Sluice test run

Hi All
Well I got out today to give my sluice a test run, not in gold country!
If you see anything that needs improving please comment, I will make my comment in a little bit.





cheers
Lee

Hi Lee
steepen the angle or increase water flow your sluice box is loading up in the picture
You should be able to see about 30% of the carpet in front of the riffles, and when you stick
your finger in the material behind the riffles it should be soft and not hard packed.

Looks like a ton of fun! Very interesting,who made the machine? Cant offer much advice except to say you tube has a shitload of good vids on sluicing to watch if you havnt already been there,keep us posted on your progress.
Regards
Wayne.

Hi Dale
Thanks for your input, I knew it was packing up a bit, I ran out of time on this test day there is no carpet at all in this unit in the 3 catch trays ( they are the trays with the latches on) there is some rubber door mat with about 1" holes in it, I checked it with the finger test it wasn't soft but I could still put finger to the bottom, the riffles are 40mm high what is your opinion on this height?

Wayne
This unit I built my self 100%
cheers
Lee

rc62burke wrote:This unit I built my self 100% cheers Lee

G'day Lee,

Great build - once you have it fine tuned it should be a winner

Nice
ARARAT

Hi Ararat
Thanks mate, thats the plan this unit will be used to get the bread & butter stuff on all trips the plan is to do a day's digging in proven gullies to cover fuel cost's then go detecting & sampleing for better gullies.
cheers
Lee

Hi Lee
Ive designed many sluices and dredges and Highbankers. It is very important to tune the riffle to the
water flow (pump size), box width, box length and material you are trying to collect (gold, tin, gemstones, ext).
And sprayers aerate the water to much carrying away the fine gold and black sand, you are better sheeting the water over the material. If its clay you have to puddle the material first.
If you send me the specs of your pump and the dimensions of your sluice box I can help you re engineer your
highbanker so it will recover efficiently. It wont be to much work as you have done a pretty good job on it you have just made a couple of common mistakes in the design.

Hi Dale
I will measure it all up, I haven't got the pump yet I used the one from the rural fire truck from my brigade for the test, I am planning on getting a 6.5 hp davey fire fighter pump, not sure on the spec's, once I have all the info I will send it to you, thanks for the offer to help with the design re jig, the only other sluice I have used is a 6" x 2' unit I built for sampleing.
cheers
Lee

whats the box width you could be buying to big a pump
use this as a guide to buying the right pump

350mm wide aprox 100gpm @ 150 feet head pressure about 2.5 hp to drive it
450mm wide aprox 200gpm @ 150 feet head pressure about 4hp to drive it
550-600mm wide aprox 300gpm @ 180 feet head pressure about 6hp to drive it

make sure you buy a centrifugal pump (they look like a turbo charger) like a jesse pump or proline pump or
keene pump.

Hi Dale
The box width is 300mm it is 1500mm long including the top slick plate, I thought I would go for this pump that way I can upgrade to a larger sluice or run a trommel? PM on it's way!
cheers
Lee

Hi lee
I would not buy a bigger pump than a 2.5 Honda as I would want a small highbanker like yours to be portable enough to carry anywhere and humping a 6.5 Honda any more than 1km is a prick (Ive carried mine much further).
and until you find a good deposit you would be moving allot in the sampling stage of prospecting.

But you also have to look at what your goal is.
Are you a hobbyist or are you serious, if your serious!
There are 3 stages to prospecting ;
#1 Find a good general area with allot of potential
#2 SAMPLE all likely areas within this area and figure out which is best for stage #3
You have to stick to your plan here and sample all areas and not just start production
in the first area you find has paying gold (this is the hardest part). Because if you stick to the plan
you might find a way better deposit that could of been missed had you have just started production
at the first paying deposit. Then someone else comes along and finds in the next gully over the way
better deposit!!
#3 PRODUCTION extract all payable values in all areas found to have enough values

It sounds to me like your in stage #1 or Maybe #2 ether way you want a light easily carried and easy to setup
sampling machine which is basically what you have already got when you fix a couple of little things.
Then when you find a deposit you up grade to a production machine