New Custom Mini-Sluice (w/ pics)...Any Thoughts?

[Yukon99669]

So most of the gold we find on our Placer Claims is the Flour/Micro Variety....and there is quite a lot of it. I always run my Big Sluice cons. at home w/ a Mini-Sluice and then Blue Bowl. I have several other Mini-Sluices, and I'm not very impressed w/ their retention of the really fine stuff.

I really really like the concept of the "Gold Well" Vortex Drop Riffle Sluice. I more or less wanted a true Mini-Sluice version though. (...yes even smaller than their 6" offering). So I sort of "borrowed" bits and pieces of the concept and threw this together from the scrap pile.

When we built our house a cpl. years ago we had some nice 1/2'' polycarb. left over and I finally found a good use for it.

I laid out some graph paper on the bottom section and drilled 1/16" holes at every other intersection (alternating intersections between rows). The holes go about 3/4 of the way through. Then I used a Countersink Bit to open up the top part of every hole which created the Honeycomb Riffle Sections with tons of little drop down retention pockets below the main riffle.

The First things I'm running are about 5 gallons of Tailings saved from my other mini-sluices.

I know a lot of you have seen and used every sluice in the book. Any thoughts on how this will perform compared to some of the other Mini-Sluices?

I'll Follow up w/ Performance Reports, but I am really curious to hear your initial thoughts on it.

 

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[winners58]

Each hole needs to actively replace the lighter material, if it just fills up the gold will not settle and flow right out.
you could make a little lip or put rows of 1/4" strips across between the holes to keep it moving.
expanded metal over each set might work, I've used metal paint roller bucket grid over carpet worked good in a pinch.
you could also make a swirl to imitate the goldwell sluice or dream mat,
you could build up a lip with super glue and baking soda, carve it with a dremel tool
or something of your own, lots of fun creating something.

 

[russau]

I would think the 1/16 holes would be hard to keep clear and clog up BUT maybe the C.Sinking the holes would help keep them clear your test run should tell !

 

[Yukon99669]

Thanks for the thoughts and replies!

The mentioned concerns were on my radar as well... so instead of giving it a go I went ahead and addressed the potential issues.

I opened up 1/16" dimples to ~1/8" and can go bigger if necessary of course.

I also added some of the small "gutter-mesh" over the whole thing. I screwed down some small chunks of aluminum angle to keep the mesh tightly in place.

Here are a few pics of the changes....I'll give it a try tomorrow.

 

[arizau]

It sounds like you are using the sluice to clean up concentrates. What size material are you running? If it is all fines (30 mesh and finer) then deep v mat may work well for you. That is what some Washington beach miners use. Ocean beach sand is almost 100% minus 100 mesh as is the gold that is captured.

Good luck.

 

[bc5391]

I had a gold well, sold it a few years ago, if I remember the holes had a spiral in them which created the vortex tat helped keep the gold, the maker used a CNC to make the sluice,(it was heavy solid Aluminum). I do not see a spiral in yours.