sluice riffles. The Dredge riffles are all the same heighth (3/4" I believe.) those riffles will work just fine.

 

[prospectordamon]

Re: homemade sluice box

FINISHED! Finally! I'm going to experiment with different materials in my sluice but its ready to run as is and should do pretty good with small gold! The pictures do not include the 18" Keene flare that bolts on, without the flare the sluice measures 10"X48" so its a big sluice with the flare attached. I cut back the ribbed matting to give the material even more time to break apart and get that gold out of suspension before it hits the matting/riffles. I also extended the length of the carpet past the second riffle. What you guys think?!

 

[Astrobouncer]

I think it looks great for your first sluice man. Much better then my first one, for sure. One thing you should check is shine a flashlight in front of the riffles and make sure no lights coming through underneath them, as fine gold will work its way out if it is.