Backpacking and folding sluice boxs or shorter sluice boxes.

[maverick4440]

Is there a significant advantage to the 50 inch folding sluice box over a smaller 36 inch sluice box for backpacking? What I mean is does that extra 14 inches increase your gold accumulation enough to justify packing in the extra weight of the fold up 50 inch sluice box? I'm looking at several sluice boxes and the "Bigger is better" mentality is creeping in on me but I am not sure I would get that much more advantage from the 50 inch over a 36 inch. especially when I have to pack it in for some distance.

 

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[jimmygoat]

Maverick, Stick with the short sluice. They work fine. Jimmygoat

 

[Goldwasher]

i classify down to under 3/8ths and last time i ran two sluices together,because my partner had his with us and we wanted to see if we found gold in the second sluice......we did ...it was fine gold but there was more than i wanted to see.. considering we dont run that lenghth of sluice normally.So if we didnt have that extra lenght that gold would have been back in the creek. the sluice was set up right, fed right,and wasnt loaded up we didnt even dig that long.the majority of the gold we got and always get is in the vmat under the punch plate in the head of my sluice ,however due to scouring, fine gold can move down hungarian riffles...i always look at those short boxes and know im/were losing fine gold....more length means more surface area for the gold to drop from suspension wich equals more recovery. i want a power sluice set up with atleast ten feet of box that has various riffle height and changes the water flow several times within its course. and for packing in im thinking of getting a plastic sluice to put at the end of my modified keene.

 

[strickman]

nice screen wizard should do good.i have a very very fine (don't know the mesh size) silk screen and can take cons that have been run twice,put the black sands in it and get almost talcum powder gold every time .works good.

 

[Astrobouncer]

It depends on if you are just sampling an area or you want to work as much material as possible. If sampling then by all means a smaller sluice is better and faster and will show you any gold just as well as a bigger one if its setup right. But if you know the gold is there and you want to recover as much of it as possible, I believe the bigger is indeed better.

The thing about having a bigger sluice box is that means you can do your cleanups less frequently which allows you more time to process material. More time processing material means more gold potentially recovered. And your cleanups of cons will be larger with the bigger sluice as well.

Also you gotta consider the density of 14 inches of aluminum isn't really gonna add much weight.

 

[UINTAEXPLORER]

Is there a significant advantage to the 50 inch folding sluice box over a smaller 36 inch sluice box for backpacking? What I mean is does that extra 14 inches increase your gold accumulation enough to justify packing in the extra weight of the fold up 50 inch sluice box? I'm looking at several sluice boxes and the "Bigger is better" mentality is creeping in on me but I am not sure I would get that much more advantage from the 50 inch over a 36 inch. especially when I have to pack it in for some distance.

Pvillehunter is right the longer the better you can run more material and finer gold gets caught better
due to different water flow down the box.Little ones work fine if you going to run very small classified mtaerial
slow water flow and slow feed.Id still use a catch pan at the end. small boxs are good for sampling to find a nice
placier deposit.then maybe with some help,bring in the big stuff.i think youll be pleased with how easy it is to run
a longbox when you got to move alot of material....good luck

 

[kiwi jw]

I would go for the longer box. If it folds up it will probably be smaller to fit in the back pack than the shorter box if it is all one legth. The slight extra weight of the longer box is not really an issue. But the more length you have the better really. Gives the material more room & run to seperate out the goodies. Pre classify your material & you shouldnt lose anything out the end. Just keep your water flow enough to move on the preclassified material & not fast an aggressive, or you will lose fine gold.
Here is my sieve bucket for pre classifying material

Bucket of classified material ready to run through the box with a nice gentle flow of water

Clean up

Result

Happy hunting

JW

 

[maui]

kiwi, like your classifing bucket. what are the hole size's?
thanks much, take care and be carefull out there. ron

 

[Hoser John]

For any kind of production(without constantly have to cleanup)the longer sluices are great. My favorite is the LeTrap-being extremely lightweight the size really doesn't matter and NO sluice ever made concentrates sooooo good tons a a u 2 u 2-John

 

[minerjoe]

i just sold my super mini sluice because it just was a pain to constantly dump it off. The a52 ia as small as i will go from now on. you might as well pan with anything smaller, i think. The only thing i did like about it was the fact it fit down in my backpack, out of the wind. The a52 about killed me once, when i was hit by a blast from a side wind. The flare was like a sail!

 

[wants2find]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to prospecting with only limited use of a sluice. My friends and I are considering backpacking to more remote areas and I found this website http://www.goldschmidtmining.com. Does this look like it would work well?

Thanks in advance

 

[Astrobouncer]

That thing for 460$? I guess there's a sucker born every minute... You can build a recirculating sluice that is fairly light for a tenth of that cost, because I did. I just haven't finished the adjustable legs on mine.

 

[Sam Burgin]

W2F:

You can build a great sluice for almost no money. The Goldschmidt may be a great invention, but that's a strong price for something you can build with just a few handtools.

Sam

 

[freddy williams]

I think the best length would be 48 inches it doesn't seem to lose much material. I built one for a friend he said it worked great found allot of fine gold. It was 11 inches wide I am building 2 for my self one is 8 inches and it dumps into a 11 inch one. 5/8 bottom and 3/8 side so it is not really heavy at all. I will let you all know how it does at the end of the month. I have built myself a couple of view tubs also for sniping. One is 10 inches round for shallow water and the other is 4 inches dia. for deeper water...

 

[63bkpkr]

The flare on the A52 comes off for packing it in, put it down around the middle of the sluice box and tape it in place but remember to save the tape when you take it off as you will need it for the trip out. Also, an additional cross bar or two towards the flare end really helps in controlling the box as you remove it from the water.

63bkpkr