Trommel Multi screen

[rwells]

I am looking for information about trommels. Has anyone seen a "multi" screen unit. Maybe like 3 or 3 round screens inside one another. Maybe each of these could produce a different sized classified product. Maybe feed each output to different sluice boxes with water flow matched to the size of material going through it. Just a thought but I wanted to follow through and research the idea.
Thank
Rick

 

[63bkpkr]

Mr. rwells,
That is a lot of thinking out loud! Oddly enough I could picture how this would work. The coarse, medium & fine screens would need to be placed a short distance from each other to allow for three drop zones to catch and transport the material from sized plate.

Take a look at californiasluices.com at their trommel section and see if anything excites you. You might find an idea or two there as well.

Good luck with your winter project, 63bkpkr

 

[rwells]

I found several good ideas on this forum and others . I am going to collect all the thoughts and put them togather. Heard somewhere about incoorporating a rock scrubber of some kind in the first stage. Kinda like a potatoe scrubber or brushes in a car wash to clean the loose material off the rocks. Thought of a grizzley of some kind where the machine is fed to screen out anything above 1". Feed all that in to the center tube that has 1/2" holes. (Can sluice boxes handle 1/2 material if the riffles and water flow is right?). The next screen was going to be 1/4". Output of this will be 1/4 to 1/2". Run this to a sluice. Next screen is 1/8". Out of this screen tube comes 1/8 to 1/4. That goes to another sluice. What falls through the last screen is 1/8 minus down to dust. Run this to a sluice also. Well I'm starting to ramble. I need to quit and make some drawings. Later.

Rick

 

[jog]

rwells...
I have just started my own trommel project. If you take a look at some highbankers they have two small sluice box's, one going one direction and the other the opposite. I'm not sure if this makes much sense but I was thinking of trying to use that idea for my trommel. Instead of a sluice coming off the bottom of the screen I was thinking of a piece of punch plate that was one size smaller than the trommel screen. It would classify down to quarter inch before getting to the main sluice. I am not sure how to set it up, I am just getting started with the trommel screen.

 

[rwells]

Keep me posted how your doing. How did you form the round cylinder in the picture? Do you weld aluminum? I was going for light weight. Nice start.
Rick

 

[jog]

No... I do not have a spoolgun for aluminum. Would be very nice though. I had a local fab shop roll it for me.I already had the expanded metal and the narrow piece on the one end. Left overs from my dredge trailer project. It cost right at $100.00 to have it rolled, then I welded it myself.
I am going post my trommel build on the general discussion prospecting site.

 

[Klondikeike]

I have used trammels for over a couple of decades .... I now use a shaker deck to pre-screen what goes inside the trammel... but what I have seen, is a slightly longer than normal trammel with different sized screens in line and boxes build accordingly to handle the material each one produces.... I have used one that had 4 different screen and 4 different boxes... it requires a lot of water.... but is very effective... That's why I use a shaker deck in front of the trammel... less water, everything gets washed good and I get a predictable sized material into the trammel.. then the trammel can screen the final sized material into one or two boxes.....depending on what I am trying to capture...

With gold recovery, especially small gold recovery.. it is all about classification and separation... the more you can do, the better your recovery...

Klondike...

 

[rwells]

Klondike
Do you have any pics of the multiscreen unit you had. I'm still in the planning stage and take all ideas.
thanks

Rick

 

[Klondikeike]

I'll try to dig some up.. but the computer most of them are on is in another state for now...

But imagine.. a long tube for a trammel..lets say ..as an example... 30 to 35 feet long.... and depending on how much washing your material will need to be broken up and cleaned... you'll have just a slick tube for about 15 plus feet... then you'll have the smallest screen..say about 4 feet of it...then a foot or so of slick tube.. then 4 feet of the next larger sized screen...then about a foot of slick tube and finally the largest screen....

On each of these screens, you have a separate header box and a separate sluice box for recovery.. with maybe a centrifuge for the really fine gold particles...

You can adjust these dimensions up or down for whatever application you have..

Hope this helps...

Klondike...

 

[rwells]

Klondikeike
30 - 35 feet is pretty long. What would be the drawbacks to putting about 4 screen tubes inside each other. Say 1/2in screen in the center, then 3/8 and so on. Each screen tube would have its own output. Material would just keep falling through until the final 1/8 screen. This might compact the long tube into something more portable in my truck. I was just trying to picture it. I have no experience at all with a trommel. I do like to fabricate projects.

Rick

 

[Doug Watson]

Putting them inside of each other sounds interesting. You could then maybe stack the sluice boxes to keep it compact? Another place you might look for ideas is http://billandlindaprospecting.com/. Doug