Highbanker classifiers?

Getting meself into a dilemma with me classifier, gone from good to bad to worse, thinken each step forward would be a gooden! so so wrong
I've got a knack for dealen with clayish hiding gold, so No suggesten grizzly bars of any sorts!
Here's a pic, hope'n for some input. This is 6mm punch plate! Tried 12mm round Yuck! 11mm square so for has been the best!


The pic is only after a couple of shovels, 2 minutes later the classifier was blocked and chucken gold out the back, not a little bit either
Any input I'm all ears.

Cheers
Chris.

ok your top hopper needs to be on a steeper angle to make it easier to remove those stones , that will make a big difference.

also you may need to reduce your water imput as it looks to be a fair bit of water gong in there and that will wash the gold out the end

G'day Rusty, yeah lots of water, but it's needed to run the catch trays! the firefighter's killen me back, so I'm gonnu revamp the set up so I can use a smaller pump!
Maybe with less water, the small stones may dance around rather than being forced into their unwanted home me last catch tray has only ever had the smallest amount of fine gold, flat flakey bits don't ever seem to make it past the middle tray, which is so cool, "In my opinion"! Might all change with the new design?

you should only need 1 catch tray and even with a small amount of water the gold will stay in the catch tray.
water is your best friend but to much can be your worst enemy.

my set up has only 1 catch tray and a lot less water than yours is using and 99% of the gold stays in the tray

Sorry man, wifey had tee on the go!
My sluice is all catch trays, one at the end of the top hopper slick section "low layen" more a clay brake'r than anything else, one big sucker at me water fall , one in the middle an one at the end, every things else is slick apart from me classifier!!! she was a bad design from the start, but I made the most of it, like I said me pumps killen me, so it has to go!
Thanks for the input Rusty

Cheers
Chris.

Here's a pic of the front end!

Hey Someday, Thats a monster of a highbanker! I got inspired by James and built one similar in size about 6 months ago.You might remember the pics with the red Chuppa chup tin.I,ve only played with it a couple of times.Wore myself out carting all the gear trough the bush to set up. Plus ive got no clue.Have to give it another crack!

Staples

Staples, hahaha, I do remember, from memory you were quizzed if you polished em off

Yep sluice Tooo Big, pump toooo heavy, and had to many people tryen to copy it, some with disastrous results!
Not to mention you can make an inland lake in a very short amount of time! Oops.

Time to do a second attempt at a little banjo, this time I won't give it away

Cheers
Chris.

Gee that hole looks familiar mate, Hope your doing well.

G'day Trent, no idea what yu talken about

Nar mate, diddly squat, about .5 in the sluice before I had to abandon play and about the same at me feet that the hopper was spitten back out,

How's the dream goen man

Cheers
Chris

How about cutting a 44 gallon drum in half, put a 1/2" screen 4" down from the top, fill it to the brim with water, and chuck your clay on top and put on a heavy glove and push the clay through, then, when it's full, sit down and have 3 cold amber coloured drinks, then put the clay mud through the sluice when its broken down enough.

Shiraz, you'l have me legless in no time with that equation
Large lumps of clay I'll pan out first to see if it's worth the effort!
Clay as a binder on stones is where the problem lays which is why I won't use a grizzly..
Not the sort of material I'd normally process, but would've been a shame to see the next flood take it away!
This is after fighten with me hopper for about 2 hours


Gold front back an centre due to water surge via a blocked, semi un-blocked, blocked, semi un-blocked hopper !!

I'm a sticklu for punishment, so I'm given me HB one last chance before I bin it!
Should use way less water this time round, if it works I'l do a remake

Back to me classifier I've scored some 6mm x 2mm thick woven mesh with a cross dimension of 9mm, still a tad small in my opinion but thats all I got

So..........right direction or wrong????

Cheers
Chris.

someday wrote:I'm a sticklu for punishment, so I'm given me HB one last chance before I bin it!
Should use way less water this time round, if it works I'l do a remake Back to me classifier I've scored some 6mm x 2mm thick woven mesh with a cross dimension of 9mm, still a tad small in my opinion but thats all I got So..........right direction or wrong????
Cheers
Chris.

Mate that mesh sounds ok. what size jetting do you have and at what spacing are they placed? I would also seal the jetting pipe that runs across the back of your unit's hopper that row of jetting is not needed. The jetting size for that unit should be 2 mm holes two rows. The rows should be 1/4 inch apart and the hole spacing should be one inch apart. The angle of the hopper plays a big part in how the dirt is been washed, Sandy material you increase the hopper angle, for clay type material run the hopper flat and let the jetting & your shovel do the work.

Cheers
James

G'day James

New set of spray bars in the making!

The set you see runnen in the HB ended up 3 row 3mm, same dimensions your sayen just a tad different, which was absolutely necessary for the catch tray system to work effectively, Lot of time an effort went into the positioning of the trays and riffle configuration to make the trays perform! Would make a good dredge unit
If I see a fire I'l throw me pump at it, cause I'm over the overweight gizmo

I've put in a raised bottom from the water fall to the middle catch tray which should near on halve the water flow required?? last catch tray is gone and replaced with a simple lower riffle rubber mat system!
Won't be quite the earth mover it was see how it pans out

Damn classifier

Don't forget to stagger the holes on the 2 lines!

someday wrote:G'day James

New set of spray bars in the making!

The set you see runnen in the HB ended up 3 row 3mm, same dimensions your sayen just a tad different, which was absolutely necessary for the catch tray system to work effectively, Lot of time an effort went into the positioning of the trays and riffle configuration to make the trays perform! Would make a good dredge unit If I see a fire I'l throw me pump at it, cause I'm over the overweight gizmo

I've put in a raised bottom from the water fall to the middle catch tray which should near on halve the water flow required?? last catch tray is gone and replaced with a simple lower riffle rubber mat system! Won't be quite the earth mover it was see how it pans out

Damn classifier

Yes i can see what your saying ..... when you start running more than one catch tray you do need a lot more water and a greater angle on the bottom sluice for them to work more efficiently. I would recommend dropping back to just one tray and use riffles to replace the removed trays. This will give you a much better running time between petrol refills, due to the fact that your not working the pump as hard. The bit of gold that gets out of the first tray should not make it through the riffle area. 3 mm holes takes a lot of water for them to work right. Without seeing the unit running it is very hard to say what is right or what is wrong. But as stated you must space and stagger the holes right. keep us up to speed on how it turns out. cheers mate James

someday wrote:Here's a pic of the front end!

This looks like it is working very well. cheers James

Cheers James, mate it was working well "Apart from the hopper "

I liked the clean up part for the initial testing! remove the last tray, dump the contents in my pan and pan away

Funny you should mention the steeper angle!
I found by increasing the angle I was putting more gold in the last tray, so the angle ended up bang on 1" per foot with an increased water flow

The positioning of the trays in between the slick areas and the length of the trays was the key to getting the vortex's doing there thingy given the added depth of water they were operating under!!

It amazes me how such a little change can have such a great effect, good or bad, quite scary actually

Anyways it's all changing now, so stay tuned for round 3, Chris visits the loony bin Too late

someday wrote:Cheers James, mate it was working well "Apart from the hopper "

I liked the clean up part for the initial testing! remove the last tray, dump the contents in my pan and pan away

Funny you should mention the steeper angle!
I found by increasing the angle I was putting more gold in the last tray, so the angle ended up bang on 1" per foot with an increased water flow

The positioning of the trays in between the slick areas and the length of the trays was the key to getting the vortex's doing there thingy given the added depth of water they were operating under!!

It amazes me how such a little change can have such a great effect, good or bad, quite scary actually

Anyways it's all changing now, so stay tuned for round 3, Chris visits the loony bin Too late

Now that is interesting indeed. Yes please do mate.
cheers
James

Hey Someday,

Bruce Bertram from Warwick taught me a lot about running a high banker so I thought I would share what I learnt.

Your water flow looks to be the problem, it looks like you may be using a petrol powered pump.

My setup I use a bilge pump 2000 gph from SuperCheap auto for about $50 it runs off a 12v battery. You can run the high banker all day on a single charge. Get two and rotate them each day, charging one while using the other, just a car battery will do fine.

Also the big mistake others make is to use multiple media in the sluice I.e. different types of matting, the problem is each one requires a different set of water flow to be effective. You are best to use the one set of matting throughout and get the water flow tuned in to it. I use astro turf matting, it catches even the flour gold and its cheap as chips.

As for the clay balls you need to use a puddler to break them down first, get a 20 litre bucket and a large stick fill it half full of water put half a bucket of material in and stir the crap out of it. Then slowly pour the bucket into the hopper. Slowly is the key here as you don't want to overflow the sluice, it can only handle so much water flow. In the old days they used to dig a trench around a tree and line it with wood fill it with water and then get their horse to go around the tree pulling a large paddle as they poured the material into the trench, they the had a sluice at one end of the trench they would release a board and let the slurry go into the sluice. Saw the remains of one recently out in the bush.

Hope this helps and good luck with it.

Regards,

Grant

I hate slowing down for clay but i guess it has to be done. We have 2 different highbankers 1 with grizzly bars and the other a skimming tray. When we are working high clay area's i will stick a tub or large pan in front of the sluice with the grizzly as we have no clay coming off the back but a few balls running through the sluice and for the skimming tray i stick a bucket behind it as any clay balls are coming out the back and not making it through the sluice. As the material catches in the tub or bucket it is quickly broken up by the water and rocks dropping in and softening it up. When the tub or pan is full i give it a quick feel with my hand to make sure there are no clay balls left and then re-run the material. Probably not as efficent as puddling but makes me feel like iam getting more done

Good post grant, but bilge pumps do have some rather big disadvantages.

Cheers
James

Thanks Grant
This sluice would never work with a bilge pump, not a hope in hell wish it did!

Not a conventional HB by any standards



Thought I had a more recent pic, seems to have vanished

As James stated running the hopper flat allows the spray bars to obliterate the clay, to an extent anyway!
Most of the gold I find up this end of the world really isn't in the clay, like I said I'l sample pan the clay first to see if it's worth the effort of running it through the sluice!
It's the stones that are dirty with clay thats holding most of the gold, so the punch plate classifier works well, you can move and grind the material around, the down side being, the stones are forced tighter into the classifier

I'l put up a pic shortly of the new new new mods

Cheers people

Jumpen the gun on the pic, You get that!

The false bottom leading up to the middle catch tray has halved the riffle hight, which should near on halve the water flow required

me riffle section at the end is only tacked together cause I have know idea how the water will behave leaving the 30mm deep middle catch tray with less water!!!

The idea behind it is still the same, shovel all day without fear of gold loss Maybe?



I've butchered me hopper to make it easy for unwelding my nightmare classifier dilemma

The good part is my pick-up, it's a SS water tank strainer .9mm holes, works wonderful

Make sure that pick up doesn't caveatite because the sq area in total is to small for the pump !

Works no probs on the firefighter Ark,
No cavitation no airation the screens over 4" in dia and about a foot long!
Will work just as wonderfully on a 2.5 HP pump when I pan enough gold to buy one

Funny thing about pump pick-ups and where we stick em???
Nine times out of ten, thats where the gold is

Please put your pick up upstream of the unit! You wouldn't believe how many pics I see and vids where the pick up is in the tailings stream!

I like the way your thinking Someday. That drop section in the Banjo’s is a top idea by Murachu, they seem to work the wash in a much better fashion.

Cheers
James

Ark wrote:Please put your pick up upstream of the unit! You wouldn't believe how many pics I see and vids where the pick up is in the tailings stream!

On some of the HB's I've seen, the pick-ups better off in a bucket catchen the tailings
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Cheers James

The water fall catch tray runs a tad dirty because it's recessed back under the top section by about 50mm due to the original stuff up in design!
That stuff up works really well

Cheers
Chris

H h h h h Happy New Year