Subsurface dredge sluice setup

[Quinc]

Just over 2 grams this weekend! Gold looks funny because it was 70% mercury when I found it. This is post burning it off. (with mask, outside, and standing up wind)

 

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[southfork]

Just over 2 grams this weekend! Gold looks funny because it was 70% mercury when I found it. This is post burning it off. (with mask, outside, and standing up wind)

View attachment 2189799

Nice are you in California

 

[russau]

CA. is the location that he posted

 

[Quinc]

Subbie in action:

 

[russau]

NICE pan ! I always screened my material to several sizes to help in my recovery of fine gold. and I always used a Rare Earth magnet to remove all Iron ore material . This helped my recovery of fine gold a lot ! And as stated before ,I rerun everything several times in the Winter !

 

[Quinc]

What do y'all think about adding 10-15ft of hose to this thing? Considering this and then having the dredge dump out into a river sluice. Do you think the added hose will help or hurt or not make any difference for recovery? Also any other ideas increasing the sluice box size?

 

[russau]

It all depends on the up grade of engine and
pump you chose to use ! But as is ,using your pump /engine with the added hose I say NO !

 

[Quinc]

It all depends on the up grade of engine and
pump you chose to use ! But as is ,using your pump /engine with the added hose I say NO !

I do have an upgraded engine and pump off a Proline 4" dredge. 300gpm and 65psi. Currently using the engine/pump from a 2.5" high banker. 200gpm 35psi. Running her around 2/3 throttle.

Try not to be too impressed with my photoshop skills but thinking about something like this. might use a bolt and wing nut to keep the sluice connected to the subby. Thinking the sluice will have to be fully submerged with a fairly fast flow to be able to clear the large rocks. Be interesting to see how much if any gold it catches.

 

[N-Lionberger]

I would think a river sluice would be overwhelmed.

 

[russau]

There is a reason for the subbie (suitcase dredge) you pictured to use a closed system and not a open top sluice like your wanting! the set up you pictured would be fine for a surface device but not a subsurface device !

 

[N-Lionberger]

I have been looking on a different forum that has info on subbie dredges and a lot of setups have the tube suspended between pontoons with the top of the tube sticking out of the water to where the surface water in the sluice tube is the same as the surrounding stream. If equipped in this manner there’s no reason an open top sluice extension wouldn’t work. I picked up my 6” subbie from the mine today I forgot how narrow the sluice section is, if the tube is near the surface and the sluice extension has high sidewalls I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’m thinking about making an extension for mine with heavy aluminum armor weave riffles under a woven wire screen.

 

[russau]

Yes I got to agree with your explanation of near or at the surface and hanging between the pontoons. and I really like the Armor Weave but made from steel ! I've never used the heavy aluminum Armor Weave material and if your mainly doing the small aggregate material , I could see using it for the weight loss of using aluminum . BUT getting back to under water , if your trying to take advantage of the effects of not having to pump the water from deep depths and have the sluice close to the bottom, then a open top would not allow the water/material act / flow correctly in the sluice with riffles. The flow of slurry would be disturbed by the water flow from the stream and not let your riffles work properly. That's were I'm coming from with my post. I was once wanting to build one that screened of the bigger material (just like they do) and make a outlet for the fines to go to a fine screened subbie to help save them. Subbies have been know NOT to save fines, I wanted to change that thought BUT never got to it and had to give it up! I hope this will clear up where I was trying to go with this thought .

 

[Quinc]

Yes I got to agree with your explanation of near or at the surface and hanging between the pontoons. and I really like the Armor Weave but made from steel ! I've never used the heavy aluminum Armor Weave material and if your mainly doing the small aggregate material , I could see using it for the weight loss of using aluminum . BUT getting back to under water , if your trying to take advantage of the effects of not having to pump the water from deep depths and have the sluice close to the bottom, then a open top would not allow the water/material act / flow correctly in the sluice with riffles. The flow of slurry would be disturbed by the water flow from the stream and not let your riffles work properly. That's were I'm coming from with my post. I was once wanting to build one that screened of the bigger material (just like they do) and make a outlet for the fines to go to a fine screened subbie to help save them. Subbies have been know NOT to save fines, I wanted to change that thought BUT never got to it and had to give it up! I hope this will clear up where I was trying to go with this thought .

I think we are the same page, just need to figure out a way to do it and still be able to haul everything to the creek in one trip.

 

[russau]

I solved my problem I had a 16 foot enclosed trailer to haul my dredge and it's trailer so I could get it all close to the water! it worked great for 15 or so year's for me UNTILL THAT *@*# day when my ole body called it quits on me!

 

[Quinc]

I think I got a good idea on how to catch more gold with the subbie. Going to add a 7"w x 8-10L" fluid bed at the end of the dredge. Small footprint and wont be much more weight added. Currently drawing out ideas on how I want to do it. I will post pics once I start putting parts together.

 

[russau]

I really like the idea of using a fluid bed device but not as you've shown . I did this a long time ago and mounting it on the tail end of your sluice puts weight (black sand/ lead) on the tail end of your dredge and it will raise the feed end of your dredge up and in actuality raise your angle of the sluice contrary to what you just set the sluice angle for! If dredging for long hours your dredge will be doing a "wheelie" when you get to much weight in the fluid bed. I had this problem and moved my fluid bed device to the middle of the sluice to help balance the weight issue. YEP you'll need to make another sluice OR cut a hole in your sluice (ouch !!!) I did both ! The second version worked ! your choice !!

 

[Quinc]

After a day of using my favorite 2" inch dredge the goldibox. It uses a fluid bed at the end of the dredge and catches the tiniest of gold specs. Something the subbie is lacking in. Using an old road sign I found at the dump I cut and bent it into shape. 7" wide to match the subbie and 10" long. I might go shorter or longer as this is a rough draft. But figure 10" is a good starting place.
Drew it all out and used a torch, vice and hammer to make the bends. Next I will use some angled aluminum along the corners and have some hard plastic for the cover. Using 1/2" pvc for now until I get the correct hole sizes and spacing figured out. (Any tips??) Once I get figured out I will make the whole thing out of aluminum. Hoping to make a screen/grizzly bars today for it and need to figure out how I want to hook up the garden hose for the water supply.

As always Any tips or criticism is welcome!

 

[russau]

Keep your holes for the water drilled at a 45 degree angle towards the bottom to help keep the material in suspension. That's why I wanted a lid on this . Otherwise I believe the fine gold would be blown out of the F.B.... with the lid on the F.B., you'll need a feed end into the F.B. to scarf up the fine gold and a exit point that would also use the tail end water flow to run over that exit point and help create a some what of a additional suction to help remove the waste material from the F.B. device. Plus I pulsed the water into the F.B. from 2 points to also help keep the fine material agitated and would help keep the material from bunching up in the corners. The hole diameter's will be important to test to see if your getting enough pressure from your pump set up. It's all going to take some fiddeling with to make it work for "your" set up.

 

[russau]

and another important point is to make the cover /lid to this device is to make it removeable to clean it out. The black sands are heavy to say the least ! watch the level of the floating dredge or device empty for a referance point to establish a point to when your needing to empty the F.B. of material. As built a suction gun would be handy ! on my unit ,I cut a 3 inch dia. hole in the rear at a low point to drain / flush it out and put a expandable plug in it to seal it to run . And without a doubt put a safty line on that plug to keep from loseing it when all else fails !! !

 

[Quinc]

and another important point is to make the cover /lid to this device is to make it removeable to clean it out. The black sands are heavy to say the least ! watch the level of the floating dredge or device empty for a referance point to establish a point to when your needing to empty the F.B. of material. As built a suction gun would be handy ! on my unit ,I cut a 3 inch dia. hole in the rear at a low point to drain / flush it out and put a expandable plug in it to seal it to run . And without a doubt put a safty line on that plug to keep from loseing it when all else fails !! !

Those are great ideas thank you! One more thing would you put any small walls up along the bottom or sides? (You know when you reach for a crowbar and subbie falls over to the side) Thinking just taller than the pvc and Lower than the exit point at the back?