Somedays sluice

Chris,

If 5 grams was recovered then there is a good chance that there just wasn't any more Gold in the ground.

IF that is the case then you were spot on and recovered all (or a l m o s t . a l l ) that there was to catch.

Your rig is certainly a well crafted showpiece!

Joe AK (KAEOJ spelled backwards)

The 5 grams was hard earned, aprox 12 hours worth of shovelling and removing boulders over 2 days. "Talk about unfit" Few!
I kept up the test panning as I was progressing. The area has a lot of fine gold but runs patchy, I can test pan and get 30 plus specks, test again 1 shovel width away to get 5 specks?
Go deeper, wider, higher, colour every time!
Maybe I should take of my reading glasses when sampling, "Nothing There"??

Hi Chris
You have inspired me I am going to build one of these bad boy's, I have a couple of questions
Can you give me some idea on the dimensions of your unit please, with the catch tray set up do you think you could reduce the length of the sluice tray? do you see any benifit of adding another catch tray?
What would be the ideal length of the skid plate area?
If it wasn't for your origional mistake what height drop would you have made from the skid plate to the sluice tray?
I think that about covers it, if you think of anything you would do different I would be glad to hear your opinion as you appear to be our resident expert now.
Many thanks
Lee

Howdy Lee. Resident guru, Not a chance! Theirs ample of people on this forum with lots more hours under their belt than I will ever have!
Measurements and what I'de change.....Hmmmmm.

From my experience on this project, any design change I've made no matter how small, will influence how my sluice runs, good or bad, All you can do is work with what you see happening??????????????????????????????

What I want from a sluice, apart from lot's of Gold is.

1:-- 2, 3 hours shovelling, without fear of gold loss.
2:--Keep the amount of wash which accumulates through the sluice to a minimum.
3:--Easy clean up
There is a No 4. Which is weight, and if you have to walk long distances with your sluice, No 4 will become No 1

The Hopper's 500 long, slick plate is 430 long, the first section of my sluice including riffle is also 500 long.
You will notice the hight differences in the first section due to the false bottom which has been capped off O'Well.

I didn't take enough buckets on my last outing, so the results of the last catch tray included the wash leading up to the second tray!
So until I can verify if the tiny amount of gold from that section was in the wash or caught in the tray, I can't say if shortening the sluice will work?

Hi Chris
Thanks for the reply's, I have zero experience with a sluice of this size, Ihave a small sampeling sluice I built 150mm x 600mm.
Would it be a good or bad idea to shorten the skid plate section? how important is it to the effectivness of the unit?
What height are the ideal riffles for a sluice of this size? Im guessing here but the mat looks to be about 15mm + or -, is the downstream lip on the catch tray the same height as the riffle or different?

what thickness alloy would you say best suits the sluice tray?
thanks again for your input.
cheers
Lee

We seem to be the only two on here Lee?
The size of my hopper, I wouldn't change, it's very much shovel friendly!
The first section of the sluice could be shorten to 300-350 ish, I left it at 500 as that's where my first built in riffle was from the stuff up, so I just hacked it of at that point!
My water fall height, Hmm, 100mm, it actually works, I don't know if you can see in the pics but the first gold tray is reassessed back under the first riffle about 50mm, none of that was design intended, like I said, it works! Like I stated in a previous post, any lower in my opinion would flush out more gold from the gold tray, May not, but I reckon it would?

Riffles, That'll just do your head in???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Some where around 15 to 20mm, it's all trial and error. If a sluice is choking up with too much wash, I'de prefer to reduce the hight of the riffles rather than increasing the sluice angle? Painful yes, better in the long run!
Thickness of ally ? Standard ally, probably 3mm. High tensile ally, not sure of the sizes available but I could invisage 1.6 to 2mm and well worth the extra $$ from a strength point of view!
Happy building.

Cheers
Chris.

guys ,some photos of the highbanker / banjo I made after being inspired by James101.
I have since added a second drop box after the rifles.
Havn't really given it a run yet, just took it up to a dam near Talbot to see if it would work.
Have to do some research on spots to try! And then work out how to use it !

Staples

Hi Chris
Thanks for that info, yes it has been a bit quiet in this section.
The bottom part of your sluice where the catch tray's are, how long is it?
I remember from a previous post of yours you tend to run your sluice at a lower angle than most, what ratio drop do you find works best for you & can you explain your theory on this?
Would there be any advantage of adding some low profile expanded mesh between catch trays?
Sorry about all the ?????????????? but I am like a sponge ATM
cheers
Lee

Staples. Thats a neat looking unit and I praise you for taking on what James freely offered Because your design is running slick in the last section, try adding a 10 to 15mm high gate at the end of your sluice, other wise when your sluice has the right amount of water flowing, it will start to act like a vacume?

Hi again Lee, now we have three!
The last section of my sluice is 4 foot. And "NO" I would not use anything between the trays with this design! Why create a nightmare, when clearly, the water flow can't handle it?
Angles: It depends alot on what size gold your expecting to find? This sluice I've made is all about fine gold and it's been a huge learning curve for me from a conventional river sluice.
I'm running my sluice at a tad over 1/2 inch per foot, fine adjustment is made through the hight of the hopper!

Test, adjust, destroy, make better.

G'day Staples!

She's a looker, that's for sure!

Two common sense observations:

I see some of the bolts seem to be pretty long. I'd suggest, after everything settles down, to change them for shorter ones. I always (always!) catch sleeves, legs and other parts on those kinds of things. "Speaking with God, directly," often then happens.

Also - I noticed the white PVC rigid pipe that goes through a right angle. A short 1, 1.5 or 2 meter section of flexible tubing/hose between the black "thing" to the red handled ball valve stops kinking of the lay flat and allows a lot of flexibility in supplying water from different directions and heights.

Chris -

"Test, adjust, destroy, make better." EXACTLY!

Joe

Thanks for the comments guys.
I've modified it a bit since I took the pics and put in a second tray after the riffles the first one is under the hopper and barely visible.

Staples

Hi Staples. How do you clean out the riffle section? or is it part of what holds down your matting, meaning removable. Just curious thats all!
I Like the idea with the small hose attachment and would love to do it on my rig but fear what would happen when a hose lets go due to to much pressure.
I may have to look into fitting a relief valve to my pump.

Chris,

The riffles are the ladder type. They are held in with wingnuts through the sides of the sluice.The whole thing lifts out for cleaning.For the hose I fitted a brass tap into the line and the hose comes of this, so no worries about pressure just adjust the tap.But I did put ball valve in the wrong place as when you turn sluice off you have also turned the small hose off.Realised this about one second after the plumbers cement had dried ! Oh well nothing that can't be fixed with the trusty angle grinder.

Staples

The problem I was experiencing seems to have gone away. Thank you to those who helped.

Joe

KAEOJ not having any problems at this end, it must be only on your PC pal
Wombat

staples61 wrote:

guys ,some photos of the highbanker / banjo I made after being inspired by James101.
I have since added a second drop box after the rifles.
Havn't really given it a run yet, just took it up to a dam near Talbot to see if it would work.
Have to do some research on spots to try! And then work out how to use it !

Staples

Staples mate you need to crank the water up, there is not enough flow going through the sluice. Cheers James 101

Hmm not quite how it all started out
bit of paint and she'l look like new again! or not

mate looks are nothing as long as it works. A question how long is your first catch tray? The one under the hopper. cheers

G'day mate, ya back from golding!

Tray under the hopper, she be square, just under 11 inches!!
weird looking pic cause its still holding water.
When running, the material on the exit side of the tray is completely in suspension, so seems the goods?
Hope to give it a run next week!

Yep back for a bit Mate when you get some spare time make a new tray around 7 inches long and give that a run, it would be interesting to see the results. cheers James

Change! I like change!! Who would've thought 

Not to sure I see the benefit of going shorter other than freeing up more slick area?? Which would be a good thing!!

A penny for your reasoning 

Correctamundo ! Most ppl don't realise how important slick areas are ! Far to much attention is made in matting ,riffles ect. But as the old timers found out simple blocks of timber and / or round holes in the collection areas were sufficient in collecting the gold! But have a look at the areas of nothing on the old long toms! The knew the value of straticfaction in the winning of gold!

LOL Ark you must have been reading my mind yes indeed that is what i was thinking about. cheers

Sorry for jumping in Whiskers!

Fine, more bending with the banging stick  

Last pic for a bit, just trying to show the depth's of the trays.

Ark no need to be sorry, great minds do think alike   Someday my tray is around 1 and a 1/2 inches high and works very well. cheers mate.

Hey Chris
Enough with the changes mate how do you expect me to keep up with the copying when every time I check in here there is something different, mate give me a break would ya, LOL

But how is that fine gold spot treating you (the only way I can slow you down is to make you have nightmares) cheers mate looks good, it's a bit of a dry year up here, looks like I need to build a dryblower.

It goes like this Lee!! 




We dig the same creek!