Keenes sluice as a clean up device?? Comments welcome pls

G'day,

I'm a new guy here but also a 30 year veteran of prospecting here in West Oz. I'm a detector person at heart and I "bulldoze and detect" for gold. However, I'm about to "push" a patch that has history of rich quartz species. I have a small rotating hammer crusher that I've just refurbished. Fitted with a 6 hp Honda, it literally pulverise rocks to fine sand in two seconds flat. Hence my concentrates are graded already!! It looks like mud when it's wet. Panning is hard yakka for even the four species that I brought home with me and I maybe looking at a lot of crushed quartz from this patch. So I was considering a Keenes sluice for a clean up as seen here at this link:

http://www.reedsprospecting.com.au/shop/detail/keene-super-concentrator/

For that price it's hardly worth building one. 10 grammes of gold at todays prices and I'm in front without the "trial and error".

I've seen gold wheels in use and reckon they'd be a bit slow for this much cons. I was thinking of buying the above Keene's device and fitting a "vibro" device to it to improve seperation. I'll be doing the crushing and "clean up" at home, not in the bush, so water shouldn't be a problem.

I'd like a cement mixer and mercury, but where does one get the mercury from?? I'll stick to the sluice etc for now.


Thoughts??? Thanks

G’day there Number One! (Ohio Gazai Maz, doshi!)

I guess you know best what you want to do when it comes to buying your own equipment – however – let’s just take a look at that Keene concentrator.

At $ 560 AUD it would be a “Bit Salty” for me, on the surface, even considering import duties, taxes and such. I do disagree with a sprayer on a 12 VDC bilge pump set-up – but that just might be me.

The piece of equipment you are looking at is known by many names. “Rain Gutter Sluice” is the general name for home made concentrators of this general style. “Mini Sluice” is another as well as “Finishing Sluice” and, of course, “Concentrator”.

For those who need, want, don’t have the time or just want to buy ‘factory made’ there are a number to choose from. I would imagine that all new components on a home built one, taking a couple of hours to assemble, would run $40 –$ 60 AUD max. Without the water pump and sprayer (at home set-up) brings the basic cost down to $20 - $ 30 AUD max. It wouldn’t be as rugged as the Keene (and others) but in a fixed location would work quite well. Search for “Rain Gutter Sluice” and see what is out there.

The only other concentrator / mini sluice I can think of at the moment is the S-1 by US Prospectors. I happen to own one (with the auto feeder) and am very happy with it. Would it work for you? Only you could answer that. At one time Miners’ Den carried the line – but my information is stale at this point.

http://www.usprospector.com/index.php/finishing-machine

On adding a vibration system: always vibrate with the water flow – never across it. Cross vibration kills slurry flow and packs the material tightly.

I saw an entire “Big Yellow Iron” operation strangled when the sluicebox was welded to a shaker plant, giving it a sideways shake.

A friendly word of advice on Mercury – if you don’t ‘’know” mercury usage techniques forwards and backwards --- don’t try it. It can be a powerful tool and also a deadly thing if not handled correctly. Sort of like petrol, propane, battery acid and electricity.

If you have so much concentrate that you need a cement mixer to handle it – consider something like a Le Trap to carefully concentrate your concentrates before processing them.



One last thought: If you happen to find a heavier than “normal” piece of Quartz you might have a larger sized mass of Gold inside it. Premium pricing to collectors! (you probably knew that – right?)

Good Hunting!

Joe

I use one in WA it's a very handy bit of gear, they work best when all the material is the same size so material from your crusher should be good. Here a few pics of it in action. A little jump start kit will run them, although I have mine on the vehicle in the pics.