No sluice, alternative?

[MoonRakerSCM]

Hi there! I've been trying to get onto an active gold forum lately to ask a question or two, and this place looks like it's still hoppin'.

I have a question about sluicing alternatives. I've never been panning proper, but have a lot of experience with paydirt and my panning technique isn't too shabby. I'm a geologist that specializes in river terraces, so I've been putting together an attack plan for my local gold area (san gabriel canyon East Fork). So, I have the looking and panning part down (we'll see if a slightly educated approach even gets me a flake lol), but what I do not have is a sluice. None of my friends have one either and we're not looking to buy at this time.

So, with that in mind, we'll all be classifying into our buckets with 1/4 mesh and going from there. I was wondering, instead of going straight to the pan from the classified material, (normally you'd sluice), would it benefit me to perhaps... fill the bucket half with water, half with material, and then agitate for a minute or two, and then discard say... the upper half of the material?

I'm just wondering what I can do with a bucket, maybe a garden hand rake , or say anything else from around the house so as to further refine the material before I start breaking my back panning.

Thank you for any suggestions!

- Shawn

 

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[nickmarch]

This works great for material classified at 20 mesh and smaller...



It will concentrate a whole pan down into a little cap in a few minutes. It will concentrate and retain from 20 mesh to -200 mesh.

 

[Klondikeike]

Klondike here....

I am very Familiar with the San Gabriel East Fork... spent a lot of time there many...many..many...many years ago...

Just a coupe of things... in the main river course.. you'll mostly find float gold as bedrock is rather deep .. but I sometimes have wished I could get down to bedrock....

If you are going after the high hanging benches.. a 1/4 screen is too small... I at times for a change would go there... and not to far from the end or last parking lot... there is a small trail up along an old, but medium sized, twisted cotton wood tree...that leads up to a hanging bench...there is a small tunnel where the old timers drove on top of bed rock....Back in the day..I'd put a small pump in the river and ran a hose under a culvert and up to the hanging channel...and would shovel into a basic medium sized sluice box.... found many nice pieces... and maybe 4 or 5..... 1/4 once nuggets...

As you are driving up the canyon...with the river on your right, just before you cross over the river on the bridge...on the left side is a small V shaped cut filled with hanging channel material... and there is a small turn out there as well... Some one I knew took a few buckets from there and sluiced them at the river and also found some really nice sized nuggets.....

But in the river itself... mostly just float gold and your 1/4 in screening will do great.....

There was a time when we could drive all the way up to the Bridge to no where... way up high..maybe 7 or 8 miles, maybe more up stream from the now last turn around and parking area...I think the upper road beyond that parking area washed out in the flood of maybe 1968 or 69....and the state decided not to rebuild the road... However.. if you feel real energetic...spend a couple of days... take a tent, back pack sluice and a bucket and digging tools and a pan.. and walk the road as far as you can... in and over the wash out areas... and at some point..a few miles...you'll get close to the some of the hanging channels... work the gravels near bedrock and you'll be surprised what you'll find....

Good luck in your East San Gabriel River prospecting...

Klondike...

 

[TimC]

Hey Klondikeike
If you were at the Stanton outing in April send me an email. I was there and talked to you briefly. I would like to know more about San Gabriel East Fork.

TimC

 

[Klondikeike]

No I wasn't at Stanton in April.. I usually don't do "outings".. I prefer my own property.... I was in the area in late May and June.. looking to buy some property.. but not in April..

Klondike...

 

[TimC]

ssOK. It must have been another Klondike...something-or-other. Thanks.

TimC

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Thanks for the vid nickmarch. Perhaps I will mess around with my bucket and a stick...

Thanks for the info Klondikeike. I was planning on working one of the gravel benches in the river channel. Do you say the 1/4inch mesh is too small due to simply clogging it? I would also bring a 1/2inch or even an inch mesh and put it through that first and then through the 1/4 inch mesh. I hear the river is showing a lot of flood gold this year so I'm hoping to grab some of that.

I hope that if I pan through a 5 gallon bucket full of 1/4 inch classified material I will be able to find something hehe...

 

[Klondikeike]

No.. MoonRakerSCM

Not from clogging... the high benches have larger gold....and you may throw away some nice gold if you us too small a screen...
EVERYTHING inside the main river bed is float gold....even the sand bars... and a 1/4 inch screen works well... but some nuggets will NOT go through a 1/4 inch screen when you work the high benches up above the river.. hanging on the canyon walls...some a hundred feet above the main road level...

Klondike...

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Ah, gotcha. Well that's juicy... thanks for the info!

I have not considered benches that high up (due to being so far from the water for panning). I will certainly have to see what's going on with high terraces when I get out there. I assume you would classify a few buckets worth up on the terrace, and then painfully carry them down to pan. From what you're mentioning it sounds like it might be worth the pain for the chance of getting something over 1/4inch...

I'll be out there Friday, likely a mile or two upstream from the final parking lot... so we'll see how I do!

 

[Klondikeike]

Great...

One of the easiest bench to get to is the one right before the last parking lot..end of the road.. and on the right where the old twisted tree is and the trail that goes up to the bench...

But do try going up stream some and see what you can get into ... especially some virgin ground...

Looking forward to hearing your report... just remember... none of this prospecting will be easy... it takes a strong back.. strong sound a mind and good easy spirit....... and being persistant doesn't hurt either...lol

Good luck...

Klondike..

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Welp, ended up going about a mile and a half past the parking lot (around before where the river doglegs to the east for a bit). Ended up sort of stuck in a spot as it turns out the people I went with did not have the patience to pan, gave up, and hiked to the bridge to nowhere. So I was stuck there to watch all the gear. Anyways, I ended up working some material from an assortment of holes people had previously dug. I spent the day experimenting with technique and worked about 10 5 gallon buckets worth through my sieve, my poop tube sluice, and my pan. I did see a fair amount of black sand in my tube and once I panned it all out, and I managed about 1 microscopic speck of gold per pan (I'm talkin' small). So, I did end up with something hehe... I have my 10 itsy bitsy specks sitting all alone in my little bottle.

Next time I go up I plan on perhaps working not as far up, but DIGGING deeper (or perhaps I should go further... hmm). I was doubting the ability of the poop tube, but with the low quality of material I was working, it did seem to be pulling out a fair amount of black sand (would see it piling up in the 1st 3rd of the tube). I experimented with the tube at water flow rates, putting in sieved material vs. not sieved... and found that a slower but steady water rate with non sieved material worked well...

I noticed the key was to really pan out my material. My buddies were not taking the time to actually pan down to that last bit of black sand and I think they likely missed a couple microscopic specks like I was getting. I had to find mine, but they were there in the pan lol.

 

[Hoser John]

Poor ol'EF been worked to death. Not only there but everywhere-work the cracks and crevices in bedrock where mother nature has done over 90% of the work for you already and prosper, as a pan is definately a sampling tool only--and working cons too---John

 

[rockhound69]

Build yourself a drop riffle sluice, and hit the area below the parking area (gold hill ) and nugget alley, dig deep four feet or so you'll start finding good float gold just sample around first, behind boulders and what not if you see a guy with an enormous drop riffle sluice and a straw hat stop bye and say hello

 

[rockhound69]

If I were you id go during the week due the extreme summer time crowds of swimmers and picnicers on the weekends area eldoradoville and nugget alley!

 

[rockhound69]

Im up there once or twice a week

 

[Oroblanco]

Howdy,

As your area of interest is a high bench, why not build a rockerbox and use that? You can pack it and a five gallon can of water to operate it and mine about four times as much material as you could with a gold pan, and reusing the same water. I don't think you can buy them but they are not that difficult to build out of wood, in fact there are several plans online which you can download (free) for a knock-down type made of wood. There is no motor involved so you won't attract attention or break any rules if motorized equipment is not allowed. I am building one myself after we gave away our rocker last winter, they work very well. One set of plans is in this publication
http://www.sdgs.usd.edu/pubs/pdf/RI-015.pdf

..go to page 19, the index says page 10 but in Pdf it comes up on page 19 for the drawings of a knock-down rocker.

I would also recommend getting several classifying sieves of the type that sit in the mouth of a five gallon bucket; the Russian prospectors say that if you are not classifying your material at least seven sizes, you are losing gold that you should be able to recover. If you are bent on using the pan only, then you might get a large pan which can handle several times what a small one can. They are much more tiring on your arms however and I don't recommend it. One more step you can do to further reduce the material you have to pan is to get a good strong magnet, wrap it in a plastic bag, and go over your material to remove as much of the iron (magnetites) as you can; in some places this can be a sizable reduction. The reason for the plastic bag is so that you can then turn the bag inside out over the magnetite to get it off the magnet. They sell tools that do this with a push button but any magnet and a plastic bag work very well.

Good luck and good hunting to you I hope you find the treasures that you seek. You will get some gold!
Oroblanco

 

[Goodyguy]

This works great for material classified at 20 mesh and smaller...
It will concentrate a whole pan down into a little cap in a few minutes. It will concentrate and retain from 20 mesh to -200 mesh.

Thanks Nick,
Added it to my arsenal. Tried it and like it
I used a plug that is deeper than yours but it gets the job done!
The plastic end cap of a mailing tube works good too.

Anyone who doesn't make one of these is missing out!

GG~

 

[nickmarch]

Thanks Nick,
Added it to my arsenal. Tried it and like it
I used a plug that is deeper than yours but it gets the job done!
The plastic end cap of a mailing tube works good too.

Anyone who doesn't make one of these is missing out!

GG~

Now I'm using a 215 gallon dome bottom tank with a classifier on top. I can feed it by shovel and/or dredge (& dry land dredge). You can process a whole lot and get a whole lot of fine gold.

 

[Goodyguy]

Now I'm using a 215 gallon dome bottom tank with a classifier on top. I can feed it by shovel and/or dredge (& dry land dredge). You can process a whole lot and get a whole lot of fine gold.

Have you got a video of that bad boy in action?

GG~

 

[nickmarch]

No I dont have a video or even a picture but it's a simple setup.

The tank has a bottom similar to the cap used in the 2 bucket method to hold the heavier particles. http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=26771&catid=538

On top is what looks like a sluice with a header box with punch plate to classify. A hose from the pump circulates the water in the tank enough to keep the particles moving. Picture a 2" pvc pipe laid across the top cut in half with a T in the middle and 2" pipe going down into the tank about half way that acts like a siphon. It siphons out the lighter particles that rise in the tank.

The gold and black sands get trapped in the bottom of the tank. You can dredge in, shovel in or dredge and shovel at the same time. There is no constantly pulling the plug. You can run all day trapping the gold in the bottom of the tank.