Perfection on sluice set up

[Assembler]

Assembler what kind of sluice do you use and what river do you mainly work? I have a Keene, a Bazooka and a LeTrap and I work a feeder to the Middle Yuba and a feeder to the Trinity.

My main river sluices are a Keene A52 with the riffles swapped with heavy expanded, a 48” Bazooka Prospector and an original Canadian made LeTrap sluice. They all need different conditions and feeding. My opinion is that conditions out in the wild are constantly changing and it’s almost impossible to get it perfect. Up in my high up spots the flow changes based on the heat of the day and snow runoff. I have also worked locations below dams where the flow would change. Assembler has been giving weird feedback for years, he’s actually driven people away from the forum by blowing up their posts with off the wall and sometimes outright dangerous suggestions.

Thanks for your input.
For in stream the Gold Hog stream sluice.

 

[russau]

Any piece of equipment is only as good as the person that is operating it and his knowledge of how to operate it correctly !

 

[Assembler]

Any piece of equipment is only as good as the person that is operating it and his knowledge of how to operate it correctly !

The limits of any given equipment needs to be checked out as well with a set up.
Flow rate of water is an important factor to consider.
The number of available dropouts for the gold is also a factor.

 

[BoulderTroll]

My main river sluices are a Keene A52 with the riffles swapped with heavy expanded, a 48” Bazooka Prospector and an original Canadian made LeTrap sluice. They all need different conditions and feeding. My opinion is that conditions out in the wild are constantly changing and it’s almost impossible to get it perfect. Up in my high up spots the flow changes based on the heat of the day and snow runoff. I have also worked locations below dams where the flow would change. Assembler has been giving weird feedback for years, he’s actually driven people away from the forum by blowing up their posts with off the wall and sometimes outright dangerous suggestions.

Ah yes, Assembler... I've been here long enough to know that sometimes he gives some feedback about things that you never thought of. Sometimes it's things you never wanted to think of.

Thanks for the feedback. Surging rivers during run-off also make it interesting trying to set something up.

I run a 6" X 28" Sluice 1" Diamond expanded metal over ribbed carpet I do my best to get a good flow that cleans out the light stuff in about 10-15 seconds even running at a higher flow as long as I see small pebbles getting trapped by the 1/8" metal I am happy. My Sluice catches pickers and extra fine Gold so I don't even worry about Gold not getting trapped in the ribbed carpet. Most of the time I pan out 18-25 colors just wish I could feed the sluice more then 3 hours lol. Good luck BT. ⛏️

Thanks as well! This is pretty in line with what I'm doing. Making sure it clears at a decent pace, holding onto some material behind the riffles.

 

[Assembler]

Feedback is needed at times for a conversation.

Most will setup the best they can and not worry about the losses.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Thanks for your input.
For in stream the Gold Hog stream sluice.

Can you show us your setup?

 

[Assembler]

Can you show us your setup?

Not now.

 

[jmc24]

Not now.

This is the same sluice I use in Clear Creek, Boulder Creek, South Platte River in Colorado. Easy to setup if there is enough flow.
Hopefully it is the same as Assembler was claiming to own and use.
Great, well built sluice.

 

[Assembler]

This is the same sluice I use in Clear Creek, Boulder Creek, South Platte River in Colorado. Easy to setup if there is enough flow.
Hopefully it is the same as Assembler was claiming to own and use.
Great, well built sluice.
View attachment 2264756

Yes, the same one and fairly easy to set up.

 

[Assembler]

Expect loss of fine values with a shorter sluice box is the general rule.
Being able to set up in a timely manner will help to keep on the trail of recovery.

 

[Gold:Au]

If you scour the internet for "how to set up a sluice" you'll get thousands of opinions and everyone saying "do this or you'll lose gold!!" Set to this angle, have this speed, use this mat... I have found that it's damn near impossible to get it perfect, or I'm spending way too long fiddling with it. Sometimes I'm happy if I can even find a spot to set one up.

When setting one up now, I just aim for getting smooth flow that clears at a decent pace, and the largest rocks I classify to can easily roll down the riffles. When I'm testing my tailings, I occasionally will find a spec.

I'm sure the tiny details of setting up the sluice perfectly can result in a better capture rate. But honestly, if I'm not running a big operation.... how much do these really matter?

We are currently designing a 40TPH wash plant and while the engineers know the mechanical aspect side of things, it became obvious early on that they all kinda guess the fluid dynamics side of things and do what everybody else does because obviously those other people know what they are doing. (Spoiler alert: They probably don't)
With no local expertise I could find, I decided to design the sluice part because how hard can it be?
So anyway, I'm 12 months into this and I can see daylight at the end as finding new relevant papers to read is getting harder, and re-reading the ones I have are revealing fewer and fewer insights.

With that in mind, my answer to your question "How much does it really matter?" is "Not much at all".

The studies done in the Klondike back in the early '90s show (from memory) that the average sluice could easily capture 90% of the gold, a perfectly set up sluice could retrieve 95%, and completely screwing something up such as way too high a feed rate or sluice angle would still retrieve 80% of the gold.

IMO, getting the sluice "close enough" is easy, and is spending 10% of your time on the creek setting up worth the extra 5% of gold you retrieve? If you're pulling out an ounce per session, then probably. But if you are talking fractions of a gram, then probably not.