QNCrazy
Hero Member
So I had this 55 gallon drum sitting in my yard that I was using to haul water out to dig areas that didn't have water this summer. Searching through the forum, I came across Astroboutncers thread of a fluid bed highbanker bucket. After I read through the thread, I took several of the ideas suggested and applied them to make this 55 gallon drum into a highbanker/fluid bed trap.
The build was pretty simple using a jig saw to do the cutting. I cut a 15" wide hole in the top of the drum then cut the hole for the tailings to drop out of. Next I cut a drain hole and inserted a 2" bulkhead fitting and drilled the holes for the plumbing for the spray bars and fluid tubes. The classification screen was 1/2" hardware cloth over an old BBQ grill. I took a sheet of aluminum and cut it to make a deflector plate to direct the washed material to the back of the drum. My original design also had a second 1/4" classification screen. That was removed in the final mock up as it was unnecessarry.
I hooked up the plumbing, all of which is 1", and took it out to the river for a test run to check the water flow. I am running this off my 2" HF clear water pump. I didn't like what I was seeing on the test run. The water wasn't draining fast enough and there was not enough pressure in the spray bars or fluid bed.
I brought it back to the house, removed the bulkhead fitting and expanded the drain hole to a 3" x 3" hole. The fluid bed tubes I originally used were recycled material already drilled out. The holes were too big so I made a new set of tubes. I added two 1" ball valves, one to control the flow to the spray bars and one for the fluid bed. I didn't realize at the time the added benefits it provided.
Last Friday, I helped a friend finish his highbanker and we took both of our projects to the creek for test runs. I only ran about 4 buckets of material through mine but both tests were successful. So successful in fact that I went back out Sunday to make a short video. As you will see in the video, I placed my A52 below the drain to catch anything that might sneek out. After the first run, I took a pan of material from the tailings at the end of the A52. No gold. Then I cleaned out the A52, no gold, not even fly poop. At the end of the day, I did a quick pan to see my results and I noticed I wasn't seeing much flour gold. However, the blue bowl got all that. This drum caught everything down to -100 which is all I was hoping for.
So enough gabbing, here is the video. I hope you like it.
Edit: I realized that this highbanker is a little tall, so I have started to make a shorter version out of another 55 gallon drum. I basically cut the top 1/3 of the drum off. I think this will work just fine. I'll post pictures of that later.
The build was pretty simple using a jig saw to do the cutting. I cut a 15" wide hole in the top of the drum then cut the hole for the tailings to drop out of. Next I cut a drain hole and inserted a 2" bulkhead fitting and drilled the holes for the plumbing for the spray bars and fluid tubes. The classification screen was 1/2" hardware cloth over an old BBQ grill. I took a sheet of aluminum and cut it to make a deflector plate to direct the washed material to the back of the drum. My original design also had a second 1/4" classification screen. That was removed in the final mock up as it was unnecessarry.
I hooked up the plumbing, all of which is 1", and took it out to the river for a test run to check the water flow. I am running this off my 2" HF clear water pump. I didn't like what I was seeing on the test run. The water wasn't draining fast enough and there was not enough pressure in the spray bars or fluid bed.
I brought it back to the house, removed the bulkhead fitting and expanded the drain hole to a 3" x 3" hole. The fluid bed tubes I originally used were recycled material already drilled out. The holes were too big so I made a new set of tubes. I added two 1" ball valves, one to control the flow to the spray bars and one for the fluid bed. I didn't realize at the time the added benefits it provided.
Last Friday, I helped a friend finish his highbanker and we took both of our projects to the creek for test runs. I only ran about 4 buckets of material through mine but both tests were successful. So successful in fact that I went back out Sunday to make a short video. As you will see in the video, I placed my A52 below the drain to catch anything that might sneek out. After the first run, I took a pan of material from the tailings at the end of the A52. No gold. Then I cleaned out the A52, no gold, not even fly poop. At the end of the day, I did a quick pan to see my results and I noticed I wasn't seeing much flour gold. However, the blue bowl got all that. This drum caught everything down to -100 which is all I was hoping for.
So enough gabbing, here is the video. I hope you like it.
Edit: I realized that this highbanker is a little tall, so I have started to make a shorter version out of another 55 gallon drum. I basically cut the top 1/3 of the drum off. I think this will work just fine. I'll post pictures of that later.
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