8 inch gravity sluicing

Yes indeed Neo,well said. Its that time we are in nature when we can be real human beeings again.Use our hunting and collecting instincts that are oppressed in everyday life,especially when living in urban enviroment,which i am.Especially the diving part has something incredibly relaxing to me.Maybe because of the mammalian dive reflex,slowering heartbeat and breathing when facial skin gets submerged under water.And then gold...well in six or seven months water temperature should be diveble again .
I think i would like sniping too,altough it does not suit my circumstances very well.I got no picker/nugget river yet.My river with visible Flakes gold is 5 hours away.Do i need a river with bedrock for ideal sniping enviroment,or do you snipe also in rivers with clay bottom? Thanx;emilio
 

I prefer bedrock for sniping.
I have sniped clay and done ok but much more prefer bedrock, you get all those nice cracks and angles to catch the gold.
Now my first strong paying hole was a thin layer of clay on bedrock, that was really easy to snipe, but I have not found a pay streak with that kind of clay again.
I have also sniped flood layers too and usually just get annoyed with the slow going and wash it all down to bedrock, then I snipe what I washed down. :)

Dredging would have made all of this much easier and more efficient but our states laws are all messed up right now, so while I have a couple dredges, I cant use them.
I am hopeful that dredging will be legal again, at which time I will be ready. :)
 

I went to prospect a creek in northern italian alps last easter that has an goldmine at 6500 feet altitude that was active till the year 1960.I found 2 reports from prospectors sayin nuggets and pickers where found in the creek below.No finegold was found.Had no luck with the weather,was snowing,could do only one hour in water and what was worse i forgott my pry bar at home,after dredging away the first 15 inches or so of overburden the rocks became to big to move by hand.In both reports the prospectors said that they had to hike 4 to 5 hours upstream.I tryed it downstream because of my gear.Now first i ask myself if it is possible that the gold sits only upstream in a river.They called it alluvial ,not elluvial by the way.If i find time next year maybe i try to snipe it upstream.(but should,nt be there gold also downstream?)thanks for the infos Neo
 

meanwhile.. 002 (2).jpg this is a experiment that didn,t work out.Prior to my july trip i made a last minute test run . triyed to use this lidsystem for hosepriming.It didnt work.When hose was barely half filled(both hoses connected ,52 feet)the pressure pushed the lid to much and the inflow at the intake could not compensate waterloss of leaking lid . test 1 002.jpg
 

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test 1 010.jpg test 1 001.jpg pics from the site.This is a creek with only glacial fineflower gold deposited and redeposited several times.Problem here is that they mounted railroad tracks on top of every waterfall,creating a dip making it difficult to prime the hose when no dam is built to raise water. Also hose attachment was not good.I barely could push the hose inside the flare,should have grinded the pvc spiral a bit before and had stil to fabricate the banding sleeve.This test showed me the sluice was not ready,no dredging that day and i decided to stick with the 4 inch for the july trip.
 

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spaghettigold said:
I went to prospect a creek in northern italian alps last easter that has an goldmine at 6500 feet altitude that was active till the year 1960.I found 2 reports from prospectors sayin nuggets and pickers where found in the creek below.No finegold was found.Had no luck with the weather,was snowing,could do only one hour in water and what was worse i forgott my pry bar at home,after dredging away the first 15 inches or so of overburden the rocks became to big to move by hand.In both reports the prospectors said that they had to hike 4 to 5 hours upstream.I tryed it downstream because of my gear.Now first i ask myself if it is possible that the gold sits only upstream in a river.They called it alluvial ,not elluvial by the way.If i find time next year maybe i try to snipe it upstream.(but should,nt be there gold also downstream?)thanks for the infos Neo
Click to expand...

The first question; is there only one stream below this mine? If there are more, you could have the wrong stream. If the mine is upstream, the gold should appear downstream for sure. It's possible that there are major crevices upstream that are catching all the gold and preventing it from flowing downstream. A 4-5 hour hike is a good ways. Even moving slowing, that is several miles. I would check into it some more and move upstream until you start seeing color. -Luke

P.S. Eluvial/Eluvium is a proper term as well. :thumbsup:
 

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Hi luke ,the mine is upstream,all the little side streams in that valley are catched by the main creek i tested downstream.There are waterfalls up to 30 feet.Totaly boulder choked.Cracks everywhere.Available drop almost everywhere,but very cold water.I hope to find the time to test it again starting downstream again because my try was not highly diagnostic as i could not go down to bedrock.And it was only one test hole .Just wondering why the take the effort to hike 4 hours..Hope they did not mix up the terms eluvial/alluvial,little difference of the word,big difference to hike,,thanks luke.;emilio
 

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They most likely hiked that far to find the source as opposed to searching for pieces downstream. Sounds like it has potential. All those boulders and waterfalls will produce traps, crevices and pits that will collect the gold. Finding a Quartz vein may lead you to the source. -Luke
 

Hi luke screenshot 004.jpg here some screenshots i took ,showing the prospectors at work and the pickers they found.

Hope to find the time next summer to visit the valley.

screenshot 007.jpg

regards ;emilio
 

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Cool! I would look for similar formations and test in areas like that. Just got to find the "traps" like they did!
 

Difficult. It looks like that almost everywhere.Here 2 short vids from the trip,boulders everywhere.(sorry for the quality)
 

Like you say theres no other way then try it.Problem now is do i spend the few days/weeks off in next year in my big flake river with guaranteed gold or do i invest 1 week in this creek trying to find my first nugget..:BangHead:

Let,s see...
 

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005.jpg (boss in the backround) 003.jpg If you don,t like to cut slots in to the bended edge of the sluice or use distance plates for clips .

Bill in costa rica,if you read this, i have a question about the expanded aluminum.Did you replace it with the one made out of metal because the aluminums are too lightweight and need to be pushed down?

Emilio
 

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emillo
i used the steel riffles because i could not find the aluminum here in costa rica. the only problem with the al, is if you run it open in your sluice. the bigger rocks beat it up pretty fast. mine is screened with rolled expanded metal, so i had no problems.

bill/cr
 

I had the problem that the aluminum was bending up in the middle when only pushed down by the outer riffle tray bars.Initially i wanted no riffles creating turbulence in the fines section with the alu,but had to insert a few of them to push down the exp.Was hoping that maybe with the metal need less of them.You had this issue with your alus ?how you pushed them tightly down the matting ?How wide is your box?I love this type of expanded ,it catches all from flower gold to big flakes,only in heavier blacksands areas it cloggs a bit fast which i try to correct with oftener clean ups.
Thanks ;emilio
 

the expanded was 1 inch above the riffles, no packing . i used 1 inch strap on both sides and the middle. it is only1/8 inch so very little turbulance. it works well for me. had pretty much the same set up on my surface 10 inch with a 12 foot tapered sluice. 2 x2 tube riffles for the first 2 feet for a nugget trap the rest was screened.

bill/cr
 

Thanks bill.you mean the screening expanded is placed 1 inch above the raised expanded? Tube riffels= Hydraulic riffels? Sorry for keeping you busy,i don,t know all the technical expressions in english so far.
The problem with packing is only in some areas where very much heavy blacksand is present and almost every riffle type would clogg.
emilio
 

yes i inch above the raised expanded.
2x2 square tube metal , the hydraulic riffles i use are at the end of the box.

bill/cr
 

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