Do's and dont's of building a sluice box!

My biggest disaster ever. Grand plans and blind sited by the outcome! When or if your designing a river sluice, never forget to draw the water line! "I Did" Such a simple miss look could have put a couple of weeks work in the bin, thankfully a water pump will bring it back to life! I did say I was building a combo sluice, unfortunately it went singular, "Highbanker".

More than peed off, and a little more humble
Cheers Chris.

Hi Chris,

Don't get disheartened it is only by making mistakes that we learn so I would rather make the mistake and then fix it and learn how it should be done. We all make mistakes just as long as we don't repeat them it will all work out.

I also want to build my own sluice like the Keene ones with the backpack straps for easy transport. I have found some matting at Bunnings Hardware that should do the trick. Its garage floor carpet but its got rigdes and texture which is what you want in a sluice.

They have some rubber matt also which can go at the head of the sluice.

Just looking to see how the locking mechanism that Keene uses works so I can replicate it.

Cant wait to see your finished product.

Regards,

Grant

Slap on the back of the head for me! The sheeties couldn't fold my 8 foot designs, so I automatically halved the designs and stacked them X 2 "Fool am I" So much work went into overcoming the short halves I overlooked the water flow, Like I said, Blind sighted with the outcome, you gotta laugh, Not my expression when I first built the dam wall and put it in? "You idiot" Me!

Chris, mate were all been down that road ..... it's a bugger hey. cheers mate.

Hey Chris,

Check out what Parsec has built, interesting concept will definitely be checking this one out.

https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t6692-home-made-fluid-bed-gold-trap-sluice

Regards,

Grant

Similar principal to the first 4 foot of my failed river sluice, basically I see it as a drop box with a false bottom? I built in 3 with adjustable openings so I could fine tune what was being dropped! The false bottom was my undoing, if it ran the full length like originally planed, all would have been good to go, instead it was stepped at the 4 foot mark, which means NO NO NO work in river! Blessing in disguise, can't believe how low the river is in such a short time!
Dusted off my Davey fire fighter, made my spray bars, Thanks to James and Maruchu. I'll test it out today, In the back yard!

Should have binned it and start over, First problem, my slick plate needed to be shorter to work with a lot of water as a river sluice, now it needs to be longer, impossible to weld the top side of the add on without pulling up the classifier "Prose & con's of welding! Then I can see my foot wide classifier being to wide for the spray bars to work effectively?
Hoping my fire fighter will have enough push to allow a third set of holes pushing straight down! Enjoy playing, hate failing!

someday wrote: Then I can see my foot wide classifier being to wide for the spray bars to work effectively? Hoping my fire fighter will have enough push to allow a third set of holes pushing straight down! Enjoy playing, hate failing!

Mate you should not have a problem with the spray bars they should be fine. That pump will give you all that you need and then some. cheers

No wonder nobody doesn't loose any gold out of their highbanker, there's not enough flow to loose anything! and the purpose of riffles is?

someday wrote:No wonder nobody doesn't loose any gold out of their highbanker, there's not enough flow to loose anything! and the purpose of riffles is?

??????????????????? nothing wrong with the flow of this Banjo!!

Yep about the same flow as mine, still not enough to work inch tall riffles? I'll reduce them to 1/2 inch and see how it goes!
I now understand why James always says, Don't use carpet!
I should have kept the first one I made a couple of month's ago from the plans on this site! The area I was wanting to work was still well flooded back then, so it's now down at Swan Reach!

Well my new to be sluice box has gone from looking pretty as a picture to a train wreck, still a work in progress, just not visually friendly and about 3 feet shorter without the drop box's, which will never work with pump pressure, never ever ever! 6 inch pump maybe? Build a water race to feed the sluice No problems! Like that's ever going to happen!!
So I've got one last wacky idea before I bin it. Gives me the shivers is a good hint!

someday wrote:Well my new to be sluice box has gone from looking pretty as a picture to a train wreck, still a work in progress, just not visually friendly and about 3 feet shorter without the drop box's, which will never work with pump pressure, never ever ever! 6 inch pump maybe? Build a water race to feed the sluice No problems! Like that's ever going to happen!!
So I've got one last wacky idea before I bin it. Gives me the shivers is a good hint!

Chris how wide is the unit your making. cheers

It's only a foot wide! Spray bars are working fine, pump is working fine, throw a couple of stones in the hopper almost instantly the stones are at the first riffle and there they stay?
Place stones in between the riffles and there they stay?? Would be a different story with a shovel full of dirt going through the system which would aid in moving the stones!
My fire fighter is only running just off idle, I ran it harder, really didn't make any difference in moving the single stones, Cleaned one of our pot plants out when the end cap on the spray bar blew off, WOOPS.
The only water loss is the mist around the hopper, which could be where the problem is!

Sounds great, i think it will do all you require from it. Top effort mate. cheers

someday wrote:It's only a foot wide! Spray bars are working fine, pump is working fine, throw a couple of stones in the hopper almost instantly the stones are at the first riffle and there they stay?
Place stones in between the riffles and there they stay?? Would be a different story with a shovel full of dirt going through the system which would aid in moving the stones!
My fire fighter is only running just off idle, I ran it harder, really didn't make any difference in moving the single stones, Cleaned one of our pot plants out when the end cap on the spray bar blew off, WOOPS.
The only water loss is the mist around the hopper, which could be where the problem is!

a pic is worth a thousand words!!

someday wrote:It's only a foot wide! Spray bars are working fine, pump is working fine, throw a couple of stones in the hopper almost instantly the stones are at the first riffle and there they stay?
Place stones in between the riffles and there they stay?? Would be a different story with a shovel full of dirt going through the system which would aid in moving the stones!
My fire fighter is only running just off idle, I ran it harder, really didn't make any difference in moving the single stones, Cleaned one of our pot plants out when the end cap on the spray bar blew off, WOOPS.
The only water loss is the mist around the hopper, which could be where the problem is!

What size are you classifying the wash to ?? you are running your wash over some sort of classifier ??

Yeh 11 mm square holes, would have proffered 10mm round holes, you get what you can get around Wang! I built the strike plate in to the hopper, seemed a easy and direct way to make the water flow and not build a corner which gets bigger with every shovel, exactly the same principle! More pro's and cons of welding?
I know damn well it will retain gold, just not looking forward to the clean up!
Did I mention the part where all my riffles are bolted?